USA Today Editorial, Opinion Piece Discuss State Embryo Rights Bills Proposed In Wake Of Octuplet Case

Main Category: Fertility
Also Included In: Women's Health / Gynecology
Article Date: 19 Mar 2009 - 5:00 PDT

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USA Today on Wednesday included an editorial and an opposing opinion piece examining proposed state legislation to regulate the fertility industry. Summaries appear below.

~ USA Today: Although the case of 33-year-old Nadya Suleman, who gave birth to octuplets in January after undergoing in vitro fertilization, "points to the need for safeguards to prevent it from begin repeated," a bill (S.B. 169) in the Georgia Legislature to define an embryo as a human being is the "wrong way to address the problem," a USA Today editorial states. According to the editorial, "antiabortion activists hijacked the Suleman case to advance their agenda" through the legislation, which seeks to "declare an embryo to be 'a biological human being'" and "limit the number of embryos that could be implanted." Although the Georgia Senate went on to pass a "dialed back" version of the bill, efforts at "defining embryos as people -- as activists in at least five other states are also attempting to do -- represent a back-door way for abortion to be defined as murder," the editorial says. These efforts include prohibiting fertility clinics from fertilizing more eggs than are implanted and restricting embryonic stem cell research. "More ominously, the efforts could expose doctors who discard unused embryos, and stem cell researchers who damage embryos, to prosecution," the editorial states, adding that there is "no need to complicate the Suleman case by mixing in abortion politics." The editorial continues that the "core issue" is the lack of regulation of the U.S. fertility industry. Although most clinics follow the American Society for Reproductive Medicine's IVF guidelines, "which evolve along with medical knowledge and ethical debate," the organization's recommendations "have no teeth," the editorial says. According to the editorial, the "most practical way" to address the issue is a Missouri proposal that "would require doctors to follow ASRM guidelines on the number of embryos to be implanted, under penalty of losing their state medical licenses." The proposal "has the virtues of being straightforward and simple," and "[i]t's about protecting health and safety," the editorial says. It concludes, "It doesn't play abortion politics. If other states followed suit, the sad and unusual story of Suleman would be less likely to be replicated" (USA Today, 3/18).

~ Jill Stanek, USA Today: "Now is the time for pro-lifers to introduce legislation in their states regulating IVF and, with it, the creation and care of embryos," Stanek, a weekly columnist for World Net Daily, writes in an opinion piece responding to the USA Today editorial. According to Stanek, the original Georgia bill had "perfect model language" on limiting the number of embryos to be implanted, which she says would curtail the practice of freezing embryos and reduce the need for selective reductions. Although that language was eliminated from the bill, the measure "still importantly defines embryos outside the uterus as human beings, so court disputes must be decided in the best interest of the embryo, not either parent fighting over the embryo." She writes that a "movement in this direction is gathering force," citing a 1986 Louisiana law that defines embryos outside the uterus as human beings and the ongoing push for similar legislation in five other states. Stanek continues that the procedure to extract eggs for IVF "is potentially dangerous for women" and that "IVF is certainly dangerous to pre-born humans." She writes that the "Suleman case has exposed a need to regulate the IVF industry, the sooner the better," concluding, "Currently sea turtles in the U.S. enjoy more procreative protection than women and children" (Stanek, USA Today, 3/18).

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