Embryo Adoption

Okay, because someone I like asked my opinion in a private e-mail:

Last week, the New York Times published an article about Snowflakes, an organization that arranges for IVF patients who have completed their treatment to donate any embryos that remain.  The article highlighted the experiences of Randy and Julie McClure, evangelical Christians who became parents to a fourth child with the help of Snowflakes and a local IVF clinic. Several excellent critiques have already been written, among them Julie's at A Little Pregnant.  This is my contribution to the debate.

I think Snowflakes is icky.  Icky icky icky.  I cannot muster any respect for an organization that repeatedly describes embryos as "implanted" during IVF.  I do not believe that the only people pursuing open donation are those who refer to their frozen embryos as "pre-born children," as Snowflakes does.  The entire attitude regarding birth mothers in actual adoption implicit in the promotion of embryo "adoption" makes me a little quesy.  And I simply will not support an organization whose website notes that "It is our hope that instead of creating a new set of laws, the current laws for adoption will simply be expanded to include embryos."  Why would they hope for that?  So that embryos in utero could then be protected by laws governing children as well.

The McClures, chosen by the journalist to open the story, describe their motives in doing embryo "adoption" this way: "We really felt like the Lord was calling us to try to give one of these embryos, these children, a chance to live."  Mr. McClure compared the embryos to slaves and the journalist runs with the theme: "With that, the McClures, who are in their 40's and live in Bellevue, Wash., decided to take 13 embryos from a fertility clinic in Austin, Tex."

What's wrong with that sentence?  The embryos did not belong to the clinic.  The embryos the McClures received belonged to the genetic parents, who themselves chose to donate via Snowflakes.  There's a good chance the genetic parents were, themselves, evangelical Christians, and the very fact that they chose Snowflakes reveals that these genetic parents never had any intention of "abandoning" their embryos in the first place.

Even if you buy into the McClures' bizarre vision of enslaved embryos, abandoned in some cryo-hell, no embryo available through Snowflakes would meet that criteria.  Every single embryo at Snowflakes became available through the choice of the genetic parents.  In other words, Snowflakes is being massively disingenous: they aren't out to "save" frozen embryos, they're out to change IVF laws and to change anti-abortion laws.  Along the way, they offer an option for evangelical Christian parents, especially infertile evangelical Christian parents, to use their own reproductive choices to join in the campaign.  That's fine, we live in a democracy of ideas, but I'd rather prefer that Snowflakes wasn't receiving federal funding for their efforts.  I'd really very much prefer that my President wasn't a happy joiner in the photo ops.

The only way the McClures or Snowflakes could possibly imagine themselves as "embryo rescuers" would be if they mounted campaigns to steal embryos from IVF centers.  I suppose, given the current political climate (at least at the federal level), it would be wise for IVF labs to start segregating their cryo-units by parental intention:

• "Heartless abandoners whose embryos need rescuing"
• "Sleep-deprived parents of twins waiting to make further reproductive decisions until they can once again string two sentences together in conversation"
• "Debt-ridden serial-aborters taking year-long vacation in Bermuda while plotting jewerly heist to fund PGD"
• "Former patients willing to donate for scientific research, thwarted by lack of options due to withdrawal of federal funding."

We don't want Snowflakes and its minions to rescue someone's actually-wanted "pre-born child."  Seriously, we don't.  What Bush and his religious allies sometimes forget is that nothing matters more to US citizens than property rights.  The protection of personal property is woven into the fabric of our national identity.  It's the main reason why IVF clinics keep all those frozen embryos on hand: no one dares discard them, regardless of what the patient consent forms actually guarantee.

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My feelings about embryo donation itself are intimately tied up with the discussions Calder and I had before beginning infertility treatment.  Before our first appointment with our RE, we tried to anticipate any and all possible outcomes to various treatments.  Ultimately, we decided that IVF was not an option for us, precisely because we couldn't agree on a plan for any embryos that might remain.

Plenty of IVF patients will protest, justifiably, that many cycles don't result in any unused embryos.  Even when a few embryos are not transferred, many of them don't survive the freezing process.  I understand that having to decide what to do with frozen embryos was, from one point of view, an optimist attitude.  It was also prudent.  We wanted to consider all our options, however unlikely they might turn out to be.  And look, we conceived triplets on our first successful IUI cycle, so I don't think we were wrong to look at all the thin slices of the statistical pie.  I strongly encourage you to do the same.

Calder was comfortable with embryo donation but I was not.  Unlike many embryo recipients and donors (and, for that matter, many gamete recipients and donors), I believe that any children resulting from those donations will have questions about their genetic parents that echo or parallel questions adopted children have about their birth parents.  I believed then, and believe now, that donating my embryos would result in someone else parenting my genetic offspring, my children.  I struggled with some of the questions Tess is asking as she prepares to donate her embryos, and couldn't come up with answers that made me willing to donate.

I believe it's in the best interests of children for gamete and embryo donation to be open.  I believe children born of donated gametes or embryos will have most of the same questions adopted children have about their genetic parents.  I believe that parents who use donor gametes or embryos, but hide that information from their children, are transferring the pain of their infertility battles onto their children.

Why do I say that?  I believe adopted children are not only interested in the crucial question, "why did you choose adoption?"  Adopted children also want to know, are there people in the world whose eyes look like mine?  Do I have siblings?  Is my uncany knack for numbers something I share with another relative?  Those are the same types of questions a child born of IVF/donation might also ask.  Anonymous donation forces the child to live forever without answers to those questions.  The inability to find those answers has already caused countless children of closed adoption considerable pain.  There is absolutely, categorically no reason to believe that the children of closed donation won't also experience the same feelings.

