Stem-Cell Treatment for Blindness Moving Through Patient Testing (macular)

MIT Technology Review ^ | 04/17/2014 | Susan Young

[dalereed]

“Would you rather be blind or eat a baby and see?”

I’ll eat a baby and see!!!!

[tet68]

that embryo is out there and likely never to be implanted and grown as a new life.

Aren’t there a lot of embryos that never get implanted?
Just asking.

[chaosagent]

Well, it was supposedly an ‘unused’ one. And do you really think they used the embryo without the permission of the parents?

From what I understand, to be sure that they get enough embryos to use, they create more than are needed. How long do they keep embryos after the parents no longer want or need them? What happens to them? Are they just kept forever?

[married21]

Yes, they are kept indefinitely, I think, until one day when they clean house. I think that was why the Octomom had them all implanted at once. She didn’t want any destroyed.

So, basically there are all these embryonic human beings in the freezer, and when the parents don’t want them, it is occasionally the case that they are adopted out. (I forget the name of the non-profit agency that was trying to make a go of that.) They are the same physically as the ones that are growing in wombs.

I have moral qualms about keeping human beings in the freezer indefinitely, so I think parents should be required to implant each embryo upon creation— no making extras, and no conceiving triplets and then “reducing” (aborting the weaker ones). From what I have read, ob-gyns are moving away from having any excess embryos.

As to whether an embryo was used without permission of its parents, I have no idea. I guess I was thinking they were using volunteer egg and sperm donors who agreed to participate in the study, not intact two-parent couples, or maybe they were paying for eggs, as has happened under unsavory circumstances in a couple of countries, so I’ve read.