9.0 Different Sources of Embryo

It was explained to participants that there are different sources of embryo, and participants were then asked if they were aware of any in particular. Some mentioned that IVF is a source of embryos, and others suggested a vague association between embryos and IVF, but nearly all lacked sufficient understanding of IVF processes to know how it might be a source of embryos for research.

A very few participants mentioned cloning, but this led to immediate confusion as to whether cloning is a function of embryo research, or a source of embryos for use in research.

Gene splicing is what I thought [embryo research] is all about. Like, picking out the best parts. Perfecting. Trying to make them pure
Young male.

Nobody spontaneously mentioned donated sperm and eggs for the creation of embryos for use in research.

In addition to lack of general awareness about the source of embryos for research, there was also a profound error in many people’s assumptions on this subject, which was that embryos might be removed from a mother’s body in order to be used in research. This perception extended to include naturally formed embryos as well as embryos formed by IVF and then implanted in utero, and inevitably led to strong opposition to research using embryos being developed at all. In all cases, this perception corrected by moderators.

I would think that all sounds great and I think where do you get embryos from, where do they get them from?

An agent probably. 

You don’t know you are pregnant in the first two weeks usually and I am wondering where will these embryos come from?

So you have to be scientifically aware and emotionally and all that but you have to be really hard because literally it’s abortion so you would have a lot of people having a problem with it because it’s basically creating life to abort.  Like you have that right to create life, kill it, do what we like that is our right, we will do what we like and it’s like is that our right to create life just because we choose to because we want to do all this research and then what if it alters the big scheme of things?
Parent group

When you talk about the research are you talking about embryos as in they have been aborted or are you talking about still in the woman or are they taking fluid out of the embryo while it’s in your tummy?
Female group

IVF, cloning and donated sperm and eggs were introduced and discussed one at a time.

9.1 IVF Embryos

Perhaps not surprisingly, discussion of IVF as a source of research embryos is rich in moral dilemmas. The first hurdle for the discussion is those who object to IVF as an alternative to natural conception. This was most likely to include Māori, Pacific Peoples and strongly religious Europeans. Obviously, those who would never choose to undergo IVF themselves were similarly opposed to human embryo research.

‘It is like a spiritual thing. When you get into this you go “Oh my God!” but at the end of the day you are handed certain difficulties for a reason to grow from and you just get on with it. If everyone could fix everything you wouldn’t really learn anything at all.’
Rural, female

Secondly was the arguably more pertinent consideration of the use of embryos that are created by IVF but which don’t get implanted into a mother for the purposes of reproduction. There was little – if any – concern that unused embryos get destroyed after 10 years of storage. In fact, for some older males in the sample, this seemed much too long.

‘Why on earth would anyone want to keep them? You either use them or you don’t. Keeping them? That’s just asking for trouble … I mean sooner or later, some scientist is going to come along wanting them, and who knows what he’ll do?!’
Male, Older Person’s Group

While this is an extreme voice, it was an opinion shared by most older men that keeping embryos longer than the period needed for their originally intended application was unnecessarily risky, by virtue of its making the embryos potentially available for ‘the wrong hands’. These participants were also upset at the explanation that people have difficulty making the decision to destroy unused embryos, since they deemed it irresponsible to enter into IVF without committing to the process as a whole.

Interestingly, this viewpoint was not balanced by its opposite: that it is wrong to wilfully destroy an embryo. Even those who regarded IVF as an unacceptable practice in its own right tended to the opinion that all parents have a right to decide how many children they want (notwithstanding the acceptability of IVF), and that the creation and destruction of surplus embryos was justified, even though in principle the means of creating them was not.

In the Māori group, however, there were objections to not implanting unused IVF embryos and freezing them once participants realised that these embryos are alive.

‘If they want to keep eggs and whoever is donating the sperm they should be kept separate, when they are separate life hasn’t been created yet. Nobody knows how the freezing will affect the embryos, that child will grow up with something wrong with its body because it’s been frozen.’
Māori female

Several groups expressed surprise both at the American policy of not requiring the destruction of unimplanted IVF embryos, and at the Italian policy of implanting all embryos (both were presented – simplistically – to some groups to help put the New Zealand regulation in context of some other national policies).

