Cultural
attitudes and perceptions of IVF, formed in large part by the media, are long
on images of darling IVF children and short on information about the impersonal
IVF procedure itself, which is rarely—if ever—described in detail.
Here’s
the basic process: oocytes, or human eggs (obtained surgically from the wife’s
ovarian follicles in drug-induced, super-ovulated cycles) and prepared sperm
(previously collected from the husband, usually through masturbation) are
brought together in a petri dish in the laboratory. Fertilization, if it is
successful, takes place in that dish in a lab—that is, outside the woman’s body
and any act of sexual union between the couple hoping to conceive. Next, three
or more blastocyst-stage (five-day old) embryos are placed in the uterus
through a process called embryo transfer. Less robust-looking embryos are
either destroyed or cryofrozen at -320 degrees Fahrenheit in liquid nitrogen
for possible future implantation or use in embryo-destructive research.
The
average cost for a single, basic cycle of IVF in the US is about $12,000.
Success rates, a hotly debated topic even within the ART industry, vary widely
according to a number of factors, most notably the age of the woman...Today,
after the birth of more than four million IVF children worldwide, the procedure
is looked upon as commonplace, even routine...
IVF
stories in the media, including TV reality shows, continue to generate good
audience ratings. But in recent years a number of new, unscripted storylines
have begun to emerge, revealing the darker, unsettling underbelly of the ART
industry and its practices.
A
sampling of these revelations includes:
·
- Unemployed single mother Nadya Suleman of
California gained worldwide notoriety in January 2009 as the “Octomom”—giving
birth to eight IVF babies—after a Beverly Hills doctor transferred 12 human
embryos to her uterus. It appears that Suleman’s children are the world’s
longest-surviving set of octuplets. They joined the six children Suleman had already
given birth to through previous IVF procedures. All 14 births were from the
same physician, whose medical license was eventually revoked. Although a spokesman
for the American Society of Reproductive Medicine (ASRM), the chief advocacy
group of the ART industry, condemned the event as a violation of ASRM
guidelines for embryo transfer, an Associated Press story revealed that less
than 20 percent of IVF clinics in the US follow the guidelines, which do not
carry the force of law.
·
- The largely unknown practice known as “selective
reduction” gained prominence through Washington
Post journalist Liza Mundy’s book Everything
Conceivable: How Assisted Reproduction is Changing Men, Women, and the World (2007). The book offered detailed descriptions
of the reductions of multiples-pregnancies (twins, triplets, or more), in which
the least viable-looking fetus (or fetuses) is aborted by sodium chloride
injection. More recently, a New York
Times Magazine cover story (August
11, 2011) highlighted selective reduction under the headline “The Two-Minus One
Pregnancy,” recounting chilling explanations from IVF mothers of how they decided
which of their fetuses to destroy.
·
- The connection between sperm banks and IVF
clinics drew scrutiny after an article titled “One Sperm Donor, 150 Offspring” appeared
in the New York Times (September 5,
2011). In the article, writer Jacqueline Mroz chronicled the myriad potential health and ethical concerns surrounding sperm
donation, including the case of one sperm donor who “fathered” 150 children
(with more on the way), all of whom are half-siblings. The possibility that
genes for rare diseases could be spread throughout the population and the increased
odds of incest between half-sisters and half-brothers who live in close proximity
to each other but are unaware of their blood relation are just some of the
potential problems arising from a largely unregulated sperm-donation industry.
·
- Two recent documentaries highlight other
little-known health consequences of IVF. Eggsploitation
(2010), produced by the Center for
Bioethics and Culture, earned high praise from across the political and
cultural spectrum for exposing what the film calls the IVF industry’s “dirty
little secret”—the hidden dangers and risks to the health of young women who
“donate” eggs for use in IVF clinics, thus fueling the human-egg trade. The
film was named Best Documentary at the 2011 California Independent Film
Festival. Echoes of Our Choice (2010,
Ignatius Productions) is a film by Michigan neonatologist Robin Pierucci
documenting the largely ignored dangers of premature multiple births—birth
defects and high mortality rates—that are common in IVF pregnancies, and devastating
to unsuspecting parents.
These
and other revelations represent merely the tip of the IVF iceberg. With
regulation of the IVF industry virtually nonexistent in the US, it is estimated
that a stockpile of some 500,000 human embryos—labeled as “spares”—are now in a
cryopreserved (frozen) state. Moving toward “designer babies,” IVF specialists are
marketing and promoting the use of prenatal genetic diagnosis to scan and test
chromosomes of IVF embryos, allowing for the elimination of those nascent human
beings with less-than-desirable genetic traits.
