The next breakthrough in IVF

Today in the journal Reproductive Biomedicine Online a report on new technique for freezing eggs harvested for use in in vitro fertilization was reported. According to research done at McGill University in Montreal, CA 200 children were conceived in vitro with eggs harvested and frozen using a technique call vitrification. Most importantly, the success rate nearly identical to that of eggs harvested, fertilized, and stored (frozen) as embryos. This is a significant and exciting breakthrough in reproductive medicine.

Human eggs are rather complex and large structures. Their complexity and size has precluded them from being stored without first being fertilized and allowed to divide a few times. Embryos - it turns out - can be frozen much more easily. That is, until now.

For those who believe that life begins at conception this technique should be talked about openly and heralded as the end of an era. At present there are hundreds of thousands (perhaps millions) of fertilized embryos sitting in liquid nitrogen tanks around the world. The vast majority of these embryos will never become children. They will either be stored indefinitely or thawed and discarded. Vitrification can change all of that - if we can store human eggs reliably and safely, there should be no reason to have all those fertilized embryos in ethical limbo.

Though it is probably too early to write your senators and congressmen, it is probably time to think about how you might phrase the letter.