Hundreds of thousands of human embryos discarded

July 25th, 2011

The scale of wasted human embryos as a result of IVF treatment has been revealed after a written reply was given to a question asked in the House of Lords.

Department of Health figures show that over 30 embryos are created for every successful IVF implantation in a woman.

3 million embryos have been created for IVF purposes since 1991 when the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act made the practice legal.

Of these, fewer than 100,000 have been successfully implanted and resulted in live births, nearly a million and a half have been discarded, around three quarters of a million have been frozen for later use and 100,000 were given for use in experiments where the embryos were destroyed.  the rest