Generally, people thought that New Zealand’s 10 year rule is an appropriate way to deal with embryos. This included older men, whose estimations of the useful life of an embryo changed considerably over the course of the focus group. The main arguments achieving this were that couples may undergo several rounds of IVF – which may take some years – and that human eggs cannot be obtained without considerable inconvenience and some risk. Again, the more information they had, the more they modified their original opinion.

Consent and IVF Embryos

In the large majority of cases, the living, biological donors are regarded as the only appropriate decision makers on whether or not those cells – including embryos – are used in research.

The strongest inclination was that IVF couples declare at the outset of the process what their embryos will and will not be available for during the storage period. There was strong agreement that this right should not be transferable upon death (including transferring to the donor’s own estate), nor that it should be reversible without the signed consent of both donors.

Issues for Equal Right to Consent for Research Use of IVF Embryos

A small minority regarded maternal donors as having the stronger right to consent than paternal donors.

This opinion however, tended also to operate in a negative sense. That is, while both parents were alive and available, they were deemed to have equal right to consent. If the man was unavailable for consent (either through death or absence), this minority held that the women should have sole right. But if the woman was unavailable for consent, the man would not have the same right.

This opinion stemmed from the belief that women have a stronger right – and ability – to control their own reproduction, as only women can become pregnant.

I would say I was in favour of a woman’s right to abortion, so to me it’s a woman’s right.
Male, Older Persons’ Group

Well as much as us dads would like to take full credit, the reality is the egg is from the woman, it comes from the mum, which is the creation of life, really. We fertilise it and we feed it, it is no different to a garden. You can throw fertiliser on the road and nothing is going to grow but if you have a base for it and you throw fertiliser on it, it will grow … I believe that it is actually developed from the woman. To me, they are the ones who should really have the right to make the decision.
Rural male

When Is It Acceptable to Use IVF Embryos for Research?

Overwhelmingly, participants gravitated to the opinion that the appropriateness of IVF embryos to be used in research was not something to be decided at a universal level, but that each individual should decide whether or not they wanted to make their embryos available for research.

Put differently, IVF embryos were regarded to be appropriate for research when the embryo’s donors gave their informed consent.

The biological parents should agree. It's their embryo, who are we to say no!
Asian group

I guess it remains an individual choice, it’s like are you a donor or not.  If it’s an individual choice and you say this is my embryo I choose to donate it for scientific research that is your opinion and it’s your body and it’s your product and you are allowed to do what you like with it.  And if somebody makes that decision for you then it’s wrong. 
Female group

I am not opposed to fertilisation – what is it IVF – at all.  It’s a situation where a couple can’t have a child and if there is various other means of having a child then I think that is acceptable.  I think the eggs having been fertilised should be implanted. The rest should be got rid of.  If there is some purpose to research the ones that are left over I don’t have an issue with them being used for that provided the couple are informed and give their consent. 
Older Person’s group

Many of those for whom IVF was not a viable alternative for fertility still felt that the decision to use this technology was best made by the individuals involved, and this logic extended to other uses of the embryos created by the procedure.

9.2 Cloned Embryos

As suggested in earlier sections of this report, cloning is the main reason most people are initially opposed to the idea of human embryo research. This is because they feel that whole-body cloning of humans at all stages of development is the ultimate and inevitable outcome.

As a result, participants were extremely interested to learn that cloning can take place at a cellular level, that it can be used in developing new organs and that it can be used to develop embryos for reasons other than developing those embryos into adult humans.

However, despite this, cloning still presents too complex a problem for most people to feel comfortable about.

The fact that understanding cloning requires a basic understanding of cellular biology immediately puts it out of most people’s grasp. People sense that at best, they will only ever have a rudimentary knowledge of its procedures. People want very much to be able to judge the science on its outcomes rather than its actual processes, for the very reason that the actual processes are beyond their understanding, and – most fear – beyond their ability to understand.

