The debate that should have and still should settle the Congress of the Argentine Nation through the legislation of an ordering standard still pendingreturned to the center of the scene and is part of the public agenda, when it became known that the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation will meet in the coming weeks to discuss the issue in public hearings.
It is a subject that touches sensitive edges both in the areas of health, science and bioethics. In these days it regained relevance when the case of a couple who decided at a time of family projection to cryopreserve embryos to have babies, but following their separation they went to a fertility clinic to have them discarded. They are no longer together and they decided to annul the family decision they had made.
The clinic refused to discard the embryos and explained to them in which cases it had stipulated to terminate the contract. and asked them for one judicial authorization to advance in the discard. Then, the issue was prosecuted and went through two instances. In the first, a judge denied that possibility to the now ex-partner. But in the second instance, the Civil Chamber revoked this decision saying that the clinic might not oppose it. The ruling was appealed and the Supreme Court of Justice must now make the final decision.
The view of the experts in Reproductive Medicine
Given the lack of legislation, the expert specified that other options might be evaluated. “From my point of view, it is painful to thaw an embryo to throw away. they might Be part of a national embryo bank in a public hospital to be allocated to couples who are unable to conceive. There are countless options for them to survive and not end up in the trash. We as a clinic ask judicial authorization since opinions are divided and there is no legislation to follow”, added the expert who has specialized in assisted reproduction techniques for 25 years.
The fertility doctor Sergio Pasqualini (MN 39914) explained to Infobae that “all the embryos that are generated are for assisted fertilization treatments, not for any other type of use other than reproductive.” And following acknowledging that “there are more than those that are transferred and frozen” he considered that “a law is necessary that says what to do with these embryos that do not have a defined destination.”
“There is a difference between the post implantation embryo and the pre implantation and it is the status of ‘person’, which is acquired following implantation in the maternal womb. This was determined by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in the Artavia Murillo ruling and in that sense the local legislation should go, ”he considered.
For his part, Dr. Stella Lancubapresident of the Argentine Society of Reproductive Medicine (SAMeR), explained that “fertility centers that report data to SAMeR are expectant. They keep the embryos frozen until there is a regulatory framework, understanding that the decisions on cryopreserved embryos correspond to the autonomous criteria of the people”.
“In the data that they provide (the couple that performs the fertilization treatment) there is the figure of the embryonic abandonment. The centers understand that this decision exceeds their powers, a situation that perpetuates the abandonment and requires a social and legislative solution, ”he assured.
Lancuba explained that, for example, Japan refers the embryos to research if following three years of freezing the prospective parents do not renew their maintenance or the patient exceeds reproductive age. The United States and Brazil have similar regulations, so it is proposed to analyze the possibility of deriving abandoned embryos in Argentina to the national scientific system for stem cell research, under the corresponding legal framework.
