I wouldn’t have aborted the twin had s/he been conceived naturally, not via IVF
If I had conceived these twins naturally, I wouldn’t have reduced this pregnancy, because you feel like if there’s a natural order, then you don’t want to disturb it. But we created this child in such an artificial manner – in a test tube, choosing an egg donor, having the embryo placed in me – and somehow, making a decision about how many to carry seemed to be just another choice. The pregnancy was all so consumerish to begin with, and this became yet another thing we could control.
~ “Jenny,” explaining her rationale for aborting one of her twins, as quoted by Ruth Padawer, New York Times, August 10
Aug.13, 2011 8:37 am |
IVF |
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
Ruth Padawer was the author of the article, not the one who said this quote…just letting you know.
I only know this because I read the article MULTIPLE times. It was BY FAR one of the most disturbing things I have ever read – and that is saying a lot considering all the reading I’ve done on abortion.
Eclipse of reason.
” Alexis de Tocqueville, in his day, observed that democracy in America had become possible and had worked because there existed a fundamental moral consensus which, transcending individual denominations, united everyone. Only if there is such a consensus on the essentials can constitutions and law function. This fundamental consensus derived from the Christian heritage is at risk wherever its place, the place of moral reasoning, is taken by the purely instrumental rationality of which I spoke earlier. In reality, this makes reason blind to what is essential. To resist this eclipse of reason and to preserve its capacity for seeing the essential, for seeing God and man, for seeing what is good and what is true, is the common interest that must unite all people of good will. The very future of the world is at stake.” — Pope Benedict XVI
Justifying the killing any way she can.
That’s really appalling… regardless of how they conceived the child, a child is a child… why is it OK to kill one and not the other? They lack basic reasoning skills.
And no, this isn’t a comment about how IVF is the “hugest sin evah”. I am not talking about that end of things, just the basic concept behind the quote.
Take a moment and read some of the comments on the article.
“I’m prochoice but…….”
“It’s not our place to judge.”
“This is between a woman and her doctor.”
“This is different from an abortion.”
“Twins are hard.”
Good grief.
I don’t understand people’s rationale. If the pregnancy was so “consumerish” to begin with, why the hell would you go through all the trouble of IVF?? Why would you create a baby in such a deliberate, painstaking, not to mention EXPENSIVE way, just to abort it? I had my first daughter through IVF and my twins through IVF. One of my twins was high risk and I did everything in my power to save him, not abort him! Now he is the most precious 2 yr old on the planet. Don’t understand why people have souls made of ice.
Perhaps having twins is difficult as Carla says, and I am sure it is, However the reasons for terminating this childs life were nothing less than selfish, The baby that had to die would agree with this I am sure. The baby with a beating heart and feeling intence pain was eliminated for the convienience of the mother, I am not being judgmental as some would say here but only stating the truth of the matter. With two fully grown children why was she playing with life and death, and as far as the unnatural order of things goes, God would not have allowed those two little hearts to aquire the breath of life, had it not been His will to do so, Very sad and heartbreaking story,
I did not saying having twins was hard to justify abortion. I was quoting comments from the original article. :)
By that logic, perhaps she should have waited until the twins were born and sold one of them to the highest bidder to recoup some of her expenses. After all, if they’re just objects to be created and disposed of at will, what’s the difference?
Seemed that article was trying to justify twin reduction, I couldn’t get past the first page. Reduction of any type of pregnancy is repugnant.
This is why the Catholic Church says IVF is morally wrong. This is why the Church says anything that separates the unitive and procreative aspects of sex is morally wrong. This is exactly why the Church is right and prophetic and sees things as they truly are when the rest of the world is blind.
This woman’s words and actions should send chills down the spine of every reasonable, feeling person.
The politicians aren’t quite correct when they say that we don’t manufacture things in America anymore. We manufacture babies. Just another consumer product.
Abortion is the defining moral characteristic of any human. If one cannot see the absolute injustice of abortion–no matter at what stage–no matter how a child is conceived–no matter what the circumstances–then no matter what that person’s stand on any other issue, that person’s moral credibility becomes moot. For if one cannot see the repugnant reality of abortion, especially in this day and age, then one simply cannot see the immorality of any other issue/act. Abortion is the issue which decides which candidate I will support and/or give my vote. My reason is clearly stated above. But, my reasons for how I choose to vote doesn’t make sense to any pro-abortionist. And, what is interesting is that it is NOT out of ignorance that one is pro-abortion. I believe pro-abortionists know EXACTLY what the reality is of abortion–they simply choose to ignore it. Why? Because that is the kind of society with which we now live. Unless things change drastically, we are bound for self-destruction.
Very good points, everyone! ;)
Treating humans as commodities to be bought and sold always leads to abuses; there are many parallels here with slavery. Deny someone’s humanity, buy them, sell them, throw them away when no longer useful… How is it that we treat our own throughout the centuries worse than beasts…
Wonder if the mom will have this view when the remaining twin is 15 and talks back. “Well now kiddo, we created you and paid for it and so not having a teenager with an attitude is one more choice we are going to make during this process of parenthood. SO GET OUT!”
You could use her reasoning to justify murdering a newborn, or a 2 year old or an 18 year old. Human lives become possessions to “have” and have no value just because they are human lives. It becomes who “owns” another instead of human beings being endowed with rights just by existing. I know I am not articulating myself well here but my thoughts are in a jumble over this article!
Anyone willing to undergo IVF in the first place is willing that some children should die so that they can obtain at least one healthy child who survives.
I’ve heard it’s like throwing velcro beanbags to a slightly weaker velcro wall and hoping some stick. 75% of all IVF cycles fail, or so I’ve read.
I know a lot of Christians who do not see a problem with IVF. But I have a very large problem with it (and I’m not Catholic), and this quote is a great example of how far consumerism really goes in society – we think we can just manufacture and discard human beings now, at will.
I’ve never understood why people will pay so much for IVF when adoption actually costs a whole boatload less.
The children born of IVF are no less precious to God – but if you really think God is ok with you trashing several children just to get one who’s genetically related to you – I think you’re wrong. Take care of an orphan in distress instead.
Never mind… had to continue reading article. Still blows my mind.
Ah, there’s the rub, when playing God! How do you know which twin will be the next Hitler, as the trolls here fear, or the next Jonas Salk, as we would hope?
Amazing how many comments can post while I slog through mine! :) Thank God I’m not a “hunt and pecker”. I’d be way behind!
Kel, you said it best.
The two lesbians in the story…. God made the sexes DIFFERENT for a REASON!!!!! Our differences are what make us FIT, and I’m not just talking sexually. I am pregnant and I am SICK SICK SICK. Thank God my husband can’t get pregnant also! He is able to help take care of our son when I am just too sick. He is physically well and able to run out to the supermarket to help deal with my cravings. He isn’t emotional like me and so doesn’t get bent out of shape when I burst into tears for no reason. I am so THANKFUL for his maleness when I am pregnant. I mean, I couldn’t even get along with my female friends when we were all PMSing at the same time so I can’t imagine being in a romantic partnership with another pregnant woman when I am also pregnant. Which is why God didn’t intend that! We keep thinking we know better than God and the natural order He created and time and time again we prove that we don’t know better and all we know how to do is make a big mess of things.
