Abstract
Although progress in the area of human reproduction continues to provide physicians and patients with increasingly successful means to solve infertility problems, significant difficulties remain. At present, no more than 30% of oocytes retrieved from a woman for in vitro fertilization (IVF) are likely to result in a pregnancy carried to term, with a national average term pregnancy rate of only 15.2% in 1991.1 However, a significant number of women cannot produce an adequate number of oocytes during any one cycle to ensure a firm likelihood of one of the oocytes being fertilized, implanted, and carried to term. Although we have drugs to stimulate oocyte production, many women produce only one or two eggs per 28-day cycle, and with IVF procedures ranging from $8000–12,000 for each attempt, couples are often unable to repeat these procedures. Two new reproductive techniques, blastomere separation and cloning, are currently being considered as treatment for women unable to produce an adequate amount of oocytes. The blastomere is the cell of the early cleaved embryo at the 2–32 cell stage. In October, 1993, the George Washington University Medical Center in Washington, DC reported having successfully duplicated genetically defective human embryos by blastomere separation.2,3
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Gibson, K.G., Massey, J.B. (1996). Ethical Considerations in the Multiplication of Human Embryos. In: Humber, J.M., Almeder, R.F. (eds) Reproduction, Technology, and Rights. Biomedical Ethics Reviews. Humana Press, Totowa, NJ. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-59259-450-4_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-59259-450-4_4
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