Egging on the post-human.

Yet another good news story for Victoria on the Move and Backing Australia's Ability: Monash IVF is opening a clinic in collaboration with a hospital in Shanghai (Age, 20/05/04). Following the lead of its close collaborators at the Monash Institute of Reproduction and Development, Monash IVF is moving into overseas joint ventures. With branches across Victoria and Queensland, 'an agreement for a clinic in Hungary', and backed by world-renowned scientific and medical research and development in embryology, Monash IVF is 'going global'.

Age reporter Amanda Dunn seemed to think the most important parts of the story 'Monash IVF sets up in China, but sex-selection not an option' were those reported in any discussion of fertility in China: gender preference and birth restrictions. In a country with a known cultural preference for sons, sex selection will not be allowed, although other forms of genetic and chromosomal screening of embryos will be permitted. And those undergoing treatment--married couples only, no surrogacy allowed--would be exempt from the 'single-child policy as multiple births were a risk of IVF treatment'. Indeed, although researchers increasingly suggest the fewer embryos implanted the better, embryos are usually implanted at least in pairs.

What is more interesting is what lies at the edges of Dunn's interview with Donna Howlett, managing director of Monash IVF. Firstly, one assumes that those couples successful in achieving a live (if multiple) birth will once again be subject to the single-child policy. The intention seems to be to avoid penalising couples for multiple births beyond their control but not to allow an extended permission to procreate.

Second, as we know, the best-case outcomes on IVF run at around twenty per cent so, as is the case across the world, there will inevitably be a majority of participants who will undergo hyper-ovulation and implantation cycles without producing a child. According to Dunn's article, not only is surrogacy forbidden, but nor is the donation of embryos permitted. So, neither those who achieve the birth of a child nor the eighty per cent of couples who are likely to be unsuccessful will be able to use or donate their embryos once they have exhausted their resources. However, research on embryos is permitted, with approval.

One can't help but wonder what will happen to the 'excess' embryos created in a system that will, by its nature, quickly lead to a pool of embryos that neither the parents nor anyone else can use to create a pregnancy.

Various legislatures here and overseas have spent years wrestling with what to do with 'excess' IVF embryos and how to approve their use in research, most contentiously embryonic stem cell research. The outcome in Australia was approving research on IVF embryos and placing a moratorium on 'therapeutic' cloning. In a system that allows as many IVF cycles as an individual is prepared to put herself through, and as many births as you desire, Australia has created a 'stock-pile' of around 80,000 embryos potentially available for these purposes. In the many countries that are jumping on the biotechnological bandwagon, but are relatively new to the field, the progress on regulation and legislation lags well behind the galloping pace of research.

Therapeutic cloning has already been attempted, reportedly successfully, in China. It is a disturbing thought that, beneath a happy tale of corporate success and scientific innovation, there may be a darker reality. Are we already seeing women in developing countries becoming 'embryo banks' or 'egg farms' for the techno-scientific research of the developed world?

Post-script. ABC Radio, AM, Saturday 29 May, 2004. 'Clone Vote' Edmond Roy reported that in an attempt to exempt therapeutic cloning from a worldwide ban, 'a group of international stem cell researchers will meet at the UN to try to convince those countries opposed to all forms of cloning to change their minds.' These include lan Wilmut, cloner of Dolly the sheep, Professor Woo Suk Hwang, Korean cloning expert, and Professor Alan Trounson, founder of the National Stem Cell Centre and Scientific Director of Monash IVF.

Kate Cregan is the author of forthcoming publication The Body Turns: The Anthropology and Sociology of the Body (Sage, 2004).