Embryo is beginning of life, says doctor

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. "We should not play with words."

Giving evidence in the continuing action by a 41-year-old mother of two aimed at having implanted in her uterus three embryos, frozen in a Dublin clinic four years ago, 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. She agreed nothing can be done to save an embryo that does not implant.

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.

Dr Porcu was giving evidence in the second stage of the action relating to the three frozen embryos which were left over after successful IVF treatment undertaken in 2002 by the woman and her 44-year-old husband. The couple separated in late 2002 and the husband is opposed to the remaining embryos being implanted in his wife's uterus.

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 a consent by the husband for the implantation of the remaining embryos in his wife's uterus.

The woman claims she is entitled to an order vindicating the right to life of the three embryos. She is also looking for orders vindicating both her right and the embryos' right to family life, the return of the frozen embryos to her and an order preventing their destruction.

Mr Justice McGovern is being asked to decide issues of public and constitutional law, including issues relating to the status of the embryos under the Constitution, particularly in the context of the 1983 amendment vindicating the right to life of the unborn.

Yesterday, Dr Porcu, of the Assisted Reproductive Unit attached to the school of medicine in the University of Bologna, said she was also a director of the infertility and IVF centre of the university since 1990.

She did more than 500 cycles of IVF per year, using all the techniques available, and had developed a new technique involving the transfer of sperm by microscopic injection into a frozen egg - the Intro Cytic Plasmic Sperm Injection. This technique was an alternative to freezing embryos and, in 1997, it led to the first batch of frozen human eggs being fertilised with a sperm injection.

Dr Porcu agreed the Italian and German governments operated probably the most restrictive regime relating to IVF in Europe.

IVF treatment could be compatible with respect for embryos, she believed. In her view, there would be an important change if the storage of embryos was eliminated and replaced with the separate storage of eggs and sperm. This would avoid wastage of embryos and cases such as the one before the court, she believed.

The case resumes on Tuesday.