Deciding The Fate of Frozen Embryos

Right now at fertility clinics around the country, there are more than 100,000 stored frozen human embryos left over from fertility treatments, according to an estimate.

Often, when doctors fertilize embryos in a laboratory, it takes a few tries for a successful pregnancy and birth. But in many cases, not all the embryos created are ultimately needed.

The remaining ones are frozen for possible future use. In many cases, they are simply abandoned by the couples they belong to if they're no longer needed or wanted.

Which leaves the fertility clinics with the decision of what to do with them.

But as CBS News' Dr. Emily Senay reported on The Early Show, the law does not always keep pace with the advance of medical science and the ethical issues that arise with fertility treatments.

The latest edition of the New England Journal of Medicine addresses this problem in an editorial that says couples should only make decisions about leftover embryos when they are sure they no longer want them.

Although the issue of what to do with the embryos is often decided even before doctors begin to harvest them, things can change over the course of time.

Take the case in Massachusetts where a couple divorced after harvesting frozen embryos to try to get pregnant. She wanted to use some of the leftover eggs, but he did not. Although a multiple consent form had been signed at the beginning saying she could use them after divorce, he eventually changed his mind and the court sided with him. The forms meant nothing.

The law says that if after five years the couple cannot be found and can't be contacted, then the clinic has the right to destroy the eggs. It cannot donate them for research without that consent.

And researchers are not even sure of the life span of these embryos. Ten years is the outside limit, most people say. But they don't know how long they would last being frozen.