Test-tube babies: in vitro fertilisation (IVF)

Please click here to visit the HFE bill section of our website for the latest information and guidance about lobbying against IVF.

Please click here for a blog posts by John Smeaton, SPUC director on The intrinsic wrongnesss of IVF and The moral maze created by IVF

In vitro fertilisation (IVF) is the fertilisation of an ovum outside the body in a petrie-dish (in vitro is Latin for "in glass"). Most IVF is performed as fertility treatment. The single-celled human (zygote) is incubated until he/she is a hollow ball of cells, known as a blastocyst, who is transferred into a woman's body. IVF was pioneered in Britain, where Louise Brown, the first IVF (or test-tube) baby, was born on 25 July 1978. Since Ms Brown was born, hundreds of thousands of babies have been born using the same technique. One in 80 children (1.2%) born in Britain in 1997 was the result of IVF treatment.

Although IVF can result in live births, it actually involves extensive loss of human life. No fewer than 1.2 million human embryos in Britain have been killed or left frozen as a result of IVF. It has been widely acknowledged that fewer than 5% of embryos created in IVF survive to birth. One expert has estimated that only 1.7% of IVF conceptions leads to a live birth. The vast majority of human beings generated through IVF die before birth, many being killed even before transfer to the womb is attempted.

It has been reported recently that the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) may recommend to the government that IVF treatment should be offered free to all women under 40 who experience fertility problems. Although great sympathy must be shown for couples who suffer from infertility, IVF is a highly unreliable procedure that involves discarding and demeaning vast numbers of newly-conceived embryonic unborn children. Free IVF will mean that countless thousands more human beings, at their most vulnerable stage of development will be threatened by death or indignity. IVF is a very unsuccessful way of addressing infertility. The desire of scientists to obtain human embryos to experiment upon has resulted in the side-lining of other, more successful forms of infertility treatment which do not involve destructive embryo techniques. Health care resources should prioritise ethical and successful ways of helping childless couples - ways which do not involve the loss and degradation of human life.

What you need to know: experimenting with lives

A single IVF embryo has little chance of surviving till birth, and most IVF treatment cycles involve the generation of many test-tube embryos. In many cases more than one of these are transferred to the woman in the hope that at least one will successfully implant in the womb. Multiple embryo transfers combined with recent advances in medical technology have meant that twin and multiple births are at an all-time high. Multiple IVF pregnancies have sometimes led to so-called foetal reduction, whereby some unborn children are aborted to improve the chances of their siblings in a multiple pregnancy.

Given that more IVF embryos are created than are necessary, many are either discarded or kept frozen for future treatment or experimentation. A government minister told the House of Commons in December 2000: "Between 1991 and 1998, more than 750,000 embryos were created through IVF. Some 48,000 were donated for use in research and 237,000 were destroyed. The rest were either used in treatment or held for future use." Under UK law, IVF embryos cannot be experimented upon without the consent of their biological parents. After 10 years the embryos must be destroyed unless the parents consent to their continued storage. The massive loss of life involved led the highest constitutional court in Costa Rica to outlaw IVF in 2000. The court declared that, "the human embryo is a person from the moment of conception ... not an object" and decided that any form of IVF exposed embryos to "disproportionate risk of death".

There are currently tens of thousands of embryos in cold storage across the world and this has caused considerable problems. An audit of Britain's 118 IVF clinics in 2000 revealed that frozen embryos had been destroyed as a result of power failures, or implanted into the wrong women as a result of mistakes in data collection. The audit by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) found that electricity disruptions at "various" centres had led to the deaths of an undisclosed number of embryos in frozen storage. Errors in data collection led one former HFEA inspector to suggest that 1,000 test-tube babies may have been implanted into the wrong women, leading to as many as 30 live births. On 12.11.2000, The Sunday Times newspaper focused on the cases of four women. Two of them had their last remaining frozen embryos thrown away by mistake, one had another woman's embryo implanted which she then killed by abortion, and one wasted eight years of IVF treatment until it was discovered that she had been fitted with an [abortifacient] intrauterine coil all along.

IVF has led to unborn children being treated as 'commodities' or property. The medical director of an IVF clinic in Melbourne, Australia, revealed in June 2001 that 95% of couples who undergo IVF in the state of Victoria prefer their embryos to be killed after the statutory maximum of five years in storage rather than give them to other childless couples. Also, there have been bitter legal fights when parents of frozen embryos have separated.

IVF has also led to the development of other unethical experiments. In August 2003, scientists at King's College, London developed a cell line from embryonic stem cells. The embryonic child from whom the stem cells were taken had been handed over by his or her parents for experimentation after they had finished IVF treatment.

What you need to do: give out SPUC's IVF-related leaflets

One of the ways pro-lifers can take action against destructive embryo research is by telling their friends, colleagues, clergy and relatives that, while infertile couples deserve great sympathy, IVF is wrong.

You can visit the Leaflets page on our website to download leaflets related to IVF and print them out to give to others. You can also order a quantity from SPUC HQ.