30 years of IVF

I missed this news story; it actually was July 24. It was Louise Brown's 30th birthday. Oh, now I don't begrudge the woman her birthday or call it a tragedy, but do you remember her? She was the world's first IVF baby.

I came across an article from five years ago stating that as of that date, nearly 1,000,000 babies have followed her path. Do you realize that that means for all of those live births, there have been many, many more millions of babies who have died, either because of a failed transplant, of being allowed to thaw, or because of purposeful "selection reduction" (i.e. murder) after transplant? There are also innumerable embryos who live, suspended in time in a frozen state.

As an aside, did you know it is becoming commonplace for OBs to declare a pregnancy only when implantation has occurred, and not conception? Scientific hogwash. But do you see what a conscience salve that redefinition becomes? It is almost as if IVF is becoming the paradigm rather than natural conception.

This is a procedure which is widely socially acceptable, even by many who consider themselves pro-life. When is the last time you've seen protests outside a fertility clinic? Even apart from the destruction of embryos which usually, though not always, accompanies IVF, there are numerous problematic aspects to its use, in terms of moral acceptability, the health of the mother and child, the money-making involved for the technology's providers, and last, but not least, the utter neglect of the actual health needs of women and men with fertility challenges. Go to your nearest "fertility specialist" or Reproductive Endocrinologist, and you are likely to be pushed toward IVF without any real work towards getting to the root causes for the lack of conception or of carrying a child to term. The fault cannot all be laid at the feet of the medical folks; of course there are stories of women who simply wish to get pregnant "now" and resort to IVF when they have no particular fertility challenges.

Did you know that embryos have all naturally occurring water extracted from them and are injected with anti-freeze? Read all about the process here.