BEIJING (CHINA DAILY/ASIA NEWS NETWORK) - Thirty years after the first test-tube baby was born in China, assisted reproduction centres in the country now face a dilemma: how to deal with leftover embryos, reported the Science and Technology Daily.
In a country where the number of test-tube babies ranks top in the world, up to 200,000 babies are born via in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) every year.
For every IVF cycle, the hospital cultivates several embryos, implants two into the uterus, and freezes the rest in liquid nitrogen tanks in the hospital.
Hospitals sign contracts with patients about the leftover embryos, which usually state that hospitals will keep the leftover embryos for some time - for example, six months. If the patients do not have further requirements, hospitals can discard the frozen embryos after the period.
Many patients subsequently lost contact with hospitals, so the leftover embryos become ownerless.
"Hospitals seldom discard embryos," said Dr Yu Qi, head of endocrine and reproductive gynaecology centre at Peking Union Medical College Hospital.
"From doctors' point of view, embryos have the possibility of growing into a baby, so we don't want to destroy them."
If hospitals keep the embryos, there is not enough room for the liquid nitrogen tanks. Cost is also a big problem. Freezing an embryo costs 1,000 to 3,000 yuan (S$200 to S$600) every year. The costs of storing these ownerless embryos are borne by hospitals.
Data showed that the number of frozen embryos passed the 10,000 mark several years ago in some cities, of which 60 per cent are ownerless.
"The law doesn't make clear whether embryos are human being or not. Though the hospital has signed contract with patients about discarding leftover embryos, it can face serious consequences if the law defines embryos as human beings one day," said Dr Yu.
"As long as the contract is signed based on two sides' true intentions, hospitals don't have to bear legal liability if they follow the contract," said associate professor Zhu Hu at the law school of Renmin University of China.
But Prof Zhu believes that the current contracts are too simple because many circumstances were not included in the contracts. For example, what if the couple divorces or one spouse dies, or the spouses have different opinion on how to deal with leftover embryos?
The best way is for the medical and law industries to co-produce a thorough contract model and for hospitals to make adjustments according to their situation, said Prof Zhu.
