PROFESSIONExtra embryos: What is their future?Increasing numbers of embryos are in frozen storage, awaiting birth or destruction -- and spurring debate over whether they're people or property.By Vida Foubister, amednews staff. Nov. 13, 2000. Deep within drab metal storage tanks, in fertility clinics throughout the world, are hundreds of thousands of embryos. They're suspended in tiny glass straws, frozen in liquid nitrogen -- essentially in limbo, awaiting decisions that will bring them to life or see them destroyed. Some believe that these frozen clusters of human cells are already human beings, deserving of all the rights and protections of children. Others view them as the property of the men and women whose gametes created them. Still others consider the embryos to be a unique entity somewhere in between. What everyone does agree on is that their numbers are huge, and growing. In this country alone, there are an estimated 100,000 embryos -- or more -- in frozen storage. And increasingly, especially in light of the federal government's recent decision to fund stem cell research, these embryos are the focus of debate. "I don't think that there is an easy answer to what do we do with these embryos because we don't yet have any common understanding of what kind of moral status they have," said Hilde Lindemann Nelson, PhD, associate professor of philosophy at Michigan State University in East Lansing. "I don't think we can discover that, we have to construct that." Even to the doctors who work with patients who are creating these frozen embryos, their growing numbers are problematic. But, like many scientific advances, the technology that allows human embryos to be frozen was developed without full consideration of its implications for society.
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The doctors are in the house
The AMA's House of Delegates is holding its Interim Meeting Nov. 7-10 in Houston, addressing issues such as health system reform and physician payment. Meeting coverage - Slideshow Feature articlesHealth reform review The Massachusetts experience Litigation stress Being sued is personal as well as professional Comprehensive coverage
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