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Embryo disposal practices in IVF clinics in the United States

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 May 2016

Andrea D. Gurmankin ,
Dominic Sisti  and
Arthur L. Caplan
Andrea D. Gurmankin
Affiliation:
Institute for Health, Health Care Policy, and Aging Research, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, 30 College Ave., New Brunswick, NJ 08901-1293, USA adg11@cornell.edu
Dominic Sisti
Affiliation:
Center for Bioethics & Department of Medical Ethics, School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, 3401 Market Street, Suite 320, Philadelphia, PA 19104-3308, USA
Arthur L. Caplan
Affiliation:
Center for Bioethics & Department of Medical Ethics, School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, 3401 Market Street, Suite 320, Philadelphia, PA 19104-3308, USA
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Abstract

Background.

The moral status of the human embryo is particularly controversial in the United States, where one debate has centered on embryos created in excess at in vitro fertilization (IVF) clinics. Little has been known about the disposal of these embryos.

Methods.

We mailed anonymous, self-administered questionnaires to directors of 341 American IVF clinics.

Results.

217 of 341 clinics (64 percent) responded. Nearly all (97 percent) were willing to create and cryopreserve extra embryos. Fewer, but still a majority (59 percent), were explicitly willing to avoid creating extras. When embryos did remain in excess, clinics offered various options: continual cryopreservation for a charge (96 percent) or for no charge (4 percent), donation for reproductive use by other couples (76 percent), disposal prior to (60 percent) or following (54 percent) cryopreservation, and donation for research (60 percent) or embryologist training (19 percent). Qualifications varied widely among those personnel responsible for securing couples' consent for disposal and for conducting disposal itself. Some clinics performed a religious or quasi-religious disposal ceremony. Some clinics required a couple's participation in disposal; some allowed but did not require it; some others discouraged or disallowed it.

Conclusions.

The disposal of human embryos created in excess at American IVF clinics varies in ways suggesting both moral sensitivity and ethical divergence.

Type
Guest Commentary
Information
Politics and the Life Sciences , Volume 22 , Issue 2 , September 2003 , pp. 4 - 8
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Politics and the Life Sciences 

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