Sir, – Your Editorial (May 20th) correctly highlights the need for legislation around the area of assisted human reproduction, including IVF and embryonic stem cell research;but the editorial is misleading in relation to some of the ethical and legal issues.
In relation to the 2005 report of the Commission on Assisted Human Reproduction (CAHR), you neglected to mention the carefully-argued minority opinion from Prof Gerry Whyte of TCD calling for protection of IVF embryos, and published as part of the report. Furthermore, while the decisions of the High Court and Supreme Courts in the Roche v Roche case ruled that embryos generated by IVF were not protected by the current wording of the Constitution, these judgments also very clearly pointed out that they were expressing no opinion on whether or not IVF embryos actually should have legal protection.
Legislators cannot, therefore, shirk their responsibility to act ethically by referring to these court decisions, which related to precise interpretation of existing wording in the Constitution, not to the issue of the human rights of IVF embryos. Of relevance to this point – when I was called as an expert witness in the Roche v Roche case, I was challenged by senior counsel for the State when I referred to IVF embryos as "citizens"; the learned judge intervened (as the Court Records will confirm) to agree that they were not citizens, since they had not been born in Ireland; but he suggested as an alternative wording, that it would be acceptable to refer to them as "members of the human race". Nobody in the courtroom challenged the learned judge's wording in this regard, and it remains an excellent summary of the scientific facts, and the objective status of these human individuals.
While many of the recommendations of CAHR and the Irish Council for Bioethics are laudable and should be incorporated into legislation, their recommendation that IVF embryos may be discarded or destroyed for research purposes represents a clear violation of the human rights of these “members of the human race”.
This is not a religion-based objection; actually I think destroying these embryos is even worse from a viewpoint that there is no life after death, since in that case destroying these fellow-humans has removed all their possibilities for human experience – by what right would this be done?
Furthermore, science has moved on since these two reports were published. Alternative stem cell technologies, including use of adult stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells can probably achieve anything which might be done using embryonic stem cells (which to date from a therapeutic point of view is nothing in any case, notwithstanding recent media hyperbole).
And now that cryopreservation of human ova has become routine, IVF can be practised without generating spare embryos at all; of course if parents decide to generate extra embryos for freezing, and then don’t want to use them, they can be made available for adoption rather than being destroyed.
So yes, let’s have legislation in this area, but legislation that respects human rights and takes account of recent scientific advances. – Yours, etc,
MARTIN CLYNES,
Prof of Biotechnology,
Director, Natuional Institute
for Cellular Biotechnology,
Dublin City University,
Glasnevin,
Dublin 9.