Oh, so people have a right to “fashion their lives how they want” and therefore it’s perfectly acceptable to abort a handicapped child? How horrible life must be for that woman’s kids, knowing that their mother’s love is conditional. Imagine if any of them ever lost a limb or got paralyzed in an accident. “I can’t fashion my life around caring for you.” That is so sick!
Wonder what she will tell the surviving twin? “Well, we let you live. It was really just the luck of the draw, could have been you who was killed.”
To Kel: The reason why many people do not opt for adoption is because there are very few babies to adopt because they’re all being slaughtered in abortion mills. And, again, the point that someone else made about buying and selling human beings is further exploited when the few infants who are given up for adoption are then “sold” by agencies and lawyers seeking huge fees for their services. Case in point: my own cousin could not have children and so opted to adopt. The first child they adopted cost them over $10,000.00, and in the end, the “mom” decided to keep the baby–and the money given her by my cousin and her husband. They had NO recourse. But, they tried again. This time, they did get a child, but it cost them almost $20,000.00 with lawyer fees, paying for the mother’s hospital expenses/doctor’s expenses, and other charges that one would not expect when adopting a child.
My favorite line “…yet here she was, 14 weeks into her pregnancy, choosing to extinguish one of two healthy fetuses, almost as if having half an abortion.” Yeah. Almost.
Kel,
You really shouldn’t judge something you know so little about. The reason 75% of IVF cycles fail is because they can’t even get to the stage to produce a viable embryo, not becaue they are trashing human life. I had 4 miscarriages prior to my first IVF. Did I purposely kill my babies? No. Women lose their pregnancies without even knowing they are pregnant each month in the same way that IVF cycles fail. If you can’t even get the embryo to the stage where there is a heartbeat, then there is no human life to trash. You act as if one actually creates a kicking human fetus and then destroys it. It doesn’t work like that. And as far as adoption goes, educate yourself on that too. You can’t just “take care of an orphan in distress” as simply as you make it sound. We went 8 years with adoption failures that were as heartbreaking as Sister Terese describes and then some, while going through IVF at the same time. Do not judge those who are desperate to nurture a human life. I did not kill any babies while going through my IVF treatment. The ones that were strong enough to survive in me our now my 3 precious gifts from God.
If you can’t even get the embryo to the stage where there is a heartbeat, then there is no human life to trash.
What is the embryo if not human life, Maria? A rock? A marble? A diamond?
Rather than killing one of her twins, “Jenny” could have given her/him to someone like yourself who was “desperate to nurture a human life.”
I do judge you because you support trashing human life for your own selfish reasons. Deal with it.
Maria, human life is human life from the moment sperm hits egg, no matter if it occurs in a petri dish or in the womb. A heartbeat is not the magical litmus tests for when life begins.
Wow, people like Praxedes and Joanna are why abortion will never die. Its the crazy radicals who take the meaning of life to the absolute ridiculous extreme that scares the hell out of people. To answer your questions Praxedes, by definition an embryo is an organism in its early stages of development, especially before it has reached a distinctively recognizable form. If this is your way of thinking, then I hope you don’t by a carton of eggs anytime soon because you will have just murdered 12 chickens. My sister’s baby’s heart stopped beating at 9 weeks. She had to have a D&C. Is she a murderer? Selfish? An abortionist? Or should she just have left it there, this supposed human life that will somehow miraculously turn into her baby. I thought the saying was Abortion Stops A Beating Heart, not Abortion stares into a petri dish watching an embryo’s cells fail to continue to divide. And Joanna, a heartbeat is the magical litmus test for when life begins. Without it, you cannot survive. Abortion stops a beating heart people. Plain and simple. Deal with it.
And this will be my last comment on the topic. Crazy is as crazy does and I will not be a part of it.
Congratulations! The combined efforts of all you people have resulted in the most disgusting, self-righteous, misogynistic, homophobic spew of unfounded judgment I’ve ever seen on a comment board. Every one of your comments is dripping with disdain and hate for people who view the world differently from you, and instead of living your own lives, you feel justified in hurling vitriol and trying to impose your beliefs on complete strangers. Then you call yourselves pro-life and claim that the creator of the universe is on your side. THAT is rich.
So, am I to understand some of the commentators here that “…a heart beat is the magical litmus test for when life begins.”? Wow. I guess I’m just not as boastful and haughty as some here who think themselves above everyone else to decide when and how life begins. Are you absolutely sure of what you say? Most embryologists and medical doctors disagree with your statement–why? Because advanced medical and scientific evidence proves it wrong. In addition, doctors and scientists now at least are willing to consider that they might not have all the answers. For example: not too long ago in medicine, if a person were to have a heart attack and the heart stopped, their life would, in most instances, end. That is not the case anymore. A good percentage of people who have massive heart attacks do still survive and go on to live a partially normal life. So, doctors and scientists do NOT have all the answers–and God help us all when they think they do. Likewise, we cannot presume to make assumptions about when life begins. I would much rather err on the side of life than to make a presumption based on a guess as to when life begins and then to snuff out an innocent life. That, to me, is the height of arrogance. Just another way of playing God (with a small “g”). And, even if one were to believe with all their heart that life does not begin until the heart of a fetus begins to beat, it is a scientific fact that before most women even know they are pregnant, the baby’s heart, although not anywhere near full development, is there present, beating and waiting for all the other necessary elements for it to fully develop.
Some other analogies given by some of the commentators here are equally nonsensical: that eating a carton of eggs is paramount to killing 12 chickens. Obviously, someone here doesn’t have a basic understanding of science. Eggs that are used for eating are NON-FERTILIZED eggs. As for the sister whose baby’s heart stopped beating at 9 weeks–that happens all the time–it is called a MISCARRIAGE. Miscarriages happen for various reasons to many pregnant women. OB/GYNs and other doctors in this field still do not know all the reasons why this happens. Of course your sister had to have a D&C!! To leave an obviously dead baby in the womb would have caused serious health risks for your sister. What was removed from your sister’s womb is diametrically different from what happens in an abortion. If you cannot see that, even without any medical training or background, then you don’t know what you are talking about–plain and simple.
And as for the comments about pro-lifers being hateful toward others who hold a different view of the world and life, that, again, is a false statement. Your interpretation of what is being said in defense of life is what is misunderstood. If anything, most pro-lifers DEFEND the rights of women to be TOTALLY INFORMED of what actually happens in an abortion. Abortion is not only the most horrific of all child abuse, but is also one of the most horrific abuses that can be perpetrated on women. Many, many women who have had abortions suffer miserably from the emotional and even physical effects of having an abortion. Many women who have had abortions have testified of all kinds of problems in their post-abortion life. So…who are the misogynists here? I beg you to look at this issue truthfully–instead of burying your head in the sand and making accusations against others and labeling people.
