Barcodes now show up everywhere, including on your smart phone as a boarding pass. In Germany, eggs are individually bar coded, prompting one company to create an app so that shoppers could scan and select the best eggs.[1] The latest use for barcodes? To “unscramble” human eggs intended for use in IVF (in vitro fertilization).
Embryo mix-ups do happen. Shannon and Paul Morrell were featured on the Today Show with their son Logan, who was created via IVF using Shannon and Paul’s egg and sperm. But the embryo was mistakenly transferred to the womb of Carolyn Savage.[2] Rather than opting for abortion, Carolyn continued the pregnancy and gave birth to Logan, who was then handed over to the Morrells.
Can technology come up with a solution to such mix-ups? Researchers at the Autonomous University of Barcelona have developed microscopic silicon barcodes that can be applied just inside the membrane of an egg after harvesting, but before fertilization.[3] These barcodes could then be used to identify and keep track of newly created embryos. Currently, they are being tested in mice, with the goal of eventually using them in human embryos.
Is there a problem here? Or is this just a matter of developing technology to minimize human errors, similar to changing packing to avoid pharmaceutical mix-ups?[4]
The language and processes of assisted reproduction already tend to commodify children like manufactured products. An embryo is not something you retrieve from the grocery store shelf and scan at check-out. Yet, both the language and techniques of in vitro fertilization evoke the “production” embedded in “assisted reproduction,” rather than the “creation” that is at the root of “procreation.” Cultural terms that describe embryos as “Grade A,” “blasts,” or “pre-embryos” minimize their true value and importance. (You will not find these terms in any credible embryology textbook.)
The Barcelona barcode experiments raise the risk of harm to the embryo from a mistake in applying the silicon barcode or inability of the embryo to shed the barcode. Technology-induced harm would be a devastating outcome for fertility patients, and even more so for the embryos exposed to unnecessary harm. IVF babies already face an elevated risk for certain genetic and development defects;[5] why would we subject them to more?
And while the barcode technology may address the problem of tracking eggs, it does not address the issue of sperm mix-ups, which occur more frequently. Corporate risk managers could demand a tracking system for sperm. This is not a fanciful scenario, as evidenced by the tangle of legal cases for children created with the “wrong” sperm.
In Singapore, one man’s sperm was mistakenly used in another couple’s IVF procedure. How to resolve the unintended genetic father’s legal relationship to the resulting offspring was “unclear.”[6] In the UK, parents of a child born with darker skin than theirs sued for damages and lost. The clinic had mistakenly used sperm from a donor who belonged to a mixed-race community in South Africa.[7] In the U.S., a Hispanic woman and her Caucasian husband sued when they discovered their child was much darker than they expected. Their clinic had erroneously used sperm from an African-American male. The couple won.[8]
These situations illustrate an aspect of assisted reproduction that does not occur with babies made “the traditional way. IVF’s language, techniques, and technological fixes make it increasingly easy to regard children created this way as products that must pass inspection, rather than as unique human persons. Is this a moral tangle we can unscramble?
References
[1] Isabelle de Pommereau. “Good egg or bad? A German tech firm gives shoppers the answer.” The Christian Science Monitor Global News Blog. Jan. 18 2011. http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Global-News/2011/0118/Good-egg-or-bad-A-German-tech-firm-gives-shoppers-the-answer.
[2] Susan Donaldson James, “Carolyn and Sean Savage Expecting Twins With Surrogate; Relief After 2009 Embryo Mix-Up,” abcnews, April 7, 2011. http://abcnews.go.com/Health/carolyn-sean-savage-embryo-mix-now-expect-twins/story?id=13318708 (accessed Jun 13, 2011).
[3] Cian O'Luanaigh, “Fertilised Eggs Get Microscopic Bar Codes,” New Scientist, November 23, 2010. http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2010/11/theres-something-in-my-eggs.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news (accessed June 6, 2011).
[4] The HFEA (UK government’s Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority) commissioned a study to reduce mix-ups in the use of sperm in IVF. “Witnessing the identification of samples.” HFEA www.hfea.gov.uk/533.html (accessed Jan. 14, 2011).
[5] See, e.g., Sarah Boseley, “High doses of IVF drugs may cause harm to eggs.” The Guardian. July 3, 2011. http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/jul/04/ivf-drugs-women-chromosome-eggs (accessed Jan. 14, 2012).
[6] K.C. Vijayan, “IVF Mix-up Legal rights of biological dad unclear.” Nov. 9, 2010. http://www.healthxchange.com.sg/News/Pages/IVF-Mix-Up-Legal-rights-of-biological-dad-unclear.aspx
[7] Ed Madden. “IVF mix-up led to ethnically different twins.” Irish Medical Times. July 28, 2011. http://www.imt.ie/opinion/2011/07/ivf-mix-up-led-to-ethnically-different-kids.html.
[8] MacKenna Roberts. “IVF baby born after sperm mix-up leads to US lawsuit.” March 26, 2007. BioNews. http://www.bionews.org.uk/page_13020.asp.