IVF without destroying embryos: How it's possible
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Performing IVF without making or destroying unused embryos is possible, albeit more exhausting and expensive.
Why it matters: Considering embryos human life — a view two-thirds of Americans oppose — has long clashed with the use of in vitro fertilization to build families.
- The Southern Baptist Convention recently condemned the use of IVF, because it can lead to the destruction of embryos.
State of play: Also last week, Senate Republicans blocked a bill aimed at ensuring federal protections for IVF. Additional GOP groups have tied the destruction of embryos to assisted suicide and abortion, other practices they're opposed to.
Between the lines: IVF patients usually need multiple embryos to ensure just one healthy baby, because the process involves many steps that can lead to embryo attrition, but it's possible to do the process without discarding embryos.
What they're saying: "There's no reason to regulate IVF in a way that dictates how many embryos are created," because IVF patients who have embryo personhood beliefs can personally opt not to destroy their extra embryos, says Barbara Collura, the president of Resolve: The National Infertility Association.
- "If they want to approach it that way, they can get that care," she says.
Options for IVF that don't involve destroying unused embryos include …
Embryo donation
How it works: Families donate their extra embryos to other patients — or use donor embryos instead of creating their own.
- Several groups can facilitate this process, including faith-based organizations that sometimes call it embryo "adoption."
Yes, but: Using donor embryos means having a child who doesn't share your genetics, and donating embryos means being comfortable with having a child with your genetics raised by another family.
- In both cases, the process isn't anonymous, and your child could have genetic siblings in another family.
"Compassionate transfer"
How it works: A so-called "compassionate transfer" describes transferring one or more embryos into a woman's uterus at a time in her cycle when the process is highly unlikely to lead to a pregnancy.
- A patient could request this if she doesn't want to reproduce but feels better about disposing of an embryo this way — as opposed to destroying it in a lab.
Yes, but: Patients need to pay the cost of an embryo transfer, and there's still a chance it could lead to pregnancy.
Creating one embryo at a time
How it works: Only one retrieved egg at a time is thawed and combined with sperm to create one embryo. Patients can also opt to forgo certain testing on that embryo.
Yes, but: Compared to the standard of creating several embryos at once, this could add a significant amount of waiting and require more medication in a process that's already lengthy, costly, mentally and physically draining, and increasingly more challenging with age.
- Also: Insurance likely wouldn't cover the additional expenses of doing the IVF process piecemeal.
Reality check: IVF and egg-freezing numbers recently jumped in the U.S., and one in six people are affected by infertility internationally.