Wow, people like Praxedes and Joanna are why abortion will never die.
Your right, Maria, abortion will always be around, just like rape and theft is. However once abortion again become illegal, the numbers of abortion will drop way down again. Women who want to harm themselves and their unborn child or who are being coerced to illegally abort by abusive men will need our help to make better choices, just as we are helping them now.
P.S. Maybe you should complain that your grocer is selling you fertilized chicken eggs. Wow. Crazy indeed.
Maria,
When women have early miscarriages, their babies die. A human life is lost, through no fault of anyone’s. I am very sorry for your loss of 4 children. That is a tragic thing to go through once, let alone 4 times. Your sister’s baby also died. She suffered a spontaneous abortion (miscarriage) and her D&C remove the remains of her dead child.
But you then make the leap to say that because some children die naturally before being born, and some before they have a heartbeat, that it’s ok for parents to create them and treat them as objects of their desire. How many human lives can a person sacrifice in pursuit of their desire to nurture? How many can they freeze for later? Throw out? “Reduce”? in pursuit of the exact family they want? Human beings are treated as worthless in the fertility industry. As many as needed can be sacrificed. They have no value until the woman is pregnant with exactly the number of children she wants to be be pregnant with. That one(s) has worth. All the rest – garbage.
When an action is purposeful and causes harm – that is trouble, for sure! When you end a pregnancy thru violence, abortion or other purposeful means – that is a willful death.
Miscarriages are not purposefully done. The baby dies naturally, and then must exit the body – either naturally or thru a D & C. No purposeful death here.
An abortion is the opposite – purposeful action is taken to end the child’s life – either thru surgical or chemical abortion. It’s a purposeful death – not an accident.
Selective reduction – purposeful death also. And with IVF, the rate of death is so high that it should not be considered really at all. Doctors are supposed to save lives, not do things that cause harm. The ending of a human life for convenience is selfish.
I echo everyone’s comment who responded to Maria. It is so sad that such a distorted lens is being used to see life. Utterly a shame. Ditto the woman who chose selective reduction (and her doctors).
Self-absorbed. Self-deluded. Selfish.
God help us all and have mercy.
Ok, I said I wasn’t going to comment further but you folks take things so literally that I need to clarify. First off, the point about the eggs was simply an analogy. You proved my point because the eggs don’t become chickens unless they are fertilized. Much the way embryos (although the result of fertilized eggs!) don’t become living human beings unless they can actually attach to the endometrial lining of the mother and DEVELOP A HEARTBEAT. You can take an embryo home in its petri-dish, give it a name and a baptism, but it will still just be an embryo no matter how long you stare at it and will it to live.
I clearly understand the difference between miscarriage and abortion. I sited my sister as an example because you can place all the embryos you want into a woman and NOTHING WILL HAPPEN, NO LIFE WILL BEGIN TO FORM, unless the embryos can continue to divide cells and, say it with me now, DEVELOP A HEARTBEAT. Once the heartbeat goes is when they perform the D&C folks. Not anytime before that. Miscarriage is an accident, Abortion is not. Same thing happens. A beating heart stops.
And let me also clarify that I initially made a comment here to share my disgust with the woman who chose to abort one of her twins after IVF. Meaning, she had two healthy growing fetuses and purposely decided to kill one for her own selfish reasons. There is a huge difference with what she did compared to trying to simply conceive a baby through IVF. I see there will be no convincing most of you otherwise. An egg is just an egg but I guess and embryo is a baby right? Little did I know I would be judged and criticized for the simple fact that I too, went through IVF to have my children. Shame on me. Totally self-absorbed, self-deluded. and selfish. I will go straight to hell for implanting the 3 embryos that resulted in my children because of the fact that the rest of the embryos could not implant and grow into human life. God help me.
Bottom line is that I am PRO LIFE which is why I subscribe to this website. I just disagree wholeHEARTedly on when life begins. It would be great if you could all stop bashing me because I gave LIFE to 3 healthy kids through IVF and just agree to disagree.
Now I’m done.
Maria,
Are you honestly claiming that embryos are not, in fact, alive until they have a heartbeat? They are dead prior to that, in your opinion? I don’t see how that makes any sense in the context of human reproduction. How does a mass of dead, lifeless cells manage to divide and grow a heart in the first place? How does it manage to implant? It makes no sense.
I don’t see how an embryo is not a human being prior to the time it has a heartbeat but magically becomes one after the time it has a heartbeat. All that’s changed for the baby is the stage of development. I lost a child at 5w6d and I have no idea if s/he had a heartbeat by that point, but s/he was still (up until the point of his/her death) a living, growing, developing human being with his/her own unique genetic code.
Is it judmental of someone to come here and judge us for judging?
I can judge a person’s actions.
fyi
It stands to reason that ANYONE who goes public with their IVF and subsequent abortion story should be ready for any opposing viewpoints that come their way.
These embryos are put in petri dishes for purely selfish reasons.
Just because you can do something doesn’t always mean it is the right thing to do.
because of the fact that the rest of the embryos could not implant and grow into human life.
Maria, these embryos are already human lives that are being withheld from what they need to survive. In the same way abortion keeps the fetus from living by removing it from it’s life source, the mother’s body. If we withhold the breast or bottle from a newborn, it too will never be able to continue on it’s life’s journey. If someone withholds food and water from us, our lives are surely over as well.
Our lives all started at the moment of our conceptions.
Bottom line is that I am PRO LIFE which is why I subscribe to this website. I just disagree wholeHEARTedly on when life begins.
So do the people who are pro-choice. They just disagree on when life begins. What makes your line more valid than theirs? They make the same argument, “sure you can believe that the fetus is a life, but I don’t feel that way, so we should agree to disagree.” From the moment of conception a unique human being is created. The embryo-fetus-infant-toddler-child-teenager-adult-senior is the SAME entity that existed at the moment of conception. It is wonderful that you gave life to 3 children. But how many lives were created and lost that you never even give a thought to. The people here who oppose IVF do so both b/c it often involves the deliberate destruction of life (which may or may not have been true in your case), but also b/c it always involves indifference to the dignity of human beings. Freeze them, throw them out, use them for research, whatever. Until they implant, have a heartbeat, have brainwaves, feel pain, breathe oxygen or whatever arbitrary line is chosen, they don’t matter.
I care for the Mother that cares about her baby in the womb and her baby, aside from that, my soul purpose for speaking out is for those whom can not as yet speak for themselves, the real victims, it’s heartbreaking that even as I type, there is yet another heart being stopped, a baby dieing with such intense pain that is unimaginable, usually for convenience, ultimately selfishness, my God what is this manner of thinking that it is okay to kill babies? :(
I must say these third-string trolls are reminding me of pre-season football games.
