Pro Life in TN

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Pro Life thoughts in a pro choice world through the eyes of a convert. I took early retirement after working in the social work and Human Resources fields but remain active by being involved in pro life education, lobbying and speaking .

Adoption

Adoption

Thursday, January 12, 2012

Study shows regulation of IVF clinics in US is needed.

 Recent study shows why the US needs more regulation of IVF clinics. Since the use of these clinics to conceive is paid out of pocket from the consumer  there is a strong motivation for transferring several embryos.   A single transfer can cost approximately $10K. The doctors are motivated to do as the client demands rather than lose a customer and  they all want to tout their success rates.

One of the unintended consequences of multiple transfers is the temptation to selectively reduce (fancy word for picking out one of your offspring to abort). Sometimes it is based on the gender of the offspring and sometimes the perceived health and sometimes it is pure location (the one that the abortion instrument reaches first.) The motivation of the couple may be pure in the beginning but the slippery slope into abortion and destruction of the left over embryos  is rapid. The more I learn about IVF clinics the more I think they should go away or at least be tightly regulated.  I read the book Inconceivable by Sean and Carolyn Savage and by the end of the book,  I could understand why the Catholic Church is opposed to IVF.

In Western Europe, where some countries pay for in-vitro fertilization, or IVF, many authorities recommend a single embryo transfer for women under 37 and a maximum of two embryos for women 37 to 40. For women over 40, three is often the limit by law.

The U.K. has tougher policies. Transferring three embryos in women under 40 is banned. And if doctors transfer more than three embryos, they must explain their actions to the fertility regulator. In 2010, about 65 percent of embryo transfers involved two embryos and 4 percent used three. The rest were single embryos.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

First off, have you ever had infertility problems? I'm guessing not since the article is not entirely correct. No one is asking "the customer" to choose which babies to abort. Some embyros simply don't survive on their. Same thing can happen in the womb, just as a miscarriage happens in a woman's body. The good ones (that survive on their own) are transferred to the uterus. If there are too many viable embryos the patient can always donate the embryos to other unfortunate couple who can not conceive. There. No babies harmed Do some people make poor choices when getting IVF? Sure, but you don't HAVE to. It's not a game of choosing which baby gets to live. But what do I know? I've only been through the process

Susie Allen said...

Yes, I have had fertility pbls but did not do IVF and my daughter had fertility issues but did not get to IVF before she quit and choose adoption. I did not get to IVF since that was not around then.
Yes, some embryos do not survive on their own. Women who finish can indeed donate their left over embryos for others to adopt but unfortunately most do not for a variety of reasons. So the surplus embryos are destroyed and left in a frozen state.
Couples want children and that is a good thing. IVF ends up having unintended consequences. I hear in your words the pain you experienced in your quest to have a child. I remember that pain.

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