Apr 29, 2007

When Science Goes Too Far

You may have heard of the recent case of Natalie Evans, a 35 year old survivor of cancer who was refused the right to use frozen embryos after her ex-partner withdrew his consent.

Miss Evans had cancer treatment in 2001, and had her eggs and her ex-partner's sperm fertilized and frozen for future use. Her ex at that time had consented to the procedure and agreed to having children with Miss Evans. However, in 2002, the couple split up and he withdrew his consent. It was Miss Evan's only chance to carry her own biological children. He, on the other hand, could go and have children with any future partner he wanted.

In a ferocious legal battle that lasted 5 years and exhausted all appeals, the human rights commission ruled that he had to right to withdraw consent and that the embryos should be destroyed.

Throughout this entire highly televised case, I have felt empathy for both parties and think the issues are so murky and controversial that I am not entirely sure who, if anyone, is right.

My first question being, when exactly does life begin? If it starts at conception, and her now ex-partner had already given his consent, the fertilization occured, the deed was done, then surely now that life had started, he should not be able to withdraw consent? If the conception that had occured was natural, and then the couple had split up, he would not have been able to stop the pregnancy. Surely this kind of ruling is the beginning of a slippery slope where men are allowed to insist on a woman having a termination if they don't want the responsibility of fatherhood?

There are thousands of couples who split up while the woman is pregnant but society doesn't think that the woman should then terminate because the father is no longer in the relationship. I have been in this situation myself. Does it mean my daughter didn't have the right to be born?

What about the right of the embryos to live? It's not as if someone was just returning a ring after a broken engagement. These were living human cells. In the USA there are fetal rights and fetal infanticide laws to protect the rights of the unborn. So what is the difference between the embryo's in the lab and those protected by fetal rights laws?

The couple separated extremely quickly after treatment, which must have meant that the relationship was in trouble at the time of treatment. If he could have withdrawn consent so soon after giving the donation, this puts doubt on his original commitment to the relationship and to having a child with Miss Evans. They would have had to undergo pre-IVF ethics counselling in which he would have had the opportunity to express his doubts about the relationship. I feel that the screening process prior to IVF and the counselling given may not be thorough enough if these types of situations are allowed to occur.

However, it could be argued that the embryos aren't 'life' because they aren't in the womb. Natalie Evans was never pregnant and so her ex-partner was not insisting upon an abortion, but simply asserting his right not to allow his ex to get pregnant by him.

One might argue that Natalie Evans knew that the consent of both parties was required prior to implantation and that her ex was entitled to withdraw that consent, and that in accepting these terms when she embarked upon the process, she knew that this could be a possibility.

I don't know what the answer is, but I do think that he should have been vetted more closely to ensure his commitment to the IVF process, and then Miss Evans, who has already been through cancer, would have been saved the heartache of creating these embryos, only to have them destroyed.