Heartbeat, no heartbeat. Attached, not attached. Sentient, non-sentient. These are not of themselves the dividing line of life / not life.
Life begins at division for one-celled organisms, and at fertilization for us bigger blokes.
Is someone on a heart-bypass machine during an operation not alive?
Is an astronaut not alive during a spacewalk (Not attached! You can legally shoot him now!) ?
That person’s asleep! He’s not very self-aware now, is he? Can I put a pillow over his face?
Life begins at the genetic, practically molecular level. Those lives that are programmed as being human deserve our respect and care unless and until they threaten other lives.
That is the bottom line of life and death issues. Which side are you on?
Maria, these embryos are already human lives that are being withheld from what they need to survive.
Praxedes, you are so wrong. Those embryos were put into my body the same way the 3 that ultimately resulted in my children were. I did not WITHHOLD anything from them to survive. They simply failed to continue to grow. Not my fault. All the embryos that were created for me were implanted in me for one purpose only. To create life. I did not freeze embryos. I did not discard embryos. I did not look at pictures and pick the prettiest embryos and throw the others away. I did not murder them as much as you would like to find me guilty of it.
Carla, get your facts straight. I went public with my IVF quite innocently to state that I couldn’t believe this woman would go through all that I went through just to kill one off. Read my first comment. I did not subsequently have an abortion. I don’t mind opposing viewpoints. What I do mind is people calling me a baby killer because I went through IVF.
Joanna, I never said embryos are not living organisms. They are obviously the beginning of human life. What I said was, unless they attach to mommy dearest and ultimately grow a heart that starts to beat, they will obviously not form into VIABLE human beings. Big difference.
CT, lets get real. There is a huge difference between a fetus growing inside its mother’s body and an embryo sitting in a petri dish.
Hans, a person on bypass surgery’s heart has temporarily stopped thanks to modern science. If they don’t get it going again, yeah, he’s dead.
I’d love to sit and debate this with all of you all night, but I have 3 beautiful babies that I created quite selfishly through IVF that I need to take care of. Please don’t direct any more of your comments towards me. I appreciate how passionate you all are about life beginning at the moment of conception. I am pro-life despite your opinions of me. I would appreciate if you would give me the same courtesy of the right to my opinion on when life begins, considering I dealt with life and death on this issue probably more than all of you combined.
CT, lets get real. There is a huge difference between a fetus growing inside its mother’s body and an embryo sitting in a petri dish.
And the pro-choicers argue there’s a big difference between a “fully actualized” human and a fetus growing inside it’s mother’s body. How do you logically defend your line of a hearbeat. What makes an embryo suddenly become a human worthy of protection when it implants, or not even when it implants, but not until it has a heartbeat.
And if an embryo is indeed not a life, then what would be the problem with freezing it, throwing it away, or using it for experimentation?
considering I dealt with life and death on this issue probably more than all of you combined
You clearly haven’t been here very long b/c you don’t know a thing about the people who comment here and what they’ve been through.
Embryos are fertilized human beings. Whether they attach or don’t attach is a moot point. Everything they will ever need in their journey of life, they have at the point of conception. No geneticist would ever deny that fact. Anyone who has taken a 100 level biology class in college (or even high school) knows that. Whether we choose to allow that life to continue determines whether that life will grow into a fully developed human being. As someone said earlier, just because we can do something doesn’t mean we should. That is one of the biggest arguments against fetal stem-cell research.
People who like to play god regarding life issues are expert at rationalizations. Remember the old saying, “The end does not justify the means.” The fact that some people have been blessed with bright, beautiful children does not determine whether or not the choices they made to create that life were ethical or moral.
It is terribly sad for anyone to either have terrible difficulty or an inability to create life. I’ve known many people who have tried and tried and have failed to produce a child. It is heart-breaking, I’m sure. However, that does justify playing god with other lives. And, embryos are human lives.
If an embryo is implanted into a woman’s womb, by what other means, except by freezing procedures, would that embryo be produced? There is no way that I know of, outside of the natural reproductive process, that would produce a fertlized embryo other than removing the eggs from the woman’s ovaries, fertilizing them in a petri dish, and then freezing them for use later. There is simply no other way to do it.
I agree that being pro-life can NEVER entertain compromises. When we compromise on this issue, we become just like the pro-abortionists, or, as they like to call themselves, “pro-choicers”. The only choice possible for any right-thinking, rational human being is to be passionately, and uncompromisingly pro-life. Period.
How is the twin who survived going to feel when Mom and Dad tell him, “We killed your brother because we only wanted one.” If it was me, I would only be thinking that there was a 50% chance that it could have been me who was terminated…. Am I really that loved when my parents only gave me a 50% chance to survive?
Maria,
I never said embryos are not living organisms. They are obviously the beginning of human life. What I said was, unless they attach to mommy dearest and ultimately grow a heart that starts to beat, they will obviously not form into VIABLE human beings.
Again, you’re not making sense. You say embryos are “the beginning of human life.” So, they are human life, right? They are living human beings in a very early stage of development. Human life is human life, period. Something can’t only be 50% human life, or 25% human life. It’s either human life or not human life; there’s no in-between.
If an embryo without a heartbeat is not human life, what is it? If it’s “the beginnings” of human life, then it’s still human life — it’s just human life not worthy of your arbitrary standards of value. If it’s NOT human life, then it’s either non-human, or it’s dead.
You have no idea if which embryos would implant or not. I have had friends undergo the process who transferred “poor” embryos because they were all they had, and yet those embryos grew and developed into healthy infants.
Similarly, I’ve had friends who undergo the process who transferred “exceptional” embryos after discarding the “least likely” candidates, and yet their IVF cycles failed.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go put my own three former embryos to bed, and continue gestating the former embryo who is due in December. Thank God all of them know that they were loved from the moment of conception — and that includes their two siblings who died in the first trimester.
I did not WITHHOLD anything from them to survive.
Maria, My point is that human embryos should never be in petri dishes. In spite of their beginnings, your children are truly wonderful innocent gifts from God, as was my child who was sinfully conceived.
Michelle, I sure hope that when this child becomes a mouthy teen, that his parents never bring up that he should have been the one who was aborted instead. This is such a heartbreaking story. What a sad, sad world we live in. Thank Jesus He keeps giving us chances in spite of our wretchedness.
Dang I said I wasn’t going to respond anymore but you all keep pulling me back in.
Sister Terese, your statement about embryos having to be frozen in order to be implanted shows what little you do know about the IVF process. I never had any frozen embryos. They were implanted on either day 3 or 5 of fertilization.
I just find it so bizarre how I am being treated as an unethical or immoral person because I had embryos created for me, all of which were put into my body, in order to create a life. Isn’t that the exact opposite of someone who is having an abortion??
Embryos are fertilized human beings. Whether they attach or don’t attach is a moot point.
