Center encourages donation of frozen embryos

This program offers couples who already have embryos in storage the option of giving them to others waiting to "adopt."

By Andis Robeznieks, AMNews staff. Feb. 9, 2004.

The Christian Medical Assn. has decided to do something about the fact that there are some 400,000 human embryos in frozen storage in the United States. It's trying to get them "adopted."

The CMA helped develop the National Embryo Donation Center at the Southeastern Fertility Center on the campus of the Baptist Hospital for Women in Knoxville, Tenn., to handle the medical, legal and social needs of donors and recipients. "Right now our focus is getting donation of embryos -- not new ones -- but existing ones already in storage," said CMA spokeswoman Margie Shealy.

Twenty couples have donated embryos to the center but more than 140 couples are waiting to adopt.

The process is not without its critics. The National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League sees it as a way to develop full legal rights for embryos. Other critics wonder if people shouldn't be adopting children already born instead.

But JoAnn Eiman, spokeswoman for the Snowflakes Embryo Adoption Program in Fullerton, Calif., said the frozen embryo and the parentless child are in "identical" situations. "They're both children waiting for families," she said.

Others object to using the term "adoption." But the National Embryo Donation Center's director, Jeffrey Keenan, MD, said it's a good description. "Legally, they're not [adopted], but socially, ethically, morally, they may be," he said.

Dr. Keenan said there are three reasons people adopt embryos: because they want to experience pregnancy and birth, because adopting American newborns has become more difficult and because they have sympathy for embryos in frozen storage.