Sir, – Prof Martin Clynes (June 4th) writes about the need for legislation on stems cells and IVF to take account of scientific advances. What a good idea!
I’m neither a lawyer nor a scientist; just a woman who has undergone three cycles of IVF/ICSI that led to the creation of 20 embryos, seven of which were transferred to my uterus, and none of which ever got further than being about two dozen cells in total. None of them were humans, nor citizens, nor possessed of any rights. The fact is, most IVF embryos, and a high percentage of “natural embryos” too, are simply sets of flawed genetic operating instructions that decompile within days or hours.
IVF success rates hover at about 20 -25 per cent for women of over 38. A big factor is simply the age of our eggs. If a cycle creates on average, say, 10 embryos, that means about one in 40 of those created in this age group actually becomes a human. The other 39 are so genetically incomplete or flawed that they will never be more than a few dozen cells. They are not, nor ever will be citizens.
A recent scientific advance is a process to take images of developing embryos and measure their rate of development. A slowdown of just a few hours in the first couple of days indicates an embryo that will never grow into a human. Despite the headlines, this doesn’t mean more embryos will succeed, just that we can spot the failures earlier. This process may result in fewer but better surplus embryos being stored because we’ll be better able to identify the failures, but it won’t change the fact that most IVF embryos are still not viable.
Prof Clynes writes “now that cryopreservation of human ova has become routine, IVF can be practised without generating spare embryos at all”. This statement may unintentionally mislead people about the effectiveness of egg-freezing. The process was developed for women in their 20s facing fertility-destroying treatments such as chemotherapy. It gives them a chance of a pregnancy later on, but no guarantees. For women in their 30s who may mistakenly think they have time to freeze their eggs, the numbers of successful pregnancies resulting from egg-freezing are devastatingly low; less than 10 per cent. It doesn’t fit Prof Clynes’s argument, but now and for the foreseeable future, frozen eggs are far less likely than frozen embryos to result in the birth of an actual human being.
Any legislation will have to deal with the fact that surplus embryos will continue to be created, and in good faith, even if most of them are likely to fail.
Not only are embryos not humans, but the number of IVF embryos who go on to become humans is so, so small.
But lest I have discouraged anyone from trying, I should add that I’ll be starting a fourth and probably final round of IVF next week. If we are lucky enough to beat the odds this time, next April I hope to place an announcement in the births column of this newspaper, sharing with you all the news of the arrival of a human being, a citizen of this country or, as my husband and I like to think of it; a baby. – Yours, etc,
MARIA FARRELL,
Dooks Mountain,
Co Kerry.