Indeed, people also sense that the actual processes of cloning promise potentially limitless genetic possibilities, and that these possibilities will always extend far beyond any legal boundaries society may impose upon the science. As a result, participants are deeply cynical that whatever laws and rules are in place, ambitious scientists and greedy corporations will always and inevitably be conducting clandestine cloning research.

Furthermore, people fear that any social benefits of cloning (e.g. medical cures and preventions) will be so outweighed by other applications (e.g. military, commercial) as to become almost incidental by-products.

Appropriateness of Cloned Embryos In Research

Making moral decisions about cloned embryos for use in research therefore requires people to undergo a cost-benefit analysis about which few – if any – would claim to be sufficiently informed to carry out with any degree of confidence.

On the one hand: cloning is perceived as one of the greatest threats to human – and humane – society.

On the other: once understood – even at an elementary level – cloning is seen as a source of cells that can be used in medical research of indisputable social benefit.

As a measure of how hard it is for people to comfortably form and articulate opinion on this subject, consider the opinion of one participant:

‘It’s not something you can just make a decision on. To get to the bottom of this, you really have to think hard not just about the science and everything, you actually have to ask yourself: what sort of society do I want to live in? And actually you can question that, and should.’
Rural, male

For many, cloning provides an attractive source of embryos for research because there is no doubt that it creates embryos that would never have come into existence otherwise.

Interestingly, this realisation caused some (religious people) who had rejected IVF as a source of embryos to reconsider their whole position. While they had previously been aware of only IVF as a source of embryos for research, they had rejected the research itself on the grounds that it necessitated the destruction of a potential life.  But where the embryo never had this potential to begin with, this fact made the actual research itself acceptable. Again, this presents another example of the deficit model of social education.

Consent for the Use of Cloned Embryos

As with IVF embryos, most people regarded the cell donors (of both the egg and the adult cells that became the new nucleus) as having ultimate responsibility for the destiny of their cells.

Motivations and Morality for Donating Eggs for Cloning

There was, however, much less agreement over the morality of supplying eggs for the purpose of research. This may have been due in part to very low awareness at the outset of this part of the discussion of the procedures to which a woman would subject herself in order to donate eggs.

Awareness of the egg donation procedure (i.e. a basic description of hyper-stimulation and egg harvesting) generally served to entrench the ideas most participants held prior to this awareness. This was that the decision whether to donate or not would depend primarily on each donor’s relationship with the research being carried out, or with the beneficiary of the research which amounts to the same thing. One point of agreement was that donors would have to have strong personal motivations.

There were significant discrepancies (largely, but not exclusively between males and females) in the way participants envisaged the benefits that might motivate donors. Most women and some older men regarded the principal motivation to be about the research itself, with the idea that by donating an egg a woman may be able to provide a cloning vehicle that in turn could directly benefit either herself or someone related to her. For the majority of the sample, after much discussion, this emerged as the dominant view.

Selling Eggs for Research and Cloning

Responses to egg selling varied relatively distinctly by participant type.  Among younger (and some older) males, there was some surprise at the very notion that any woman would donate eggs for any reason other than money, especially once they became aware of the nature of the procedure.

‘Why else would anyone do that? What other reason to donate could there be?’
Male, aged 25 - 45

However, the notion of selling eggs for money was unacceptable to the majority of the sample, although people were not always easily able to explain why. Also, subtly different objections arose from participants of different ethnic types.

