Bioethical news articles for January 26th:
Fertile Union: “Too often, scientists and policy-makers talk past one another and ‘science-based’ policy-making is anything but. But sometimes, they get it right, and when they do, they deserve praise. One such case is last week’s announcement that Britain intends to develop in vitro fertilization (IVF) techniques that could cut the number of children born with devastating genetic conditions such as muscular dystrophy. Not only are scientists, lawmakers and ethicists speaking the same language, they are also synchronizing their efforts to make Britain the first country to test the techniques in humans, taking it light years ahead of other nations (see page 419). Uniquely among IVF procedures, the new techniques involve embryos that combine genetic material from three people. The prospect of a child with three genetic parents has inevitably raised concern among some commentators, and among politicians worried about what those commentators will say. The diseases targeted by these techniques are passed to children by mothers through faulty mitochondria in their eggs. The techniques therefore remove the genetic material from the nucleus of the faulty egg and insert it into a healthy egg that has been stripped of its own nucleus. This is where the third ‘parent’ comes in: a different woman must supply the healthy egg. A child born from IVF using one of the modified eggs will therefore carry the genes of three people: nuclear DNA from both parents and mitochondrial DNA from the donor.”
Margo Macdonald Dishes Up the Same Confused Euthanasia Proposals Again: “Margo Macdonald Tuesday announced that she is going to try again to legalise assisted suicide and/or euthanasia (it’s not clear which) in Scotland, just over a year after her last spectacular failure. Ms MacDonald, Scotland’s only independent MSP, said in unveiling a new consultation on the issue, that she has ‘learned lessons’ from her previous attempt and is proposing a ‘clearer, more straightforward process.’ Among her new proposals is a suggestion that trained ‘licensed facilitators’ would need to be present when someone is at the point of ending their own life to ensure that lethal drugs are ‘taken correctly’. But on who will actually qualify for assisted suicide under her bill she is less clear.”
Margo Macdonald
Major Victory for Life in Europe: “Euthanasia Must Always be Prohibited”: “Yesterday, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) adopted a non-binding resolution stating: ‘Euthanasia, in the sense of the intentional killing by act or omission of a dependent human being for his or her alleged benefit, must always be prohibited.’ The purpose of the resolution, entitled ‘Protecting human rights and dignity by taking into account previously expressed wishes of patients,’ defines the principles that should govern the practice of ‘living wills’ or ‘advance directives’ in the 47 States of the Council of Europe. The European Centre for Law and Justice (ECLJ) welcomed the adoption of the PACE resolution. “This Resolution is a major victory for the protection of life and dignity,” said ECLJ Director Grégor Puppinck. Puppinck noted that because ‘living wills’ or ‘advance directives’ are open to abuses, and are a ‘backdoor’ for introducing euthanasia or assisted suicide into legislation, PACE’s resolution was necessary.”
Two International Babies Born on the Same Day at VVCH: “Two babies born on the same day at Victor Valley Community Hospital will soon be traveling across the ocean with their European parents back to their homes. Two local women gave birth to the babies Thursday through a surrogacy organization, according to the hospital’s press release. The baby girl’s parents are from France and Switzerland, and they are headed to Switzerland. The baby boy will be going home to Germany with his parents and older brother. ‘It is such a pleasure to have brought joy to these two families, representing three different countries in Europe all in one day at our small community hospital,’ said Dr. Vijay Arora, who delivered the babies. Surrogacy is banned in many European nations including Germany, Switzerland and France. Couples who can’t conceive a child travel to countries such as the United States and India because of their leniency toward surrogacy, according to a report in Britain’s Daily Mail. The newspaper said many patients come to California due to the state’s favorable legal climate.”
Babies born via surrogacy
Why Prenatal Screening for Gender and Disabilities are not the Same: “When writing about reproductive ethics, I’m not in the business of telling people what to do. Occasionally, however, I offer my opinion on particular uses of reproductive technology. One practice that I find unacceptable is gender selection of embryos and fetuses for non-medical reasons. (A medical reason for gender selection would be if a family had a history of a serious sex-linked genetic disorder.) In the U.S. and Canada, prenatal gender selection is driven partly by immigrants from patriarchal cultures, where women are often under pressure to produce male heirs. In other cases, gender selection is driven by a mother’s desire for the daughter she has always dreamed of having; she envisions a uniquely close mother-daughter bond, buying pretty clothes, and sharing interests. In the Canadian Medical Association Journal, editor Rajendra Kale recently recommended that gender-identification ultrasounds be postponed until 30 weeks gestation to prevent parents from aborting a fetus of the unwanted gender.”
All IVF Couples Should Screen Eggs to Boost Chances of Baby: “Although the new test is expensive, it may save patients money and heart-ache in the long-run, by identifying which embryos are the healthiest and have the best chance of creating a pregnancy, they said. The test known as array CGH screens all the chromosomes from the eggs or the embryo so abnormal ones can be discarded. The biggest cause of miscarriage is abnormal chromosomes but currently the only way of examining the eggs and embryos is to look at them through a microscope. Results from 150 cycles has shown that the screening method can triple the chances of the embryo successfully implanting in the womb. The couples had all gone through many failed attempts at IVF and had suffered repeated miscarriages or failure of the embryo to implant in the womb.”
