Judie Brown
The poisoned chalice of in vitro fertilization
By Judie Brown
Sometimes things look perfect and beautiful on the outside, but a closer look reveals a starker reality. This is true of in vitro fertilization. While it may look promising at first glance, once we really come to understand this technology and its repercussions, we can't help but be opposed. Today's commentary examines these realities and offers an alternative for couples who desperately want a child.
"Reproductive technology" is fraught with moral problems, including practices, that should never arise. They occurbecause some clinicians have determined that they can treat infertility by manipulation. Rather than diagnosing the cause of infertility and getting to the root of the problem in an ethical way, in vitro fertilization practitioners chose years ago to respond to the emotionally draining problems facing barren couples by using a laboratory to "make" children.
The expectation then, as now, is to create embryonic babies, choose the best ones for implantation, hope the process works the first time and charge exorbitant fees. When there are "leftover" embryonic people, they are often either frozen or given to science to be killed so that human embryonic research can be carried out.
On the other hand, if these children are deemed in some way "defective" after pre-implantation genetic diagnosishttp://www.all.org/article.php?id=11654is used, they are killed in the laboratory. If they are all the wrong sex, then the couple may opt to try again — allowing these children to be killed and putting more money into the pockets of the doctors by attempting the procedure again.
It's a lucrative racket for sure.
But one would think that anyone with a logical mind would discern that there's something wrong with the whole scenario. So why do so few discuss or admit that this documented treachery exists?
In Great Britain, when two children were born after IVF treatment, and were apparently created using the wrong sperm, their parents sued. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-11532849The children have darker skin than their white parents and, according to their mother, have been subjected to ridicule and name-calling. However, a judge ruled that the case had no merit and that "the children had no legitimate expectation other than being born healthy and well."He also stated, "The presence of persons sufficiently misguided and cruel as to issue racist comments directed to these children is no basis for a conclusion that they are somehow damaged."Thus the parents will not receive remuneration for personal injury even though the wrong sperm was used.
In New York, a woman was recently granted permission to harvest sperm from her dead husband. http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/news/local_news/manhattan/Judge-Lets-Widow-Access-Dead-Husbands-Sperm-20101016-apx She claimed she did not want the death of her husband to stand in the way of their desire to start a family.
As if such macabre events were not enough to convince establishment repro-tech experts that there has to be a better way to treat infertility, we now know that children conceived through in vitro fertilization have a higher rate of genetic abnormalitieshttp://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/oct/10101803.htmland suffer a greater number of overall health problems than naturally conceived children.http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/dec/06120409.htmlSuch evidence of the pitfalls inherent in such practices has been increasing with the passage of each year. But this has not slowed the multi-million dollar industry.
As one mother admitted in a heart-wrenching exposé on the emotional toll IVF and other such practices can take on the family unit, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/you/article-1321907/Helen-James-IVF-destroyed-family.html#ixzz14LBGCbao
The real barrenness in the quest for domination over man and manipulation of his genes resides in the hearts of those who will not stop, no matter what the human cost.
THE SOLUTION: Such diabolical events need not ever occur. There is an ethical treatment of infertility. It is called NaProTECHNOLOGY. http://naprotechnology.com/ Based on the truth that nature and procreation can work together even in face of infertility, this is the wave of the future — the new face of hope.
© Judie Brown
November 7, 2010
Sometimes things look perfect and beautiful on the outside, but a closer look reveals a starker reality. This is true of in vitro fertilization. While it may look promising at first glance, once we really come to understand this technology and its repercussions, we can't help but be opposed. Today's commentary examines these realities and offers an alternative for couples who desperately want a child.
"Reproductive technology" is fraught with moral problems, including practices, that should never arise. They occurbecause some clinicians have determined that they can treat infertility by manipulation. Rather than diagnosing the cause of infertility and getting to the root of the problem in an ethical way, in vitro fertilization practitioners chose years ago to respond to the emotionally draining problems facing barren couples by using a laboratory to "make" children.
The expectation then, as now, is to create embryonic babies, choose the best ones for implantation, hope the process works the first time and charge exorbitant fees. When there are "leftover" embryonic people, they are often either frozen or given to science to be killed so that human embryonic research can be carried out.
On the other hand, if these children are deemed in some way "defective" after pre-implantation genetic diagnosishttp://www.all.org/article.php?id=11654is used, they are killed in the laboratory. If they are all the wrong sex, then the couple may opt to try again — allowing these children to be killed and putting more money into the pockets of the doctors by attempting the procedure again.
It's a lucrative racket for sure.
But one would think that anyone with a logical mind would discern that there's something wrong with the whole scenario. So why do so few discuss or admit that this documented treachery exists?
In Great Britain, when two children were born after IVF treatment, and were apparently created using the wrong sperm, their parents sued. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-11532849The children have darker skin than their white parents and, according to their mother, have been subjected to ridicule and name-calling. However, a judge ruled that the case had no merit and that "the children had no legitimate expectation other than being born healthy and well."He also stated, "The presence of persons sufficiently misguided and cruel as to issue racist comments directed to these children is no basis for a conclusion that they are somehow damaged."Thus the parents will not receive remuneration for personal injury even though the wrong sperm was used.
In New York, a woman was recently granted permission to harvest sperm from her dead husband. http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/news/local_news/manhattan/Judge-Lets-Widow-Access-Dead-Husbands-Sperm-20101016-apx She claimed she did not want the death of her husband to stand in the way of their desire to start a family.
As if such macabre events were not enough to convince establishment repro-tech experts that there has to be a better way to treat infertility, we now know that children conceived through in vitro fertilization have a higher rate of genetic abnormalitieshttp://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/oct/10101803.htmland suffer a greater number of overall health problems than naturally conceived children.http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/dec/06120409.htmlSuch evidence of the pitfalls inherent in such practices has been increasing with the passage of each year. But this has not slowed the multi-million dollar industry.
As one mother admitted in a heart-wrenching exposé on the emotional toll IVF and other such practices can take on the family unit, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/you/article-1321907/Helen-James-IVF-destroyed-family.html#ixzz14LBGCbao
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Medical technology has made me a mother, and my amazing son is living proof of how mind-blowing science truly is. At the same time, IVF technology and the hope it proffers have driven a stake through the very heart of my life. I have a son but I also have a divorce to my name, a string of lost or radically altered friendships, and the emotional scars of years of medical intervention. Society would call me churlish for saying it, because I got my 'prize,' but the relentless pursuit of fertility has been a poisoned chalice.
The real barrenness in the quest for domination over man and manipulation of his genes resides in the hearts of those who will not stop, no matter what the human cost.
THE SOLUTION: Such diabolical events need not ever occur. There is an ethical treatment of infertility. It is called NaProTECHNOLOGY. http://naprotechnology.com/ Based on the truth that nature and procreation can work together even in face of infertility, this is the wave of the future — the new face of hope.
© Judie Brown
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