A survey conducted by Duke University and Johns Hopkins indicates well over half of the infertile couples who have frozen embryos in storage would be very likely to donate the extras for scientific research.
If all respondents to the survey were taken up on their offer, conservative estimates say there would be around 100,000 embryos available for research. The news shocks Ron Stoddart of the Snowflake Embryo Adoption Program.
“I just didn’t believe it," he told Family News in Focus. "I mean it just did not ring true.”
Only 22 percent of respondents said they would be willing to place their embryo for adoption with infertile couples. That’s disappointing to Nicole Bell, mom of two frozen-embryo babies.
“These embryos were intentionally created for the purpose of life," she said, "and it’s so shocking to me that so many people are just so willing to throw them away.”
Stoddart claims ulterior motives on the part of scientists wanting to get their hands on the frozen embryos.
“They’ll use the embryos and the stem cells from those embryos for preliminary, general research and then it goes the next step to cloning," he said.
