IJFAB Blog

A recent article has brought attention to a troubling policy in Poland surrounding the use of surplus frozen embryos left over from in-vitro fertilization treatment (IVF). IVF requires fertilization of an egg outside of the womb, and embryos not used are frozen. What to do with surplus frozen embryos is a debate within bioethics: some argue they should be “adopted” for use by other couples, others argue they should be used in research. Most laws or policies on the issue, however, allow the woman or couple to make the final choice, unless they waive that right.

But under a Polish law passed in 2015, women who are separated from their husbands are then considered “anonymous donors” whose embryos can be adopted to a married couple after 20 years–without their consent.

Because Barbara is separated from her husband, as a single woman, she is now treated as an “anonymous donor” under a law passed in Poland in 2015.

“If the embryos are taken away from me physically, I know that after 20 years they will no longer be mine [they will be] taken away against my will,” Barbara says sadly.

Her embryos — with the same genetic material as her two daughters — could become babies raised by a couple she will never meet, and she may never know what becomes of them.

When the regulations around IVF in Poland happened four years ago, putting Barbara in this situation, it was too late for single women who already had some of their embryos stored in dozens of clinics across the country.

They are no longer able to have their embryos transferred unless they have a male partner to help raise the child, Dr Magdalena Radkowska-Walkowicz says.

There are several ethical issues at stake– not only is adopting someone’s embryo to a married couple without consent a violation of one’s autonomy, but the law contains moral judgments about what the “ideal” family should be: clearly favoring married couples at the expense of the rights of single women. Further, the requirement that one must have a “male partner” in order to have access to one’s own embryos valorizes heterosexual relationships and reflects patriarchal norms.

 The Trump administration plans to limit the scientific and medical research that government agencies use when formulating public health policies, amidst protests from both scientists and physicians that this policy will undermine current scientific foundations for government legislation.

A new draft of the Environmental Protection Agency proposal, titled Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science, would require that scientists disclose all of their raw data, including confidential medical records, before the agency could consider an academic study’s conclusions. E.P.A. officials called the plan a step toward transparency and said the disclosure of raw data would allow conclusions to be verified independently.

The new regulations will make it more difficult to pass clean air and water laws because much research linking pollution to health issues relies on personal health information that is protected by confidentiality agreements with research participants. Potentially even more harmful, the new proposal could apply retroactively to current public health policies. Experts warn that studies we have relied on for decades, such as those that show mercury from power plants is harmful to brain development, may not longer be allowed as evidence once current public health regulations come up for renewal.

For instance, a groundbreaking 1993 Harvard University project that definitively linked polluted air to premature deaths, currently the foundation of the nation’s air-quality laws, could become inadmissible. When gathering data for their research, known as the Six Cities study, scientists signed confidentiality agreements to track the private medical and occupational histories of more than 22,000 people in six cities. They combined that personal data with home air-quality data to study the link between chronic exposure to air pollution and mortality.

But the fossil fuel industry and some Republican lawmakers have long criticized the analysis and a similar study by the American Cancer Society, saying the underlying data sets of both were never made public, preventing independent analysis of the conclusions.

The change reflects the Trump Administration’s broader effort to reduce the use of scientific research in government legislation. In the recent past, senior administration official have tried to water down the testimony of government scientists, publicly censured scientists who disagree with President Trump’s positions and prohibited government researchers from presenting their work at conferences. These efforts could have profoundly detrimental effects on both our environment and public health.

The Trump administration has been open about their family planning priorities, as evidenced in this 2018 blog post. The administration is pushing abstinence and “natural family planning” methods over safe, more effective contraceptives, emphasizing privately held religious values in public health programs.

Now, Sunlight Foundation’s Web Integrity Project, a nonprofit that monitors government sites for changes in information, has tracked the use of several terms related to sex education on the Department of Health and Human Services’ website since Trump’s election.

The term “faith-based” has seen the most increase, with the word now used 34 new times. While not showing as dramatic of an increase, the terms “marriage” “abstinence” and “natural family planning” have increased as well.

Equally concerning are the terms that are being used less: the words “gender” appears 68 fewer times “contraception” 20 fewer times, and “pregnancy” 19 fewer times. “Science-based” and”evidence-based” also saw decreases.

This is very concerning from a bioethics perspective, as the government is supposed to remain neutral on religious matters, and instead is inserting language reflecting privately held religious values into official government documents.