Infertility treatments are more expensive than they need to be, they're probably not as efficient as they need to be. There's a lot about the fundamental, underlying dynamics of infertility as a disease that we need to know more about. It's very difficult to do that kind of research when you have the kind of prohibitions that exist now. Human embryo research is happening in the US, just not in the universities and publicly funded labs where much of medical research is typically conducted. The long-range goal is to keep more embryos alive and help more couples get pregnant.
Most studies take place at private infertility clinics and medical centers.
They are usually paid for from clinical profits and donations from patients. Critics of the congressional ban, such as the University of Minnesota's Susan Wolf, say it's wrong to drive such a vital and sensitive area of medical research out of the public sector. The whole regulatory mechanism we have for protecting human subjects in federally funded research doesn't apply. It applies to research in practically every other area of medicine. But this area, because it was always politically too hot to handle, fetuses and embryos and all this controversial stuff, has been an area of laissez faire.