Sir, - It has been widely reported in the media that the Rotunda Hospital will offer embryo freezing facilities to couples availing of IVF services. This is, in general, a positive development which should benefit couples seeking IVF. Two important issues arise, however. What will happen to stored embryos if the parents do not want them all re-implanted? Surely this problem should be addressed in advance, not when there are hundreds of embryos in storage. One solution might be to obtain parental consent in advance that unwanted embryos could be given for adoption.
Once again, the recent media discussions drew attention to the current practise in IVF (in Ireland) of effectively discarding spare embryos (only three can be safely re-implanted in the womb) by replacing them in a position where they won't survive. Since these early embryos are human beings (and I know of no evidence to the contrary) why is this procedure allowed to continue?
Why do the Departments of Health and Justice not take action to stop this abuse of basic human rights? This is a matter of life and death, and it is not acceptable that these Departments avoid their responsibilities by passing the buck to a committee which has been deliberating for some years on possible new guidelines.
New technology will present many ethical dilemmas in coming decades. If our society deals with this relatively clear-cut problem in such a hypocritical and slipshod manner, it hardly augurs well for our chances of dealing properly with more complex problems which will certainly arise in the near future in areas such as genetic profiling, prenatal diagnosis and cloning. - Yours, etc., Martin Clynes, Professor of Biotechnology,
Dublin City University, Dublin 9.