Moot point?? That moot point would be human reproduction as we know it. They need to attach, or none of us would be here to argue about it.
And Joanna! Thank you for pointing out to all of us that THANK GOD! Your children will know they were loved from the moment of conception. As if my children are less loved. Why wouldn’t I be able to tell my kids I also loved them from the moment they were conceived????? Because I asked that they be conceived in a petri dish because I wanted them so badly? Shame on you. You should be very thankful that you could have children on your own instead of criticizing those who had to go through IVF. You would think you had more heart considering how you lost two yourself.
And you have friends that are horrible baby killers like me? Huh. That sounds pretty hypocritical if you ask me. Did they all get this same lecture? And do you tell them your kids are obviously more loved than theirs because yours were conceived in your body and theirs were not? Lovely.
Maria – the children you have are loved and wanted. Thank you. I am sorry to have insulted you – I did not mean to.
I am surprised to see that you identify as pro-life. I hope that is so – it’s just so confusing with the words you have chosen and the way you write things – it points to just the opposite.
Human children are fully human from conception – and the heartbeat is just a continuation of the normal development of any human. Can a human be human without a heartbeat? yes – as one other poster illuminated earlier – those humans before the heart actually beats (first week after conception), a person on a heart/lung machine, a person with an artificial heart, a person undergoing a heart transplant, a person whose heart has stopped, but before they have died (that is why we have AED’s and CPR)… all these have living humans without a heartbeat. all human, all alive, and no heartbeat.
People do not understand the dangers of IVF. I did not know them until recently. But that does not devalue your children, or anyone else’s – they are here, living and are deserving of love, nurturing and everything lovely in this world. I am so happy to know that you did not discard any embryos. You are a rarity. Most clinics will routinely create more embryos than they need, because the success rate is so dismal. They will not only create more, but implant more into the woman also – necessitating the device of ‘selective reduction’ to lessen the successful children implanted.
It’s a rough business, for all concerned. Glad things worked out for you and your family. Please accept my apology.
To Kel: The reason why many people do not opt for adoption is because there are very few babies to adopt because they’re all being slaughtered in abortion mills.
If a couple has the $$ to pursue IVF, they have the money for international adoption, where there is absolutely NO shortage of children, a large portion of whom are under age 5. I have a friend in town who’s a single woman because she just never found the right guy and she’s adopted five children from Russia. She probably paid $30k per child in the adoption process, but IVF is $12-15k per treatment, and most cycles fail. I’m not saying adoption doesn’t involve risk – everything involves risk: pregnancy, adoption, infertility treatments. I’m saying if the cost is less most of the time for adoption, it should definitely be preferable to the sacrificing of innocent life.
Maria, how about answering the questions I posed?
It seems to me that you, by your own admission, didn’t consider your children human beings until they had heartbeats. So, can you truly say you loved them from the moment of conception if you did not consider them human beings at that time?
I’m very grateful I’ve been able to conceive my children naturally. But that’s really irrelevant. Children are not commodities to be bought and sold or created and destroyed at one’s whim, nor are they an absolute right to possess. However, that’s exactly how they are treated with IVF. A prime example of this is the woman in the OP. She bought and paid for the creation of her children so she felt she had the right to destroy them as well.
I had 4 miscarriages prior to my first IVF. Did I purposely kill my babies? No. Women lose their pregnancies without even knowing they are pregnant each month in the same way that IVF cycles fail. If you can’t even get the embryo to the stage where there is a heartbeat, then there is no human life to trash. You act as if one actually creates a kicking human fetus and then destroys it. It doesn’t work like that.
Marie, perhaps you should educate yourself on human life. It begins at conception, not when there is a heartbeat or a kicking fetus. Conception equals new human life. This is biology, not wishful or religious thinking. At amphimixis, the gametes fuse and there is a new human being that has been created. This doesn’t happen at day 18-21 (when the heartbeat first occurs). It happens at the very beginning.
I do not believe people who have IVF treatments are purposely killing children. But I do believe, as is evidenced by your comment, that they tell themselves it isn’t really a “life” until a certain point, and that makes those children expendable for the sake of those that survive.
Thank you for your apology. I am very pro-life despite how I am wording things. The one big difference, and I suppose it is a direct result of my having gone through IVF, is on the issue of embryos. I have seen how much needs to happen from the moment of conception to implantation to have my own personal opinion on when a human life really becomes viable. My opinion from my own personal experience. I realize its a very fine line from those of you who believe life starts at the exact moment of conception. Had I not gone through IVF I may very well believe the exact same thing you do.
In fact, you may find it hard to believe, but I am totally against stem-cell research. I do not believe in creating embryos for the sole purpose of experimenting on them. I know you are all thinking then how am I ok with IVF? Because the embryos were created and transferred to me in the hopes of creating human life. Simple as that. Nothing was purposely destroyed, discarded, experimented on, period.
I am pro-life because I believe that anybody who has an abortion on a fetus that if left alone in the womb would continue to grow and ultimately result in the birth of a baby, is killing someone. Once those embryos were put into my body and successfully implanted, it was my job to protect them and help them grow. I believe the woman who had her twins through IVF and chose to kill a perfectly viable one is wrong wrong wrong. I do not like being categorized in the same level as she (selfish, self-absorbed, etc) just because I conceived my babies through IVF.
I hope that made more sense to some of you although I am afraid not, and so, I am off to bed!
By the way, implantation is when “pregnancy” is now defined to occur. However, that human life, not yet implanted, had its start in the fallopian tube several days prior to implantation. http://www.life.org.nz/abortion/abortionkeyissues/definingpregnancy/
When your children were implanted via IVF, they were not dead or even semi-living before implantation. They were alive – made from a united sperm and egg, just fertilized outside the fallopian tube.
I realize its a very fine line from those of you who believe life starts at the exact moment of conception. Had I not gone through IVF I may very well believe the exact same thing you do.
We don’t just “believe” it, Maria. It is a biological fact. As I said in my previous comment, your children were alive BEFORE they were implanted in your uterus.
In fact, you may find it hard to believe, but I am totally against stem-cell research. I do not believe in creating embryos for the sole purpose of experimenting on them.
Ok. What if there are “extra” embryos, left over from IVF cycles, who are just going to be thrown out otherwise. Are you ok with experimenting on them? I’m trying to understand your views on this. Thanks for continuing the discussion, Maria. :)
I wish we could drop that most pernicious of words: “viable”. All life is by definition viable: “able to live” What most really mean is: “able to live on one’s own”. And if we’re honest with ourselves, that wouldn’t even describe most three-year-olds. If left alone in a fully-stocked supermarket for two weeks, how many would survive?
IVF is a hit-and-miss proposition. Like the knuckleheads who shoot bullets into the air, not thinking of them coming down. It’s one thing to have several pre-embryos “pass through” naturally. It’s quite another to scatter them about like so many corn seeds and worry about weeding them out later.
