Most couples would donate embryos to science

[RamboLiberal]

Source: MSNBC/AP

A majority of couples with stored embryos from fertility treatments say they would be willing to donate unused embryos for stem cell research, says a doctor who surveyed patients.

“Large numbers of infertility patients ... support using embryos for research, and these are people who have invested emotionally and financially in these embryos,” Dr. Anne Drapkin Lyerly of Duke University said in a telephone interview Wednesday.

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Of 1,020 people who responded by saying they still had embryos in storage, 49 percent said they were likely to donate some or all of them for research. When asked specifically about stem cell research, the portion willing to donate embryos rose to 62 percent.

“It suggests that people are more willing to pursue research when they know more about it and how it might benefit their fellow citizens,” Lyerly said.

She added that research was preferred over donating the embryos to other infertile couples, “which brings into question the idea that the more you care about an embryo, the more you want it to become a child.”




Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19335504/

[benddem]

1. we need to stop

calling them embryos. They are just a sac of 100 cells--a blastocyst. Embryo is just another example of reich wing framing.

[Odin2005]

3. Huh?

Excuse me, but that is nonsense. That is normal terminology used by biologists, it ain't right-wing framing.

[Hekate]

2. It's interesting that most would not want to donate to other infertile couples....

I think it's because they actually care quite a bit about whether the blastocysts turn into a baby with their DNA. They know it's a template and not an actual baby yet, but if it WERE to become a baby it would have all of their own genetic characteristics. It would look like them, have the family laugh, all of it.

The families whose fertilized eggs were reassigned without their permission by the UC Irvine fertility clinic were genuinely outraged, troubled, and hurt. Some of them had failed to achieve a baby themselves, yet "their" child was out there somewhere. Others had managed to complete their family, only to find out that there were several other children out there who were their kids' full siblings.

Everything to do with human reproduction has an enormous emotional component to it.

Hekate