Egg screening
“Care of the Dying” debate – Assisted Suicide is like Murder, says MP Glenda Jackson: “GLENDA Jackson has voiced vehement opposition to legalising assisted suicide in a Parliamentary debate, comparing the act to ‘murder.’ The Labour MP for Hampstead and Kilburn opposed calls for changes to legislation in this country. She told the Commons: ‘There is something drastically wrong with a society that can contemplate legalising something that is, to my mind, murder.’ The former actress, speaking at the ‘Care of the Dying’ debate last Tuesday, revealed to the house the ‘greatest regret of her life’ was not being present at the death of either of her parents. She added: ‘One of the greatest privileges that can be afforded to a caring person – to us as human beings – is to be present at that moment when the last great adventure begins, when life slips away.’ Last week, Katherine Lennard told the New Journal about her plans to travel to Switzerland for an assisted suicide with Dignitas.”
Glenda Jackson
The Man Behind the “New Public Face of American Assisted Suicide”: “In some ways it’s a rather strange headline: ‘After the death of Jack Kevorkian, Lawrence Egbert is the new public face of American assisted suicide.’ The Washington Post’s Manuel Roig-Franzia tells us that Egbert, formerly the medical director of the Final Exit Network, is not a publicity hound, like the eccentric Kevorkian who died last June. Moreover, Egbert is at odds with the current leadership of FEN, either because they are not as aggressive/reckless as Egbert, and/or are unnerved by the two deaths that led to trials against FEN, ‘a loosely knit group that claims 3,000 dues-paying members,’ according to Roig-Franzia. (The yet-to-take place second trial was spurred by the death of a man in Georgia, which culminated in Egbert and three other FEN leaders ‘all [being] arrested on charges of assisting in a suicide, tampering with evidence and racketeering.’)”
Lawrence Egbert
American Woman Causes a Flutter at Passport Office in Secunderabad: “An American woman causes a flutter by abandoning her two-month-old son, born via an Indian surrogate mother, at the Passport Office in Secunderabad here on Wednesday, protesting delay in issuing passport to him. J. Perllinda Vanburen Green, 40, however, took back her son after the police promised her to secure the travel documents at the earliest. The drama unfolded around 5 p.m. when the woman went up to the passport office. Later, she left the baby wrapped in clothes in the verandah and disappeared. After noticing the infant, the passport office authorities called in the Market Police. The police, after examining some documents left in a bag along with the baby, traced her to the nearby Rama Fertility Centre. The American married a Jamaican 15 years ago but could not conceive. She lives with her husband in Jamaica.”
J. Perllinda Vanburen Greenwith her baby
Vitrification: An Alternative to Egg Freezing?: “Vitrification is a promising approach to egg storage and can conserve them for fertilisation and development at a similar level to freshly collected eggs, says a new review published today in The Obstetrician & Gynaecologist (TOG). Egg cryopreservation, preserving eggs by cooling to sub-zero temperatures, includes freezing eggs which first took place in 1986. Since then, over 500 children worldwide have been conceived from frozen eggs. Vitrification is an alternative to egg freezing, first applied in humans in 1999. The process involves cooling cells to form an ice-free transparent glass. Since this process was first used, there have been well over 450 births reported. The review adds that vitrification can be simpler, more efficient and cheaper than conventional freezing under certain circumstances. It is quicker than freezing for a small group of eggs collected from a single donor, whereas freezing may be more efficient when eggs are to be stored for several women on the same day. Expensive cooling apparatus is not required but vitrification consumables are currently expensive and embryologists may have to devote more time to vitrification than freezing.”
New Form of In Vitro Fertilization Stirs Debate: “Under names such as low-intensity IVF, eco-IVF and even patient-friendly IVF — a technique of in vitro fertilization is increasing in use with promises to be safer, cheaper and easier on patients trying to have a baby. The technique involves mildly stimulating a woman’s ovaries with less drugs to produce far fewer eggs than routine IVF. After the eggs are fertilized in a laboratory, the resulting embryos are usually frozen and implanted in the uterus a few months later during a woman’s natural menstrual cycle. It may seem mathematically impossible, but St. Louis area doctor Dr. Sherman Silber says if done right, mild stimulation results in pregnancy rates equal to those with routine IVF. In older women, Silber finds dramatically better rates because the process is easier on their more brittle eggs.”
The Christian Family
Hot Topics: IVF Treatment Using Single Sperm Successful: “Everyone knows it takes just one sperm and one egg to make a baby, but nature usually provides extra, just to be sure. In the case of 9-month-old Kenley Schiraldi of Campbell, Ohio, however, there was no back-up for the biology, requiring instead what scientists – and her parents – call a modern-day miracle. Kenley was born last April, the result of a long-shot infertility treatment, a case Cleveland Clinic IVF experts say is the first time a single sperm has been frozen, injected into a single egg, and resulted in a healthy pregnancy. Nina Desai, director of the IVF laboratory at the Cleveland Clinic, hasn’t calculated the odds of Kenley’s conception, which occurred even though her father, Jason, produced no sperm in the regular way, and her mom had trouble producing eggs.”
