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July 19, 2006 5:01 PM
Snowflakes
Just had a very interesting conversation with Ron Stoddart, the executive director of NIGHTLIGHT CHRISTIAN ADOPTIONS, which is responsible for the “Snowflakes" frozen embryo adoption program heralded by the President today.
Hopefully some of the questions I asked before are answered herein. (I should point out that the White House communications shops asked Stoddart to call me to answer my questions from earlier today.)
Nightlight Christian Adoptions has been doing traditional domestic adoptions for 47 years, and international adoptions – primarily older Russian children, Stoddart says – for 14. The Snowflake program, where parents adopt embryos from fertility clinics began in 1997 with the first child born as a result of Snowflakes in 1998.
Stoddart says that 110 babies have been born in total, with “20 more on the way.” There have been 273 donor families, he says, donating anywhere from one to 10 embryos per couple. They have been matched with 178 adopting parents. My math was correct – that means 143 embryos did not survive the process.
“Typically when we transfer or thaw the embryos, about half of them survive thawing,” Stoddart reports. “Of those that survive, about a third result in a birth.” Two-thirds of the embryos that survive thawing don’t become a baby either because of miscarriage or failure to implant in the adoptive mother’s uterus. Adopting parents pay for the process, with fees totaling about $6,500.
Now, as for the ethical and moral dilemmas in this debate ---
“We believe that life begins at conception even if it's outside the body,” Stoddart says. In an embryo from in vitro fertilization, “everything is present to result in a live birth.”
What about all the children who have been born and don’t have homes? Why not emphasize their needs instead of the embryos?
“The problem is with domestic adoptions there are probably 20 adopting families waiting for every baby born who will be put up for adoption,” Stoddart says. “Those adoptive parents may have to wait 2 years or more. If you’re able to carry a child, it’s easier to adopt an embryo than a baby.”
But those are babies, not children in general, right?
”Yes,” Stoddart says, “older children available for adoption are typically in foster care and it’s government policy to encourage the foster parents to adopt those children.”
Does he feel a child up for an adoption and an embryo in a fertility clinic have the same value?
“Intrinsically they have the same value, but the needs are different,” Stoddart says. “The need as not as acute with a frozen embryo – it can stay frozen for another 6 months, while a child needs parents now.”
How long can embryos remain frozen?
“We’ve had children born from embryos that have been frozen for over 10 years. We have yet to find a cut-off date.”
In all those instances when an embryo dies during the process, does his organization or the adoptive parents have any type of memorial service?
“No, but when I say no don’t interpret that to mean we take it lightly and consider the fact the embryo didn’t survive a non-event,” Stoddart says. “But we don’t have memorial services or anything to mark their passing.”
Stoddart says it’s not the thawing but the “process of freezing embryos after in vitro fertilization that subjects nearly half those embryos to not surviving later on. If we had our druthers -- we're not going to campaign to revise in vitro fertilization procedures – but we would prefer for them to only create the number of embryos that are going to be implanted within the fresh cycle, before they’re frozen. But not every family can afford to go through the process, which costs about $15,000-$20,000. So because of the economics, fertility clinics create many more embryos than are needed just in case a family chooses to have more children later.”
Does he agree with the president that the destruction of an embryo is “murder”?
“Murder is a legal term,” he says. “It certainly is a killing, the taking of a life.”
So why not try to stop the discarding of embryos that goes on thousands of times a month at fertility clinics?
“We're not seeking legislation to stop it because some of these issues are better solved reaching the hearts and minds of people rather than legislating what they can and cannot do. We're also very aware that there are children all over the world dying of malnutrition, hunger and disease. And when you’re trying to save lives and help children, there isn’t a one-dimensional approach. You realize there’s a lot to do. You may not be able to do all of it, but we’d like to do as much as we can.”
-- jt
July 19, 2006 | Permalink | Share | User Comments (4)
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Speaking of stem cells, how is Don Ho? I understand he is back at his club and active after stem cell treatment in Asia early this year
Posted by: flyover | Jul 22, 2006 1:56:59 PM
I do not understand the concept of a so-called prolife philosophy, when Texas has the death penalty and when almost 2800 "kids" -- virtually children 19-25 years who had their whole lives before them and perhaps would have their own children are lying dead because of an ideological made up war. Of the ones that have not died, others are so emotionally distraught for the rest of their lives -- this is unforgiveable -- using someones frozen embryos for other than livesafing research makes no sense, morally and ethically.
There are plenty of children to adopt from Africa, the Sudan, and the U.S. (if poverty continues on the crash course it's on). How can we create more children from these embryos; when there are plenty of children starving around the world?? What has happened to common sense, where did it go??
Posted by: Paulet | Jul 20, 2006 12:11:52 PM
Mr. Stoddart and his organization appear to be fulfilling a need for adoptive babies, since it seems that babies are the children most likely to be adopted first. It still bothers me that frozen embryos seem to be getting better treatment in terms of adoption options than children who are alive today, though.
Posted by: chuck | Jul 20, 2006 8:00:55 AM
A consistent "pro-life" policy would be absolutely opposed to capital punishment (the legal killing of people by the state), war in general and "unjust" wars in particular, and abortion. The Alfred E. Newman governor of Texas who signed more death sentences in his time in office than any other governor during the same time period and whose actions caused the death of over 2,500 American troops (so far), the serious wounding of over 25,000 other US citizens, and the killing of over 75,000 (at least) Iraqis is in NO position whatsoever to talk about the moral issue of using an 8 or 16 cell entity for the sake of solving the severe health problems of people.
Posted by: sophillyfatz | Jul 19, 2006 9:41:12 PM
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