Conceivable Changes: Effectuating Infertile Couples' Emotional Ties to Frozen Embryos Through New Disposition Options

79 U.M.K.C. L. Rev. 315 (2010)

19 Pages Posted: 25 Apr 2012

See all articles by Jody Lynee Madeira

Jody Lynee Madeira

Indiana University Maurer School of Law-Bloomington

Multiple version iconThere are 2 versions of this paper

Date Written: 2010

Abstract

In mid-April of 2010, Reuters reported a thought-provoking scientific breakthrough: British scientists at Newcastle University had "mastered a controversial technique in cloning technology" to prevent inherited mitochondrial diseases by "swapping DNA between two fertilized human eggs." Children born from embryos whose diseased mitochondrial DNA had been exchanged for healthy donor mitochondrial DNA would have correctly functioning mitochondria, but "in every other respect would get all their genetic information from their mother and father." Researchers were hopeful that therapeutic mitochondrial manipulation would be available within three years. Using this technique, however, would require a change in British law banning the use of manipulated embryos for reproductive purposes.

These findings open up numerous cans of worms, some more obvious than others. Gene therapy usually raises concerns over the ethics of cloning technology and debates over the moral status of embryos. But such research also offers promising solutions to the existing controversial problem of excess embryos, opening up new disposition options for infertile couples who have undergone IVF and have excess embryos in frozen storage. An estimated 500,000 cryopreserved embryos in the United States await either disposition or destruction for lack of disposition, arid approximately 20,000 more embryos are frozen each year.

Research on infertile couples' disposition decision-making has found that infertile couples feel emotionally bonded to their embryos and are concerned for their welfare, and that couples' choice of disposition is strongly influenced by these affective ties. Allowing couples to donate their frozen embryos for cytoplasmic transfer would not only increase the number of available disposition options but it would also have positive implications for couples' perceived emotional connections to their embryos. Currently, many infertile couples report dissatisfaction with the range of choices; as Lyerly and others observe, the options they face are either unacceptable to them, or other options that would be acceptable are not available.

This essay addresses the impact of infertile couples' affective ties to their excess cryopreserved embryos impacts how they choose to dispose of those embryos, and how inter-embryonic transfer can change this calculus. It first documents how infertile couples come to form emotional connections to their frozen embryos and how these attachments are influenced by three factors: judgments about frozen embryos' moral status, feelings of responsibility towards particular embryos, and altruistic motivations. The essay then considers how inter-embryonic transfer would fit into this framework and assesses how couples who espouse a variety of ideological stances would regard it as a disposition option. This discussion is deepened through a comparison between frozen embryo disposition and organ donation. This essay concludes with the assertion that inter-embryonic transfer offers unique opportunities to infertile couples with cryopreserved surplus embryos and might prove a more comfortable option than existing choices. Simply put, options such as nuclear or cytoplasmic transfer -- collectively referred to as "inter-embryonic transfers"-- acknowledge, support, and effectuate couples' emotional connections and preferred outcomes for their embryos as no other disposition option can.

Keywords: gene therapy, cloning, ART, IVF, embryo

Suggested Citation

Madeira, Jody Lynee, Conceivable Changes: Effectuating Infertile Couples' Emotional Ties to Frozen Embryos Through New Disposition Options (2010). 79 U.M.K.C. L. Rev. 315 (2010), Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2046304

Jody Lynee Madeira (Contact Author)

Indiana University Maurer School of Law-Bloomington ( email )

211 S. Indiana Avenue
Bloomington, IN 47405
United States

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