Word: vitro
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...ethicist Thomas Shannon sees it, "The application of in vitro fertilization has moved almost overnight from the lab to the clinic." Shannon, who teaches at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts, might have added, and into the law courts as well. Like many other modern technological wonders, the artificial union of sperm and ovum to form a zygote, which is then frozen for eventual implantation in a woman's womb, has gone from the near miraculous to the almost mundane -- and ultimately to the moral dilemma. One current legal case addresses two of the key ethical questions raised by in vitro...
...Risa and Steven York entered an in vitro fertilization program operated by the Howard and Georgeanna Jones Institute for Reproductive Medicine in Norfolk, Va. But three implants failed. The Yorks, who last year moved from New Jersey to California, asked the institute to ship their frozen embryo to a comparable facility at Los Angeles' Good Samaritan Hospital, where Dr. Richard Marrs was prepared to supervise its implantation. Much to the couple's surprise, Jones refused, arguing that the consent agreement signed by the Yorks gave them no rights to the embryo outside his institute's jurisdiction. In effect, Jones contended...
...federal judge denied the Yorks' request for a preliminary injunction against the institute and ordered that the case be tried by a jury in the fall. The decision was a blow to the Yorks, for whom time is critical. Risa is 39, and the spontaneous abortion rate for in vitro implants increases dramatically in women beyond the age of 40. Also, the longest recorded freezing of an embryo that was later successfully implanted is 28 months; the Yorks' embryo has been in a cryogenic state for 24 months...
Given the growing popularity of in-vitro fertilization, it was just a matter of time before a case like this one arose. During nine years of marriage, Junior Davis, 30, and his wife Mary Sue, 28, tried repeatedly and unsuccessfully to have a child. That experience led the couple six years ago to a fertility clinic in Knoxville, where eggs taken from Mrs. Davis were fertilized in a laboratory with her husband's semen...
Though there is only about a 15% chance that an implanted egg will result in childbirth, in-vitro techniques have been responsible for more than 5,000 births in the U.S. since 1978. The Davis case is the first battle for possession of the eggs. Legal experts have been warning that couples who enter fertility programs should draw up agreements dictating the fate of such eggs should there be a death or divorce. Says Ellen Wright Clayton, assistant professor of law and pediatrics at Vanderbilt University: "Fertilized eggs are going to give rise to a whole new set of legal...