Adoption, Not Donation

Exploring Embryo Adoption

By Tracy Doerr

About 13 percent of all couples of childbearing age in America have problems conceiving, and more and more are turning to science for help. Embryo donation is one ofthe newer methods of planning a family.

During in vitro fertilization (IVF), couples may produce many embryos in their attempt to conceive. The extra embryos can be cryopreserved frozen in liquid nitrogen at minus 196 degrees Celsius.

Now, more than 20 years after the first test-tube baby, it's estimated that there are around 200,000 frozen embryos in the United States, and that number is growing by approximately 10 percentevery year.

In England and Australia, there are laws that say embryos should be destroyed after a certain number of years. American clinics have no such directive. In the United States, if the couple conceives without using all the stored embryos, they have the choice to have the remaining embryos donated for research or to destroy them. This places some IVF patients in a moral quandary by the prospect of having extra embryos no longer wanted still frozen.

The idea of donating those embryos to other infertile couples is appealing because it offers an altruistic use for surplus embryos and the opportunity for pregnancy and parenthood to childless couples. Embryo donation is attractive to ART programs from a legal perspective as well: By offering embryo donation, they can avoid violating laws in states that prohibit experimenting on or discarding embryos.

According to fertility specialist Dr. David Adamson, founder of Advanced Reproductive Care Inc. (ARC) in Palo Alto, Calif., the medical procedure is fairly straightforward. "An embryo has already been created from the sperm of a man and the egg of a woman and frozen in a fertility clinic," he says. "That embryo is then thawed, implanted and gestated in the womb of another woman to be raised by her and her partner."

Even though there are thousands of human embryos that have been frozen for years, embryo adoptions are rare. Many potential donors are uncomfortable with someone else raising their biological offspring. Couples ready to take the first step can start by researching clinics to find the ones that perform the procedure, Dr. Adamson says. The National Infertility Association, RESOLVE, is another good place to start.

Want to see more?

• High Tech Babies: In vitro Fertilization
• High Tech Babies: Artificial Insemination
• Donor Egg and Sperm
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