Joanna, I believe I am answering everyone’s questions. Just because you don’t like my answers, doesn’t mean I am not answering them.
Yes I can say I loved my children from the moment they were conceived because they developed into my children. I can’t say I loved the embryos that were transferred and did not implant because their cells absorbed into my body rather than implanting and therefore did not result into my children. Can you answer this question? If they were in fact living human beings at the moment of conception, why when transferred to me did they not implant and ultimately be born?
Kel, educate yourself on what you think IVF costs versus adoption. IVF for us, thanks to my husbands insurance, was covered 100%. Adoption cost us alot more…and we ended up with nothing.
We don’t just “believe” it, Maria. It is a biological fact. As I said in my previous comment, your children were alive BEFORE they were implanted in your uterus.
Kel my embryos were not implanted, they were transferred, and not all of them became my children. The ones that implanted however DID become my children.
As far as “leftover embryos” during the IVF process. Embryos need to develop to a certain stage before they are either transferred or frozen. Frozen ones may then be thawed out to transfer, but most don’t implant. If they don’t develop into an 8 cell embryo by day 5 of fertilization, then they are not strong enough to transfer or freeze. And yes, those are discarded. Or you may refer to this as dying/murder? And to answer your question, I am not ok with experimenting on embryos period.
And now I am really going to bed!
Can you answer this question? If they were in fact living human beings at the moment of conception, why when transferred to me did they not implant and ultimately be born?
Because they died. You had a very early miscarriage. If it had happened outside an IVF procedure, you would not have even realized it happened. But that doesn’t mean they weren’t alive. It just means they died before reaching the next stage of their development.
I think it’s wonderful that you didn’t freeze your embryos, implanted all that you created, and that you’re against embryo experimentation. I guess I’m still unclear as to why YOU think it’s great. Most pro-life people I’ve seen who take your stance on IVF admit that the embryo is a life. That’s why they think it’s wrong to discard it, freeze it, experiment on it, deliberately destroy it etc. But I don’t understand the why of your position. Why is it wrong to experiment on non-living embryos (whether discarded or created for that purpose)? Why is it wrong to freeze them? Why is it wrong to deliberately destroy them? You say you are not ok with it period, but can you explain why?
Maria, this quote may be of interest to you. Dr. Gerard Nadal provided it on another post.
“[A]nimal biologists use the term embryo to describe the single cell stage, the two-cell stage, and all subsequent stages up until a time when recognizable humanlike limbs and facial features begin to appear between six to eight weeks after fertilization….“[A] number of specialists working in the field of human reproduction have suggested that we stop using the word embryo to describe the developing entity that exists for the first two weeks after fertilization. In its place, they proposed the term pre-embryo….“I’ll let you in on a secret. The term pre-embryo has been embraced wholeheartedly by IVF practitioners for reasons that are political, not scientific. The new term is used to provide the illusion that there is something profoundly different between what we nonmedical biologists still call a six-day-old embryo and what we and everyone else call a sixteen-day-old embryo.“The term pre-embryo is useful in the political arena — where decisions are made about whether to allow early embryo (now called pre-embryo) experimentation — as well as in the confines of a doctor’s office, where it can be used to allay moral concerns that might be expressed by IVF patients. ‘Don’t worry,’ a doctor might say, ‘it’s only pre-embryos that we’re manipulating or freezing. They won’t turn into real human embryos until after we’ve put them back into your body.’”
[Silver, Lee M. Remaking Eden: Cloning and Beyond in a Brave New World. New York: Avon Books, 1997, p. 39]
In other words, don’t be fooled. They are trying to manipulate you with language to tell you that the newly conceived (fertilized) embryo is not really “real” not really an embryo, not really your child yet. They may not have used the term “pre-embryo,” but the idea is the same.
I don’t think you did anything deliberately to cause those embryos’ deaths; but that they were real live human beings and that they died is not debatable.
CT,
My only explanation is that just how women have the power, unfortunately, to abort their babies, only women have the power to fully create them. The embryo has to be placed in uterus in order to create a developing life. It cannot develop into a fully formed human in a petri-dish. The fact that not every single embryo created in the natural process implants is why I am ok with creating it outside the body to give it a chance to implant. Not to do anything else with it.
I totally get that every single on of you believe that it is indeed everything it needs to be at the moment of conception, and that it “dies” if it doesn’t implant, but without the mother, it isn’t anything but a cluster of cells to me UNLESS it implants. A cluster of cells that have the potential to develop into a human, which is why I am against stem cell research. When doctors can create a fully formed baby in a petri dish, then you will have all proved me wrong.
Maria: I am sorry if I sounded too harsh. It was not meant that way. I just get frustrated when I read or hear comments such as yours. They are confusing to me, and perhaps that is my problem, not yours. However, I must agree with everyone else here that your statements contain many inconsistencies with regard to your beliefs as a pro-lifer. I think, and I may be very wrong, that your desire to have children may have superceded your good reasoning. It is very easy for me to understand that. I am so very happy that your IVF procedure went unusually better than most. Keep in mind, though, that the key word here is MOST. IVF is a terrible solution to the problem of infertility. If systematic killing of unborn children had not become law in this country, we wouldn’t be faced with the horrible “solutions” to having children that we now do.
I am so very happy that another responder quoted the good doctor on the term “embryo”. It is a smoke screen like other terms such as “personhood”, “pro-choice”, “viable” and others created to confuse the issue. He is certainly not alone in his expert opinion. Many scientists and doctors believe exactly what he had the courage to say openly.
Again, I am sorry if I offended you, but sometimes the truth will sting, especially when we hold onto beliefs that are so dear to us–and have served us well in the past. God bless you and your family.
Sister Terese,
Thanks for your kind words. My truth is different than your truth, not so much as the truth stings. I am not the least bit sorry that I went through IVF. For had I not deliberately created those embryos my children would not be here today. I gave life to them, with the help of modern science. And for that I am beaming with pride, despite yur opinions on the “death” of those embryos that didn’t implant.
My desire to have children did not supercede my reasoning. I am reasonable enough to know the difference between selective reduction (aka abortion) and an embryo not implanting. My reasoning is just different from your reasoning. You may see both as the deliberate destruction of human life, I only see one as the the deliberate destruction. In other words, a procedure has to take place for one to abort or “selectively reduce” a fetus. A choice is made, undoubtedly a terrible choice. Whereas an embryo that does not implant, whether through in vitro or in the natural process, was not meant to be born in the first place. There is no choice.
I can try to explain my reasoning a gazillion different ways, but in the end you will never understand my logic, and that is fine with me.
I hope we can all just agree to disagree. I hope you can still accept the fact that I am indeed 100% pro-life, in that I would not consciously ever make the choice to destroy a life that has been given the opportunity to grow within me, like the woman in this article consciously chose to do. Which is how I got myself into this debate in the first place. Which is how I hope to now end it.
God bless each of you also!
