Poll: Couples willing to donate frozen embryos

WASHINGTON – A majority of couples with stored embryos from fertility treatments say they would be willing to donate unused embryos for stem cell research, says a doctor who surveyed patients.

“Large numbers of infertility patients … support using embryos for research, and these are people who have invested emotionally and financially in these embryos,” Dr. Anne Drapkin Lyerly of Duke University said in a telephone interview Wednesday.

Use of stem cells derived from embryos is a moral issue that has troubled politicians, religious and medical leaders and couples with stored embryos. And it’s an issue with strong advocates on both sides. The problem is, obtaining stem cells kills the embryo.

Many see this as wrong and argue that they are protecting life. That’s what led President Bush to veto a bill Wednesday that would have eased limits on using embryos in research.

Others point out that many stored embryos will be destroyed anyway, and letting them be used in research could lead to lifesaving treatments.

So Lyerly and Ruth R. Faden of Johns Hopkins University decided to ask the opinions of couples who had undergone fertility treatments and who had frozen embryos at treatment centers.

They chose nine fertility centers around the country and randomly selected more than 2,000 couples to be sent questionnaires.

Of 1,020 people who responded by saying they still had embryos in storage, 49 percent said they were likely to donate some or all of them for research. When asked specifically about stem cell research, the portion willing to donate embryos rose to 62 percent.

“It suggests that people are more willing to pursue research when they know more about it and how it might benefit their fellow citizens,” Lyerly said.

The findings are published in this week’s online edition of the journal Science and will appear in the journal’s July 6 print edition.