Snowflake Babies

 

This guest post is provided by Wendy Wrobel, Regent Law 3L and current Family Law student:

The creation of In-Vitro Fertilization (IVF) has created a new question of moral and ethical obligation for parents and medical providers alike.

If you believe life starts at conception, or in more scientific terms, the meeting of a gamete and sperm to create an embryo, then is every embryo an individual life worthy of protection and deserving by right a chance of life? Can viable embryos be disposed of?  Even if you do not belief life begins at conception, what is to be done with the “left-overs” of IVF treatment?

To put this in perspective, on average a couple participating in IVF creates 8-14 embryos per round of IVF and uses only 1-4. This leaves anywhere from 4-13 embryo’s left over, just from one round (if viable). What is to be done with these viable embryos?

For some, they are stored for future use. For others, they are disposed of, with no intent of further use.

The other option is donation. Either to science, or to couples or individual’s incapable of creating a viable embryo themselves. The process followed with frozen embryos, while very similar to the process of implantation with IVF is often referred to as the “adoption” of an embryo.

And if the pregnancy is carried to term, the resulting baby is termed by some a “snowflake baby”.

To date, there have been 900 snowflake babies born. Some families have even had sibling sets from the same set of donated embryos, 100% biological siblings. Not only that but they were fertilized at the same time! So, while frozen in time, they were at one point the same age of gestation.

These embryo’s can be used years after their fertilization date. The oldest used to date was Molly Gibson, fertilized in 1992 and born in 2020, through her adopted parents. She was a 27 year old embryo.

These moral and ethical obligations go beyond valuing embryos as life. How do we handle adoption of embryos, the parental rights of the embryo donors? Do we need to consider the potential of open adoptions with this form of adoption? Should it be compared to adoption at all? What are the social implications of being able to adopt any race of baby? What if the baby has disabilities? Or threatens the carrier’s health? How should cases of abortion be handled when “adoption” of a donor embryo is in the mix? Is it the carrier’s choice?

Furthermore, is there a risk of embryos being their own form of a “baby market”? Could embryos be sold? Should disposal of embryos, if considered life, be prohibited? What implications does this have on parental rights? Is donation the best way to ensure choice on the part of the parents?  What of the implications to the adoption and fostering of children already born? Should their adoptions have priority? Who is to decide?

While I don’t provide any answers, I do believe these are important topics for us to consider as individuals, and especially as lawyers in the ever evolving field of family law.