I totally get that every single on of you believe that it is indeed everything it needs to be at the moment of conception, and that it “dies” if it doesn’t implant, but without the mother, it isn’t anything but a cluster of cells to me UNLESS it implants.
Okay, I’m confused. First, you said your litmus test for human life was a heartbeat. Now you say it’s implantation. So, if an embryo implants, but does not have a heartbeat, it IS a child in your view, or is it still just a “mass of cells” at that point too?
I guess what I don’t understand is what it is about implantation that makes an embryo magically turn from a sort-of alive mass of human cells into a human being. And what if the embryo WOULD have implanted but was prevented from doing so by contraception (e.g., the Pill or the morning-after pill)? Do you find that wrong, since it prevents an embryo that would have or may have implanted from doing so? Or is it a “survival of the fittest” thing where only those who implant despite facing adversity are worthy of life?
See, I believe that my children were my children from the moment of conception. I don’t believe they magically became my children when they implanted or when their heartbeats began. Their DNA — sex, eye color, personality traits — were all present from the moment sperm hit egg, and that’s true of all children regardless if it happened in a petri dish or in the fallopian tube. Whether or not they implanted is really irrelevant to their status as unique individuals. They existed, and no matter how long their lives lasted — whether five days or 95 years — they are/were unique living beings.
The fact that not every single embryo created in the natural process implants is why I am ok with creating it outside the body to give it a chance to implant.
And not every single fetus in the natural process will be born alive. This is another reason given by the proaborts to defend abortion.
Sorry to have joined the discussion so lately, but: Maria, I’m not sure you’ve thought this issue out as much as you should.
Your idea about “when an embryo ‘becomes’ a child” is completely emotion/opinion-based; even you admit this (implicitly), when you say that “[the embryo] isn’t anything but a cluster of cells to me UNLESS it implants”. that simply won’t do… and certainly not in a matter of life and death! I think I can show, rather easily, how your own views are virtually indistinguishable from those of abortion-tolerant people who acknowledge “personhood” only when the child’s brain-waves can be detected, or when the child is “viable” (i.e. able to live outside the womb), or at birth, or even after being “untethered” by the umbilical cord! You simply choose (for whatever emotional reason) to draw the arbitrary “person/non-person” line much earlier than most of them would… but for no better reason.
My only explanation is that just how women have the power, unfortunately, to abort their babies, only women have the power to fully create them.
Maria, this is almost pure rhetoric (i.e. dramatic theatre, even if you weren’t intending it to be so), it makes almost no clear sense, and it’s so vague as to be nearly useless. At the risk of drawing your ire for being “too literal” (but honestly: is it so unjust for us to try to decipher your clear meaning?), I need to point out that women do not “have the power”, exclusively, “to abort their babies”; it’s quite possible for someone to kill their child by forced abortion (see the recent thread about China, on this forum, as an example) or to coerce a woman into getting an abortion she doesn’t want. Also, it is not true that “only women have the power to fully create them” (even despite your heavy qualifying word “fully”), since a woman is powerless to create a child without a man… and (forgive me, non-theists) without the express action of Almighty God. (One can say that the man and the woman “procreate” or “co-create”, but in a biological sense, all they do is place the egg and the sperm in the right place at the right time; barring any interference, the actual “creation” happens quite independently of either of their actions, beyond that.)
The embryo has to be placed in uterus in order to create a developing life.
Maria, I think you know that this is nonsense; “developing” means “growing toward fullness/completion/perfection [in the philosophical sense of “growing toward the end for which it was made”]”… and surely you can see that, even with a single cell division… or even with a single instant of cellular progress toward the first cell division (where enzymes move about, chromosomal material rearranges itself, etc.), the life of the child is “developing”. You’ve imposed a very arbitrary standard on the child, seemingly based almost entirely on your personal tastes. Again: that simply won’t do… especially since an error in this regard will result in the needless death of a human person.
It cannot develop into a fully formed human in a petri-dish.
Nor can a 6-month-old fetus, if he/she is aborted; nor can an infant, if he/she is thrown into the sea; nor can a toddler, if he/she is locked into a used refrigerator and suffocates. Do you see? “Fully-formed” has never been a sane standard for recognition of personhood or personal rights (including the right to life)!
The fact that not every single embryo created in the natural process implants is why I am ok with creating it outside the body to give it a chance to implant. Not to do anything else with it.
Let me put it this way: the fact that you find the needless deaths of the IVF children (who are not yet implanted) to be tolerable is bad; the fact that you do not compound that bad position with the further horror of embryonic experimentation is good, insofar as it goes.
I totally get that every single on of you believe that it is indeed everything it needs to be at the moment of conception, and that it “dies” if it doesn’t implant, but without the mother, it isn’t anything but a cluster of cells to me UNLESS it implants.
And to those who tolerate/approve abortion, infanticide, etc., unless the child possesses detectable brain-waves, or passes the state of “viability”, or is fully born, or moves out of her parents’ house, or what-have-you, the child isn’t anything but a “cluster of cells, to them”. Ask any of the abortion-tolerant contributors on this forum, and they’ll confirm what I say. Your current opinion is faulty, Maria (and I do not say that to insult or to demean–I state it as raw fact, where intellectual honesty demands that it be addressed), and I urge you to re-examine it. I don’t envy you the emotional turmoil that it will involve… and my heart goes out to you, for it… but you need to face the fact that (despite your best intentions, and despite the fact that you were not aware of it) several of your children died in the IVF process. The IVF process, even when it “produces a beloved child” (who is indeed a blessing–make no mistake!), is a horror, and it must be stopped.
A cluster of cells that have the potential to develop into a human, which is why I am against stem cell research.
If, by “cluster of cells”, you mean a human being in an early state of development, then I’ll repeat what many commenters have told you (and which I think you already know): such a child is ALREADY a human, by definition. If, rather, you mean “a cluster of egg cells and sperm cells”, then you might have a point.
When doctors can create a fully formed baby in a petri dish, then you will have all proved me wrong.
And when doctors can “create a fully-formed baby” in an artificial incubator/womb, then I’m sure many abortion-tolerant people will drop their objections to the pro-life position (so long as the transfer from womb to incubator can be made immediately). And when doctors can “create a fully-formed, fully-vocal, self-aware, articulate, wants-possessing child” in a petri dish, then even Peter Singer will drop his support for abortion and infanticide. This really doesn’t help anything, Maria; do you not see that your view and the abortion-tolerant view use the same principles, using the same lapses in logic and emotional underpinnings, for largely the same purposes?
In a later comment, you wrote: “My truth is different than your truth, not so much as the truth stings.” Maria, I beg you: think about what you’re saying! You’ve taken an utter “moral relativism” stance, which could have been plucked from the dictionary definition of that term: “my truth for me, your truth for you”! That simply cannot be! It’s an iron-clad rule of logic that two opposites cannot be true at the same time (cf. the “law of non-contradiction”); for example: My height (in centimetres) cannot be greater than 180, and also less than 180, at the same time; surely you see that? Then how can you possibly maintain “my truth for me, your truth for you” when you and we hold utterly opposite claims?
