154 R.P. Fitzgerald and M. Legge
and fertilised eggs according to laboratory protocols of potential viabil-
ity. Perfection in form marked the dividing line between the embryo
as potential person and the embryo as waste. The complex variation
and nuances in interpretation of such apparently clear and unequivo-
cal guidelines in reproductive medicine are rarely studied. However,
Christoffersen-Deb ( 2012 ) has made similar observations with great
nuance in the interpretation of viability for distressed foetuses, who
in the US healthcare system shift from legal non-viability to viability
at the moment they attain 24-week gestational age. Similarly, embry-
ologists were engaged in frequent points of judgement, often time pres-
sured (such as when they opened the incubator to observe the level of
development in fertilised eggs between days one and three) or in simpler
procedures such as selecting which particular sperm to fertilise an egg:
The law says we are only allowed to keep embryos up to day six and even
then they’ve got to be replaced or frozen...occasionally though I’ve left it
to day seven (like if it’s a Sunday and Monday would be day seven) which
is strictly speaking not allowed ...but it’s because I want someone’s input
about whether it’s good enough to freeze or not... if its good enough to
freeze I want to freeze it so that the patient’s got maximum chance and if
it’s not good enough I am reassured that someone else has [also] agreed...
I know that’s slightly naughty...I need to toughen up... but in a way if
you can just throw things away without thinking then it’s about time you
left the job.While decisions about ‘good looking’ embryos, eggs and sperm were
relatively easy to make, the reality was that staff often worked with
reproductive material that was poorer in quality. Judgement was key to
determining which of all of these imperfections was the least likely to
interfere with an eventual pregnancy:
We may see that the embryo is very asymmetrical and like it might have
the right number of cells but some cells might be very big and some
might be very small and we know that’s not good...we know that if we
see vacuoles present that’s also not good...sometimes the cells appear
very grainy – we don’t really know the significance of that and how much
weight to put on it... so there are a lot of factors that we look at and ithttp://www.ebook3000.com