I believe hiding the use of donor gametes or embryos bases the most fundamental relationship of a child's life on a lie, a lie of genetic connection that does not exist.  And it's no good saying, "genetic connections don't or shouldn't matter," because if that were true, there would be no need to withhold the facts.  I believe openness, about gemete/embryo donation and adoption, allows parents and children to respect the importance of genetic connection without fetishizing it.  I believe getting all the facts out there allows children to decide what's important to them about their identity, rather than having their parents make those decisions for them.

My objection to Snowflakes is based, in part, on the way it limits the discussion of open donation to a framework of evangelical Christian political action.  Open gamete and embryo donation needs to leave the arena of anti-abortion crusading and enter the arena of children's services.  Snowflakes, by allowing wise people to scoff at its goals, hurts our ability to talk openly and honestly about what, precisely, we think we're doing when we use donor gametes and embryos.

There aren't enough open-donation centers operating.  Parents who want to donate their embryos and know even the bare minimum of information--for example, whether the donated embryos actually resulted in a live birth--have very few options.  Parents who want to partner with parents who will tell any children resulting from embryo donation about their genetic background have very few options.  Snowflakes, of course, has received government money to publicize its program.  Other open-donation centers include Embryos Alive and Conceptual Options.  The Center for Human Reproduction claims to have coined the term "embryo adoption" and implies that they allow open (as well as closed) donation, but unlike the other two centers, neither their egg-donor nor their embryo-adoption application forms include a question about the participants' preferences for openness.  Hopefully there will be other centers.

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Because I cannot pass judgement on other people's choices, albeit indirectly, without at least declaring me own: if IVF had been an option, and there had been embryos left over after we completed our family, I would have chosen embryo donation for scientific research.  My grandmother died of complications from multiple sclerosis and Calder's grandmother is suffering late-stage Alzheimers.  My feelings about an eight-cell embryo are radically different than my feelings about any children that might be born from that embryo's transfer and growth.  But it was a reluctant, unhappy conclusion (I have no coherent position about God's intentions for embryonic human life) and I would like to believe that Calder and I would have chosen adoption before IVF, as we promised ourselves we would.

Or maybe I want to believe I could have convinced Calder to change his mind about remaining embryos.  I had dreams about genetic connection and pregnancy that would have been hard to let go.

Finally, I recognize that I'm saying, in essence, it would be easier for me to discard an embryo and foreclose a potential human life than to live with the idea of someone else raising my child.  I recognize the personal moral failing implicit in that decision.  And I hope I would have grappled with that, if I had chosen to become an adoptive parent, because I cannot imagine it being irrelevant to the life I would have led.

Comments

[The Feminist Mafia]

Snowflakes sounds like a scary organization.
But I have to comment on your analysis of donor situations. One perspective that you didn't mention is that of lesbian parents. My wife (yeah Massachusetts!) and I conceived via anonymous sperm, and are very happy with the process and the results. We plan to tell our son that he had a "sperm donor" not a "dad" when it's age appropriate. If he has questions about physical or behavioral characteristics, or health history, we have an extensive report from the sperm bank that should answer most (all?) of those questions. These reports are easily 20 page documents with family medical and career history extending back two generations (including cousins). I often say that I have more imformation about our sperm donor than most people have about their husbands. That said, I plan to be semi-open with my son about his genetic history, but more importantly, I want him to understand that his family consists of the people who care for him and are raising him. Any attachment to this mythical man should only exist in the form of questions about physical characteristics and behavior, which I'll be able to answer from the profile. Granted, he's 2 and we haven't dealt with any of this yet. I'm sure he'll throw us a curve ball. But I'm confident that we made the right decision, which will protect our family legally and emotionally.

[yankeetransplant]

Very interesting, thought provoking post. A lot to digest. As an adoptive parent, I found your standpoint very thoughtful. I want to re-read this when nobody is standing around waiting for me, as the 13 year old is now.

[Lisa V]

Jody, you said everything I have tried to say, and you said it brilliantly. Truly. I don't want to link it, I want to cut and paste, and then say "what she said."

I have seen the difference in my daughter's life, knowing her birthparents, versus friends who don't. I can't imagine that children resulting from donated embryos aren't going to have these same issues.

I admire Tess and told her so, but I think this is a very complex issue that many others haven't put the thought into. I think it takes aware birth parents or biological or genetic parents or whatever they should be called, and equally aware "adoptive" or whatever they want to be called parents to make this work. I really fear stuff like this could set back all the hard work that has been done for birthparents rights and adoptees rights.

Again thank you for your so eloquent post.

[susoz]

Feminist Mafia, I also have a child through anon donor sperm but I take issue with your use of the term "mythical man'. The donor is a real man, really the biological father of your child! Your son is bound to have real feelings about him. Mine does.

[The Feminist Mafia]

Susoz, To me, the donor is a mythical man. To me, he exists only on paper. To me, he is absolutely NOT a "father" to my child. He is, quite simply, a donor. Being a father implies much much more than a vial of sperm. This is my perspective on the matter, and I respect that you have a different one. As for my son's opinion, that is yet to be determined. As I said, I'm sure he'll throw me a curve ball. For the moment, the jury is out. I'm trying not to make assumptions about how he'll feel, and I'd prefer that you don't either.

[susoz]

FM, I didn't mean to offend you - we're in the same situation (if it was not clear that I'm a lesbian mother too.) I agree that the donor is not a dad, but he is the father in the biological sense and I think it is predictable that any child, any person, will have feelings at some point in their lives about the man (and woman) who 'made' him - exactly what those feelings will be is not so easy to predict, I agree.

[The Feminist Mafia]

Peace out. :-)