The current paradigm of IVF treatment is to get as many embryos as possible and then select the best embryos (the one which has the best chance of becoming a baby once transferred into the uterus. The increase in IVF success over the last 10 years is almost exclusively owed to embryo selection.
This paradigm has been successful if the success is defined as a chance of pregnancy. However, it has two serious intrinsic problems:
Pregnancies with multiple gestations
Unwanted embryos (millions of them)
The more recent trend of selective single embryo transfer solves the problem of pregnancies with multiple gestations but not the problem of accumulating number of embryos, most of which will eventually be discarded.
The new reproductive embryology technologies, however, brings us into the new, more organic, more ethical, safer IVF, which in 3-5 years will make our current practice look like middle ages.
The name of the technology - oocytes vitrification, which according to ASRM is no longer considered experimental.
Today it is used primarily to cryopreserve oocytes from donors and cancer patients, but it has the potential to revolutionize the entire IVF process in many ways.
EMBCOL’s opinion, which is expressed in a letter to the California Department of Health, outlines in detail its' argument that an embryo before implantation is at a unique stage in human development requiring a unique set of ethical standards developed specifically for that stage.
EMBCOL’s strongly discourages destruction of viable human embryos for any reasons. Its position is that patients have to be presented with every option, including embryo donation, before they authorize the destruction of viable embryos.
EMBCOL envisions that in the not so remote future, the technology will enable embryology practitioners to move from creating multiple embryos and subsequently selecting the single most viable embryo to the creation of the single embryo that will be viable.