Among traditional Māori and Polynesians (who were among the strongest in opposition to any kind of human embryo research), there was a view of the body as a sacred entity, and that this applied equally both in death and in life. As a comparative example:

‘Say if I lost this leg [slapping thigh] I’d have to find it again, so I could say goodbye to it properly. It’s the same with cells, or anything ... I wouldn’t give blood – or receive it either – for the same reason.’
Māori male, aged 25 – 45 (from the all males group)

So the giving up of a body part (including eggs) is already unacceptable, still less so where that body part is destroyed as a direct result. The notion of a cash reward for this process served both to underscore the unacceptability of the process itself, and also to highlight the profound cultural divide between traditional Māori culture and the realm of science from which this transaction is seen to originate. Interestingly, none of the participants in the Māori group exhibited any objections to selling eggs. In fact one made the comment:

“You would get women lining up tomorrow to be paid to donate eggs.”
Māori, female

However, in the Māori group, there were concerns about exploitation and parallels were drawn with prostitution and stripping. Similarly, within the Asian group, the notion of women selling their eggs was seen as a function of class divide, where the process of selling organs is itself an actual indicator of an economy based on poverty. Several participants were reminded of Third World societies they had encountered in which the market for human body components resulted in the gross exploitation of the poor. Māori participants also expressed fears of genetic exploitation of an entire race through the use of genes from one race to benefit another.

Within more European ethnically dominated groups, the selling of eggs was closely aligned with prostitution, principally as a degradation and commoditisation of the female body.

While some people initially considered the donation of eggs to be similar to donating blood, after the procedure was explained in more detail, there was nobody who felt that anyone would simply donate eggs as a charitable act. In some way, they (or someone close to them) would have to benefit directly from the donation, either medically or financially, predominantly the former.

When Is It Acceptable to Use Cloned Embryos for Research?

Cloning appears to be associated with a collection of social fears of near mythological magnitude, that cause people to question the very nature of the society they live in. As a result, cloning is perhaps the most feared source of embryos for research.

This does not necessarily make it the least popular however, because concomitant with the social fear of cloning is the understanding (given a base level of education) that cloning technology has the potential for considerable and significant medical benefits.

'And just in saying that I have seen a lot of people who are so unfortunate in needing of a kidney or burn victims who need skin to cover their bodies, I believe that God has put us into this world as stewards, to be good stewards and I think that technology is again part of God’s work in creating medicine for ourselves.  Yeah I actually agree with this cloning.  Because there is always a shortage of some body organ, there is always a long list of people waiting for kidneys and people waiting for this and that and this is really an option and again they are not tutu-ing with creation because they are not creating life out of it they are creating organs.'
Pacific, female

Indeed, the fear around cloning appears to be directly related to its scientific power. The participants in the current study were more afraid of the potential outcomes of cloning, than of the immediate purposes under discussion.

Cloning also brings with it – for some people – the moral benefit of a source of embryos that is acceptable because they perceive that the embryos it produces would never have been called into existence for the purpose of reproduction or maturation.

Cloning is therefore an acceptable source of research embryos when four conditions apply:

• Eggs and cells are obtained only from the bodies of fully informed, consenting adults.
• There are tight controls ensuring the overall medical, scientific and ethical integrity of the research
• The cloning is only related to research that is of undoubted benefit to society
• That a cloned human being does not result.

9.3 Donated Sperm and Eggs

Creating embryos for research from donated sperm and eggs appealed to many participants for the same reason as cloned embryos: that it enabled the creation of an embryo specifically for research that would never have existed for any other purpose, including maturation into infancy, childhood or adulthood.

Obviously, it also has the extra appeal of not involving cloning, which is both a morally more complex source of embryos and also the main focus of anxiety within the subject of human embryo research as a whole.

As with the other sources of embryos, fully informed consent from all donors was broadly stipulated as the necessary criteria for donated sperm and eggs to be an acceptable source.

One potential problem with embryos created from donated sperm and eggs lay in some people’s doubts that they would be properly screened. This led to two separate concerns:

1. That sperm or eggs contaminated with some kind of disease might be used to create a research embryo, which would then contaminate the results of the research. This fear was particularly strong regarding imported embryos.
2. That sperm and eggs belonging to 1st or 2nd degree relatives could be unknowingly combined, breaking cultural taboos around in-breeding (despite the acknowledgement that these embryos would not be used for breeding purposes).

In New Zealand, the sale of human eggs, sperm, and embryos is prohibited under the Human AssistedReproductive Technology Act 2004.

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