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Proposed law would allow adoption of human embryos Rules would guard well-being of child this embryo will become. People could adopt human embryos in much the way that families now adopt children under proposals being considered by the federal government. Canadian fertility clinics are already implanting embryos from other couples in women who have been unable to have a child, and the government is wrestling with how such practices should be regulated. Officials are working on long-awaited legislation on reproductive technologies. Studies commissioned by the government to help it come to terms with the thorny issue have raised modern adoption procedures as a possible model to follow — if only, as one report puts it, because “it is the only social precedent we have to learn from.” Copies of the studies were obtained by the Citizen under access to information procedures. If the government takes the adoption route in the legislation, expected this fall, it will not only mark a break with the secrecy that has shrouded the use of reproductive technologies, but also place a stronger emphasis on the well-being of children born from such practices. “The absence of a genetic tie with the rearing parents strengthens the analogy to adoption and therefore brings to the fore our social responsibility to ensure informed decision-making for all the parties involved,” says one study on the psychological and social issues of embryo donation presented to the government in September. While there are important differences between the two, the study also notes that embryo donation presents many of the issues of adoption, including feelings of loss associated with infertility, concerns about bonding with a child who is not genetically related, and the child’s potential need to know about his genetic heritage.” “Although not abandoned at birth, people conceived through embryo donation may perceive themselves as ‘spare’ or ‘surplus’ goods,” the study also notes. It says that at present “there is very little information available on how embryo donation is practised in Canada or on the prevalence of the practice.” But another study notes that since having an embryo from another couple implanted “represents an alternative to adoption, potentially any couple with a fertility problem might request this option.” A draft report by infertility experts at the University of Western Ontario in London and the London Health Sciences Centre notes that stored frozen embryos from couples who have undergone in vitro fertilization and no longer need them can be designated to another couple or single woman instead of being destroyed or used for research purposes. It notes that Health Canada’s discussion group on embryo research has found the practice “reasonable and ethical” if it is an informed choice of the man and woman who provided the sperm and egg. Donors must not, however, be paid for their embryos, the report says. “The applicability of the adoption model to embryo designation requires careful consideration,” says the study, done by two physicians, a clinical psychologist and a counsellor. And it proposes procedures similar to those used in adoption. These include screening and counselling of both the genetic parents and the embryo recipients. The report also suggests that the providers could be given general input into who receives their embryos — for example, identifying lifestyle categories with which they feel comfortable and choosing whether single women, lesbian or common-law couples should be eligible. Similar procedures are already followed in Australia and New Zealand for gamete (sperm or egg) providers. “The model is also consistent with current standards of practice in the field of adoption, where participation in the placement decision is believed to have long-term psychological benefits for the relinquishing parents.” The study proposes recipients be screened for their suitability to raise a child and counselled on various implications of embryo donation. The paper also advocates the establishment of a computerized registry which would maintain continuously updated records of the names and addresses of embryo providers, their biological children, embryo recipients and children born from embryo designation. The registry would allow for the communication of new medical information about the genetic parents that is pertinent to the child. It could also allow the child and his genetic parents or genetic siblings to contact each other, if such contact was desired. The study notes that diverse interest groups have called for “the greater openness practised in current adoption policy,” which uses registries to allow such contact with biological parents, to be implemented in cases of embryo or gamete exchanges. Establishing such a registry would be part of what one paper cites as a consistent international trend toward greater openness and “increasing attention to the needs and welfare of children conceived through assisted reproductive technologies.” But it notes that such practices as sperm donation developed within a context of secrecy that protected the anonymity of donors and adds that “one of the major barriers to disclosure is the fact that most medical practitioners still advocate secrecy.” Though the greater openness and emphasis on counselling and followup in adoptions — themselves once shrouded in secrecy — are cited as a useful model in regulating embryo donation, the reports caution that there are important differences between the two. “I am uncomfortable with the term ‘embryo adoption,’ because it suggests that the same procedures and bureaucracy involved with adoption should be introduced with embryo donation,” wrote Rona Achilles, an expert on psycho-social issues in reproductive technologies. The two differ, in that adoption involves pre-existing individuals while embryo donation involves the creating a child to form a family, she writes. And in adoption, the child is the client while in all assisted conception techniques the adults are the clients. [ARTICLES] |