Unpacking the 'Spare Embryo'

Abstract

In 2003 it became legal to carry out human embryonic stem (hES) cell research in Denmark using embryos that are considered `spare' in connection with fertility treatment. The public debate preceding the change of the Fertility Act presented the `spare' embryo as a biological fact and discussed whether it was possible and morally acceptable to connect a given stock of `spare' embryos to the stem cell lab. This paper tells a different story. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in a fertility clinic in Copenhagen and among stem cell researchers, we argue that `spare' embryos are not straightforward biological facts. Rather, complex decision-making processes constitute embryos as `spare' and thus as possible objects of exchange between couples in fertility treatment, stem cell researchers and future citizens in need of regenerative medicine. The ongoing fact-making of the `spare' embryo in the fertility clinic reveals the network of relationships and conflicting responsibilities in which clinicians are positioned. Using the spatial metaphor of a moral landscape we explore how clinicians try out new moral pathways when seeking alternative ways to obtain and classify embryos as `spare'. We argue that changing moral landscapes and `spare' embryos are being co-produced in the development of hES cell research.