Life SA

There were 118,700 embryos in frozen storage in Australia in 2006 (the most recent time for which data are available).  Almost all of these were embryos were intended to be used to achieve a pregnancy.

Very few embryos in storage have been declared to be excess to requirements.

At 28 February 2010:

The total number of embryos authorised to be used under the current licences was 1,690

674 excess embryos had been used in licensed research in Australia

325 clinically unusable eggs had been used in licensed research in Australia

More information on embryo and licence numbers is available at
http://www.nhmrc.gov.au/research/embryos/information/faqs.htm

Information about the results of the licensed research is available in the NHMRC Embryo Research Licensing Committee Reports to Parliament at http://nhmrc.gov.au/research/embryos/information/reports/index.htm.

“Excess embryos are going to be discarded anyway” Today, parents can preserve “excess” embryos for future pregnancies as well as donate them to other couples.  In a recent study 59% of parents who initially planned to discard their embryos after three years, changed their minds and chose another pregnancy or chose to donate to infertile couples. (New England Journal of Medicine, 5 July 2001.)  The Australian experience has been that couples are very reluctant to consent to their embryos being used for destructive research.

What’s more, we now know that the scientists have themselves moved on to creating human embryos solely to destroy them for stem cells.  So much for the “discarded” argument.

But what scientists or parents might do with the embryos is not the issue. The issue is: Should the government allow (and use taxpayers’ money for) research which requires destroying human embryos?

“Human embryos aren’t really human beings yet” The testimony of modern science is clear on this point. “At the moment the sperm cell of the human male meets the ovum of the female and the union results in a fertilised ovum (zygote), a new life has begun.”

(Refer Keith Moore, Essentials of Human Embryology (Toronto: Decker, 1988), p2; Ida Dox et al, The Harper Collins Illustrated Medical Dictionary (New York: Harper, 1993), p 146; TW Sadler, Langman’s Medical Embryology (7th ed, Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins 1995), p3; Bruce Carlson, Patten’s Foundations of Embryology (6th ed, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1996), p3.

Further reading:

March 2009 Q & A: FDA Approves First Clinical Trial of Human Embryonic Stem Cells,  DoNoHarm

Q & A: Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells: Making Embryo Stem Cells Obsolete, DoNoHarm

June 2004  The Legend of the 400,000 Embryos, DoNoHarm

Current State Laws on Human Embryo Research, US Conference of Catholic Bishops

Donating Spare Embryos for Embryonic Stem Cell Research, American Society for Reproductive Medicine