IN VITRO FERTILISATION
Claire Foster © 2006
In vitro fertilisation means, literally, ‘in glass’
fertilisation – fertilisation of the egg by the sperm outside the mother’s body
in a glass Petri dish, in a laboratory. IVF treatment is offered to
parents who for various reasons cannot have children in the ordinary way.
Typically such treatment involves ‘super-ovulation’, where the mother takes
drugs to produce more eggs than normal. She then has to have an operation
to remove the eggs from her fallopian tubes. The man has to produce sperm
by masturbation. In the laboratory, the eggs will have sperm injected
into them. Usually about twelve eggs will be fertilised in this
way. Only two are then placed in the mother’s womb.
Tests may be done on the embryos to see which are the more healthy (see Designer Babies). The ones that are not implanted may be frozen for future use, or they may be used for research for 14 days, and then destroyed (see Embryo Research).
What is the right use of ‘spare’ embryos?
What should happen to the frozen embryos if the couple separate?
Cases have come to court where a couple have separated and one of them wants to keep the embryos and the other wants them destroyed.
Should a man be allowed to deny a woman the possibility
of having children using the embryos that are half his? What if she
wanted to destroy the embryos and he wanted them to be his future
children? Should he be allowed to require her to carry them as a
pregnancy?
Techniques are being developed to freeze eggs and sperm separately so that this question doesn’t arise.
Also, for people who believe that fertilisation marks the beginning of a separate human life, the embryo is a precious individual that must be treated with the same respect as we treat living human beings. These people would not want embryos to be used for anything other than implanting in the womb.