Issues Surrounding Leftover Embryos
The vast majority of emails I am sending to scientists and academics inviting them to sign Declan’s petition to the UN on research cloning of embryos and stem cells are still being dumped to spam boxes (or to cyberspace, see blog of 4 September “Obama: Yes to stem cells, funding”). On Tuesday I sent a total of 304 emails but only received ten out-of-office autoreplies. I emailed scientists and academics at Princeton University, University of Wisconsin, Stanford University, University of Washington, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Burnham Institute, Bristol University and University of Manchester (we have signatories from each of these institutions). I think this is pretty much one autoreply per institution. Yesterday I sent 95 emails to US scientists and academics, received zero autoreplies, and no one I emailed signed yesterday or today.
The Big Issue is a magazine sold by homeless people throughout the UK on registered street pitches. As stated in the blog of 7 October “Letter to the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of The Big Issue”, Declan was informed in writing on 6 October that if we haven’t purchased 40 magazines each week this month, from 10 November we will not be able to have a registered pitch. Yet, I have been waiting four days now for a new badge – all vendors have been re-badged until the end of February 2009, including Declan – despite that Declan was told on Monday I wasn’t allowed to purchase or sell the magazine without it (see email presented below). 
One of the three sections of our campaign in support of human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research and therapeutic cloning is “Religion in Public Life” (see blog of 5 October “Next President to Reshape US Supreme Court”); for example, we will monitor Roe v Wade in this section (see blog of 9 October “The fate of Roe v Wade”). Following a recent article in the Los Angeles Times, we will also monitor in this section the key issue for hESC research of leftover embryos from in-vitro fertilisation clinics in the United States.
According to the Times, couples with some of the estimated 500,000 frozen embryos in the US leftover from fertility treatments are “finding themselves ensnared in a debate about when life begins”. About half of couples who have in-vitro fertilisation procedures end up with at least one embryo that is frozen and not transferred to the uterus. According to the Times, such couples have three choices: discard them, donate them to research or donate them to another couple for potential pregnancy. However, the Times reports that measures in several states that seek to protect embryos “could ultimately winnow these options” and potentially limit future fertility treatments, according to some physicians and consumer advocates. “This is taking a pretty private decision and placing it squarely in the public’s eye,” says Nanette Elster, director of the Health Law Institute at DePaul University in Chicago.
Such initiatives include a ballot measure in Colorado that would define a fertilised egg as a person in the state constitution and a proposal by Indiana lawmakers that would allow leftover embryos to be adopted for implantation by another couple. New Jersey legislators have proposed allowing unused embryos to become wards of the state, and Georgia and West Virginia are considering legislation that would grant embryos “personhood status”. Most of these proposals are made by abortion rights opponents, according to the Times. Alta Charo, a professor of law and bioethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says banning abortion is the motivation for such measures, adding: “If the Supreme Court allows states to declare embryos as personhood, you would be in a position to say immediately that all abortions have to stop.” By assigning rights to the embryo it would probably make both abortion and human embryonic stem cell research illegal (see blog of 28 September “New Scientist: Their Will Be Done”).
The federal government of the United States supports funding only for one option in dealing with leftover embryos – adoption to another couple for pregnancy. However, research by Anne Drapkin Lyerly, an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Duke University, as well as other surveys, have found that most families prefer not to donate embryos for adoption. In a paper published last year, of 1,020 couples with frozen embryos, 22% said they were somewhat or very likely to donate to another couple. Slightly more said they would probably thaw and discard them. Almost half said they would donate them for research - an option that is often complicated by a lack of research programmes or state restrictions on embryos. No federal funding is available for human embryonic stem cell research using new stem cell lines, and only eight states fund the research – New Jersey, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, and New York.
The Times reports that fertility clinics lose contact with about 15% to 25% of families with frozen embryos. According to the American Society for Reproductive Medicine guidelines, a clinic can consider embryos abandoned and dispose of them if five years have passed without contact with the couple and if significant efforts have been made to reach the couple. Richard Paulson, chief of reproductive endocrinology and infertility at University of Southern California's Keck School of Medicine, said few physicians dispose of leftover embryos. “To my knowledge, no one in the United States has ever done that,” Paulson said, adding: “We’re all paranoid that a couple will show up the next day and say they want their embryos” (Roan, Los Angeles Times, 10/6).
For more information on proposed bills that would change the legal status of frozen embryos, see The Seattle Times under the heading “Embryo legislation”.
This is the email Declan sent this afternoon to the Big Issue outreach manager for London:
Subject: The Big Issue
Dear Mr Paul Joseph
I refer further to your email of 6 October confirming that if my wife and I do not purchase a minimum of 40 magazines each week this month, from 10 November we will no longer be able to have a registered pitch (we "will be allowed to carry on selling but not have priority on any pitch").
On 13, 14 and 15 October I emailed you in respect of my wife's new badge (no. 1170), which, being unavailable for collection at head office on Monday, was due for collection by her at your distribution point at Liverpool Street on Tuesday, then Wednesday, and then today. I can confirm that at 12.15pm today your co-ordinator Renato (1273) reconfirmed that this badge should be available for her to pick up from 1.00pm this afternoon.
I reconfirm that on Monday at head office - following my own re-badging to end of February 2009 and the validation of our pitch authorisation slips until end of Tuesday next week - I was told by your outreach worker Martyn Kalnins that my wife could not purchase or sell The Big Issue without her new (blue) badge.
As I have explained in my previous emails to you, as well as to Martyn on Monday, we cannot afford a second trip to the Big Issue head office this week. Indeed, I can still barely afford to buy two Big Issues. (As you are aware, last week culminated in the so-called "Black Friday" crash; this week shares around the world have continued to tumble, particularly in London; and our pitches are located in the heart of London's financial district.)
Yours sincerely
Declan Heavey
Badge no. 1163
