Doctor says no reason to destroy embryos

AN Italian doctor involved in new developments in IVF treatment has told the High Court it is “really difficult” to find a scientific reason to support the destruction of embryos created during such treatment.

Dr Eleonora Porcu said it was her view that an embryo is the beginning of human life and it was “totally arbitrary” and unacceptable to draw any type of distinction in the development of an embryo, such as distinctions between a pre-embryo, an embryo, a foetus, a newborn and an infant.

Dr Porcu works at the Assisted Reproductive Unit attached to the University of Bologna.

Giving evidence in the continuing action by a 41-year-old mother of two looking to have three embryos, frozen in a Dublin clinic four years ago, implanted in her uterus, Dr Porcu said that, when a single cell arrived from an egg and sperm, there was a new biological entity.

“An embryo is the beginning of human life, no one can say any different. The first cell is the beginning, the first cell of the new individual.”

Implantation of an embryo in the uterus had nothing to do with the intrinsic value of an embryo, she said. It was “a completely different phase of feeding the embryo” but the nature of the embryo itself did not alter at this stage.

It would be “unfair” to nature if humans, having found a way to procreate in the laboratory, to then decide that the embryo would not be put in the uterus, Dr Porcu added.

From a scientific point of view, no scientist could say exactly what an embryo is, she said. There was “deep doubt” about the true nature of the embryo relating to the interplay between the various subsequent steps after fertilisation.

In an earlier part of the case, Mr Justice Brian McGovern ruled that documents signed by the husband during the fertility treatment did not constitute consent by the woman’s husband for the implantation of the remaining embryos.

The couple separated in late 2002 and the husband is opposed to the remaining embryos being implanted in his wife’s uterus.

In this second stage of the case, Mr Justice McGovern is being asked to decide issues of public and constitutional law.

In 2004, the Italian government introduced controversial legislation banning freezing of embryos except in exceptional circumstances and restricting the destruction of embryos.

The case resumes on Tuesday.