CHRIS AND TANYA Bailey of Mission Viejo have a 3-year-old and triplet toddlers, all conceived through in vitro fertilization. After the birth of the triplets, they had 13 embryos left over in cryopreservation.
The idea of discarding them made the couple uneasy.
"I thought of them as potential life, but I don't think of them as children," says Chris Bailey. "They are definitely more than sperm and egg."
After much discussion, the couple decided to donate the embryos to research.
"We felt we were so lucky that research had been done and [that it] gave us the opportunity to have children," says Tanya Bailey. "So why not give our embryos to research as well to help somebody else out?"
The decision to donate to research, says Chris Bailey, "was a logical choice."
Even after grappling with the decision, however, many people find that donating to research is easier said than done. People wishing to donate to research must complete detailed paperwork and may even be asked to select the type of medical research for which they want their donation used. Others find they cannot proceed with their donation if they used egg and sperm donors who would not consent to the donation. Still others simply can't find a medical research organization to accept their donation.
For Californians, at least, donating unused embryos to research has become somewhat easier in the last two years. The launch of the state's stem cell research program and the opening of a dedicated tissue bank at UC San Francisco has opened at least one clear path for donation by providing a place for families to send their embryos where they will be available to researchers.
"As stem cell research moves forward and viable treatments emerge, there will be a greater demand for the use of frozen embryos," says Lois Uttley, director of the MergerWatch Project, a patients' rights organization based in New York City. "That could raise the profile of this issue."
The few states that fund stem cell research are more likely to be able to connect donating families to specific research programs that need embryos. People in other states do not have a clear pathway to donation, says R. Alta Charo, a professor of law and bioethics at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. "Most IVF clinics are not hooked up to a research team and they may not be able to refer couples to a clinic who can do it for them," she says.
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Research options
