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medpundit |
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Friday, September 17, 2004In a survey believed to be the first of its kind, 217 in vitro fertilization clinics across the country described the variety of methods they use to dispose of the frozen clusters of cells, which are the size of a dot and incapable of living outside a womb. The reverence that some clinics gave to the task surprised researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and Rutgers University. Seven clinics said they performed a quasi-religious ceremony, including a prayer, for each embryo they destroyed. ....Seven clinics, or about three percent of all that participated in the study, said that because of religious or ethical concerns, they would not create more embryos than they intended to implant, and thus had no cells to freeze or destroy. Dr. Vincent A. Pellegrini, a fertility doctor in West Reading, Pa., said he wrestled with the issue for two years before deciding that destroying surplus embryos would be akin to "throwing away human life." "It just wasn't an option," Pellegrini said. "Once we have a dividing embryo, it is human material I can't discard." Is it really surprising to learn that fertility clinics think of their charges as life? They're in the business of making baby-dreams come true. How could they not think of their embryos as life? This is kind of weird, though: Seven others took the technically unnecessary step of culturing the cells in a lab dish, then allowing them to multiply on their own, briefly, before they perish. I guess that's the embryonic version of a natural death. posted by Sydney on 9/17/2004 09:20:00 PM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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