Test tube

The Polish state will not subsidize in vitro fertilization. The decision comes as a result of a debate which started in November when the Health Minister hinted the government might consider earmarking some funds for the purpose.

Joanna Najfeld reports

Even though the European convention on bioethics obliges Poland to set up laws protecting embryos produced in the in vitro procedure, Poland doesn't have any legal regulations in this area.

Still, thousands of children are born as a result of artificial fertilization in Polish in vitro clinics. For every child born, dozens of embryos die or are kept frozen for possible future use. Katarzyna Kozioł of one of Warsaw in vitro clinics:

'We always produce more embryos than are needed. In our clinic about 20% of embryos do not survive freezing and unfreezing. Those that survive result in pregnancy in 20-30% of cases.'

Waste bins and fridges full of human embryos is the main ethical problem of the procedure. However, opponents point to other aspects, such as risks to the child's and mother's health, but also dignity and psychological integrity of both parents and children. Maria Środoń of Mater Care, an international organization of gynecologists and obstetricians:

'In vitro fertilization gives an unwarranted amount of power to clinics and laboratories and that is power over children and the children are totally reduced to commodities. They are made to order: selection procedures, quality control procedures might involve the parents establishing upfront what eye color or different genetic qualities they want of their children. IVF completely bypasses treatment procedures and actually adds to the health problems. Ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome, for one, can be a fatal condition. Moreover, the mother is reduced just to virtually a breeding animal. Likewise, IVF dehumanizes the sperm donor. He is required to achieve arousal in a clinic closet with the aid of pornography. In addition, the rate of health problems and various congenital abnormalities among children born from IVF procedures is higher and IVF often results in multiple pregnancies.  In these cases, parents get together with the doctor to determine which of the babies should be aborted. I can hardly imagine a worse beginning to parental love.'
 
With strong emotions on both sides of the debate, the idea of the health ministry to subsidize in vitro procedures with tax payers' money sparked heated discussions. Leftist politicians started lobbying for the idea and the Polish Church published a letter to the faithful in which bishops reiterated the teaching on in vitro as a sophisticated form of abortion. Even the strongest desire to have children cannot justify the expense of dozens other innocent lives, the Church argued in the letter. The government took the critique seriously and decided to set up a special committee to examine the question in detail.

'I believe that the joint committee of the government and the Episcopate will talk even about the most difficult issues. I hope it will find solutions to all the doubts that are raised in public,' said Zbigniew Chlebowski, head of the ruling Civic Platform party parliamentary club. The committee may launch its first session in January.

Meanwhile, leftist politicians have been accusing the ruling party of political alliances with the Church. Having noticed the political rhetoric in the media coverage of this major ethical issue, the Media Ethics Council appealed to journalists and commentators not to reduce the subject to abstract politics, but help the public form their own views based on solid medical, ethical and factual knowledge about the core of the question - in vitro procedure and the business around it.