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Bill and Susan McNamara have huge reproductive problems.³ Bill has an extremely low sperm count, and Susan is allergic to the few sperm he has. Beyond that, Susan’s uterus is misshapen, making implantation and growth of an embryo extremely difficult. Despite the immense barriers the McNamaras produced three beautiful children: twenty-month-old twins and their five-year-old brother. At first glance it appears to be a wonderful story of scientific success. But there is more to the story.

During the first days of embryonic development, the McNamara children were grown on pieces of cow uterus before being implanted in Susan’s womb. The ethical issues with this procedure are not rooted in the utilisation of non-human elements to aid the procreative process, nor in the so-called “yuk factor” (the visceral reaction to the very notion of embryos growing on animal tissue). After all, human therapy using heart valves from pigs involves the use of animal tissue to aid a human biological process, and yet there is not an outcry against this procedure.

So why the moral fuss over the McNamara’s method of growing embryos? The heart of the issue is the potential risk to the children. Animal diseases, either known or unknown, can easily be transmitted to humans through xenotransplantation (the use of live animal cells, tissues and organs for transplantation). There is the potential, both in xenotransplantation and in the utilization of animals in the procreation process, of placing humans at major risk of contracting new types of infectious diseases. For example, while pigs show great promise as a source for human organ transplants, there is a concern over what are called porcine endogenous retroviruses (PERVs for short), which are part of the animals’ genes and could lead to new diseases in humans. Underscoring this concern is our experience with the HIV virus (the virus that causes AIDS), since many researchers believe that this virus lived harmlessly in green monkeys but became deadly when it entered humans. These and other examples illustrate the clear need for very close regulation of newly emerging experimentation involving animals. The problem is that the use of animals in reproduction remains largely unregulated, as does the whole of the multi-billion-dollar ART industry.

The McNamara’s procedure was a “co-culture” method that potentially runs the risk of grave danger to the offspring, without a system for discerning long-term risks. Co-culture, the use of animal cells and tissue to grow human embryos, has been in the works for some time at an experimental level. However, it was not until March 2002 that the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) began to realize this and sent warning letters to infertility clinics not to proceed without FDA approval. The FDA warned that this method was really a form of xenotransplantation and ran the risk of passing on infectious diseases to mother and offspring, diseases that might lie dormant for years before being detected. We simply lack knowledge of the potential long-term impacts. At this point, although the FDA regulation does not totally ban co-culture, it does recommend lifelong monitoring of people born through one of these procedures. Thus, the risks are very real.

Utilizing a cow uterus to have children is not the only thing the McNamaras did. They also unsuccessfully attempted intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), in which a single sperm is injected directly into an egg. This procedure, first developed by researchers in Brussels, is now utilized in 40% of all ART cycles. Many scientists have been skeptical of the technology because it bypasses the natural selection process that often ensures that unhealthy sperm and eggs are not united, a union that could result in the passing on of genetic defects from parents to future generations. In March 2002, a study in The New England Journal of Medicine reported that the risk of birth defects doubles with the two most common reproductive technologies–IVF (in vitro fertilisation) and ICSI. When children are conceived naturally, 4% have major birth defects, but 9% of children conceived from IVF or ICSI techniques were reported during their first year of life to have major birth defects. Further studies have evidenced a potential link between ART and birth defects such as childhood cancer, genetic disorders, heart problems, and cognitive dysfunctions. At this point the exact nature of the link is unknown, and the exact point at which it becomes unethical to assume such risks is not totally clear. But to move forward with new methods of conception and procreation without considering the risks to the resulting children is highly problematic.

The concern of potential risks to offspring is not primarily about the economic or psychological impact upon the parents in raising a child with disabilities. After all, parents may prepare for and manage quite well with such challenges. Rather, the issue is about the impact on the children, which brings us back to our fundamental question: Do we have a right to have a child at all costs? In answering this question, we should note up front that rights always have limitations and that good, God-given drives are meant to function within the parameters of God’s design of and givens for human life. Unfortunately, in a rights-oriented culture such as our own, the limitations are too often set aside.

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