VAYA, me pregunto por qué ocurrirá esto; al fin y al cabo un embrión no es más que una masa informe de células, como la caspa, no?

At least 400,000 embryos are frozen at clinics around the country, with more being added every day, and many people who are done having children are finding it harder than they had ever expected to decide the fate of those embryos.

A new survey of 1,020 fertility patients at nine clinics reveals more than a little discontent with the most common options offered by the clinics. The survey, in which Ms. Best took part, is being published on Thursday in the journal Fertility and Sterility.

Among patients who wanted no more children, 53 percent did not want to donate their embryos to other couples, mostly because they did not want someone else bringing up their children, or did not want their own children to worry about encountering an unknown sibling someday.

Forty-three percent did not want the embryos discarded. About 66 percent said they would be likely to donate the embryos for research, but that option was available at only four of the nine clinics in the survey. Twenty percent said they were likely to keep the embryos frozen forever.

Embryos can remain viable for a decade or more if they are frozen properly but not all of them survive when they are thawed.

Smaller numbers of patients wished for solutions that typically are not offered. Among them were holding a small ceremony during the thawing and disposal of the embryos, or having them placed in the woman’s body at a time in her cycle when she would probably not become pregnant, so that they would die naturally.

Nota para despistados o para quienes no sepan lo que pienso en este tema: no soy partidario del aborto (pero no por motivos religiosos, porque sabéis que soy un ateo incurable); pero sí soy partidario de la investigación con células madre embrionarias (aunque lo que otros defensores de la misma sí reconozco que a corto plazo se están produciendo más resultados con células madre adultas, y la fijación en la investigación con aquéllas desvía recursos hacia el trabajo con éstas, que tendría resultados más inmediatos). Sí, aunque pueda parecer contradictorio, hay un proceso lógico detrás de mi postura, que explicaré algún día que tenga un poco de tiempo...