"Though IVF has been around for a quarter-century and 1 million babies have been conceived through the procedure, which is performed at almost 400 clinics nationwide, there is insufficient research to show whether it is safe.

... According to the reports compiled by the CDC, about 25 percent of ART attempts result in live births."

(Source: Suz Redfearn, "A Reality Check on Assisted Reproduction," The Washington Post, November 4, 2003; Page HE01; http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A60350-2003Nov3.html.)   

"[I]t is good, once again, to note that our Lord Jesus did not take up residence in Mary's womb in the late hours of December 24th, rather, Jesus came as a human first as a zygote, then embryo, fetus, and only then as the babe in a manger.  If Christians are serious about the belief that Jesus was totally man while totally God-starting not at Christmas, but Annunciation-then procedures that either involve risk to embryonic life, or seek to manipulate its occurrence must be scrutinized carefully."

(Source: Karl John Shields, "Misbegotten or Made: Assisted Reproductive Technologies and the Link to Cloning," Crux, vol. 1, no. 2 [summer 2001] The Center for Bioethics and Culture; http://www.thecbc.org/crux/crux_no_2_summer.pdf.) 

Just a scant twenty-five years ago, Louise Brown made her entrée into the world, and ushered in the modern age of "assisted," or artificial - that is, technological - reproduction. In the intervening quarter-century, in vitro fertilization, and its corollary technologies, have been responsible for thousands of bouncing baby boys and girls received into waiting parents' arms. But at what costs?

In addition to birthing technological babies, in vitro fertilization also tends to produce a number of frozen embryos, either for use as a "back-up," or later implantation. As the authors of the current study patently state: "During ART clinical procedures, the number of human embryos produced is often in excess of the number that can be prudently transferred to the patient at one time."

For years, these frozen children have been cryopreserved in medical offices and storage facilities. But just how many are there? This is exactly what the seven researchers who authored this study, appearing in Fertility and Sterility, sought to discover: "Previous estimates of the number of human embryos in storage have ranged from as few as 30,000 to as many as 100,000 to 200,000," in the United States alone.

Using SART (The Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology) and Rand Corporation resources, the researchers quickly found that they had grossly underestimated. Two hundred ninety of 340 assisted reproductive facilities in the United States that did cryopreservation responded to the initial survey. "Responding clinics reported a total of 391,661 embryos in storage at clinic facilities at the time of the survey;" with almost another five thousand "stored" off-site. To the authors' amazement, they found, "[t]ogether, these two sources, using the more conservative off-site estimate, reveal a total of 396,526 embryos in storage as of April 11, 2002" - two times the highest previous estimate.

>From their survey, the researchers tell us that the overwhelming majority - 88.2 percent - of embryos is being stored for future patient treatment, with less than 3 percent being donated for research, just over two percent awaiting destruction and "an equal percentage is in storage awaiting donation to another patient." The final fraction is in storage for "use in quality assurance activities."

These researchers continue: "the number of stored embryos available for research was a very small fraction of the total, 2.8%. ... Only about 11,000 embryos have actually been designated for research. ... Although 11,000 embryos is a seemingly large number, these embryos may not have the highest developmental potential...."

Assisted reproduction has followed an inexorable progression, it seems. >From simple artificial insemination to in vitro fertilization; to more and more massaged versions of IVF, such as ICSI and GIFT - each technological step has increased the likelihood of producing a child, and of vitiating the family and ethical bonds that hold humankind together. Will the next steps down the technological reproduction path - cloning and human embryonic stem cell research - unravel them altogether?