Your claim: a living embryo in a petri dish is not a person, and does not have the right to life proper to a human person.
Our claim: a living embryo in a petri dish IS a person, and does have the right to life proper to a human person.
These claims cannot possibly be true at the same time, and there is no third option; so one of them must be wrong, and one of them must be right. The idea of “my truth for me, your truth for you” is utterly nonsensical, here. No… you need to think this through, Maria, and decide which is true, and then use sane reason (i.e. your head, not your heart) to prove it beyond all reasonable doubt. Anything else, in a case where human lives hang in the balance, would be utterly irresponsible.
Paladin – you never disappoint. I wish I could express myself the way you do.
JoAnna,
Their hearts won’t start to beat unless they implant. Again, each of you are taking every single sentence I write and then attacking me on that. An embryo’s heart starts to beat within days of implanting. Thus my point earlier on having to have a heartbeat to survive, having to implant, etc.
Again, show me an embryo that develops into a fully forming human being in a petri-dish and prove me wrong.
I also believe that my children were my children from the moment of conception. The embryos that failed to implant were not my children. They could have been, but they didn’t make it. Thus not my children.
Do you even know how many “children” you probably have had and lost? Do you have names for all of these unique living individuals that existed and love all of them from the moment they were conceived, even though you didn’t ever realize they were there in the first place?? Do you mourn their deaths? Or do you just simply choose to not think about their status as unique individuals because they didn’t develop into your children? Did you forget about them? Because I guarantee they did exist but they didn’t implant so your body must have unkowingly killed them! If you are all so convinced that life happens at the exact moment of conception, then why are we all ok with the fact that through the natural process of development not every conception results in a child?? Sperm meets egg ALOT. You probably have alot of dead “children”.
Paladin, please dont try to educate me on the topic. I did not have children that died during the IVF process. I had embryos that failed to develop. Happens in human reproduction all the time.
Done done done done done with this debate!! God bless you all!!
Maria… for the love of God, do not try to dodge these life-and-death issues with an imperious dismissal (e.g. “Don’t you dare lecture me!”)! Don’t run… face this! You cannot morally accept a life of self-contradiction and denial; you must face this, if you truly serve the God of Truth, and if you’re truly striving to be a person of honesty and integrity. Don’t run.
Listen to yourself, Maria: it’s quite true that embryos (i.e. very young, unborn children) “fail to develop” (i.e. die) all the time, even independently of human actions. But don’t you see? Babies, toddlers, children, teen-agers, adults, and the elderly “fail to keep developing (i.e. die) all the time”, as well, even without humans causing those deaths. Are you seriously claiming that, since death happens in nature, we’re now morally free to bring it about by our own initiative? Since babies starve all the time (in Africa, India, etc.), we’re now free to abandon our babies on trash-heaps and let them starve?
You cannot possibly believe this. Please tell me you don’t. But if you don’t, then you need to think this issue through, rather than running away and hiding your head in the sand. Being muddle-headed about a topic which makes the difference between “bringing a child into the world with every expectation that he/she will die in an Eppendorf tube” and “mere cells being discarded” is not right, not just, and not permissible for anyone who claims to believe in God. Face this.
Maria, I beg you: don’t use fatigue or disgust as an excuse to run away from this. Stay, and sort this out with us. It’s important.
I also believe that my children were my children from the moment of conception. The embryos that failed to implant were not my children. They could have been, but they didn’t make it. Thus not my children.
Maria, if the egg was yours, then they were biologically your offspring. Your children.
You seem to be conflating, as Paladin stated, your emotional definition of children with the biological definition.
Whether they were implanted or not, they were living human beings in the very early stages of development.
Do you even know how many “children” you probably have had and lost? Do you have names for all of these unique living individuals that existed and love all of them from the moment they were conceived, even though you didn’t ever realize they were there in the first place?? Do you mourn their deaths? Or do you just simply choose to not think about their status as unique individuals because they didn’t develop into your children? Did you forget about them? Because I guarantee they did exist but they didn’t implant so your body must have unkowingly killed them! If you are all so convinced that life happens at the exact moment of conception, then why are we all ok with the fact that through the natural process of development not every conception results in a child?? Sperm meets egg ALOT. You probably have alot of dead “children”.
We very well may have many miscarried children of which we are unaware. We do not give them names because we are unaware of their existence.
This is not the case in IVF. You know exactly how many embryos are created in a given IVF procedure, and therefore you know how many were transferred and how many successfully implanted. The difference is that those of us who unknowingly miscarried did nothing to knowingly expedite the process, and those who participate in IVF know that they are purposely risking the lives of those developing human beings. You know that if you transfer four, you may get one or two, or perhaps if you’re really lucky, all four will implant. But that’s usually not the case, of course. Therefore you are transferring several to “up the odds” that you’ll get lucky and have one implant successfully.
The fact that embryos (living human beings in the early developmental stage) fail to develop does not mean that they aren’t now dead.
The difference here is that IVF is a deliberate act which risks the lives of those embryos, when in a miscarriage, there is no deliberate act. The end result may be the same, Maria, as you so flippantly point out, but that doesn’t mean those lives (and they are lives) are or were insignificant.
Lol! Paladin and Kel,
I assure you I am not running away and hiding my head in the sand. I have just been going back and forth on this for a day and a half now and I am sick and tired of discussing it. As much as you want to convert me, I believe what I choose to believe. I went through the experience of IVF and did my own research on the topic and formed my own opinion. What you see as death of a child, I see as failure of an embryo to implant. No death in my eyes. Sorry! Do you honestly then believe that women are unknowingly killing their unborn babies just from having unprotected sex for their selfish desire to procreate?? Same concept. Why is it wrong if it starts in a petri-dish rather than by sex? Aren’t we deliberately having unprotected sex for the sole purpose of creating a life, therefore possibly creating embryos (children) that don’t implant (die)? Should we all just not have unprotected sex then and cease to exist?
How you can compare an infant being thrown into the sea or throwing babies into the trash to an embryo not successfully implanting in my endometrial lining as the exact same thing is laughable to see. Sorry if that enrages you.
Now I beg you, can you please stop directing your comments towards me? I am going to have to unsuscribe to this. Or as you call it, run away and hide my head in the sand. :-))
I am not the least bit sorry that I went through IVF. For had I not deliberately created those embryos my children would not be here today.
And this is why you are setting arbitrary lines and definitions for life and when it begins.
Admitting that you didn’t have sufficient knowledge about what IVF actually does, or perhaps admitting that yes, you did know the risks of IVF but you pushed that aside out of your desperation for children doesn’t mean your children are any less gifts from God or any less precious to you.
This is an emotional issue for anyone who has used IVF or who is close to someone who has used IVF. That doesn’t mean that IVF isn’t morally wrong, though. It just means you were willing to commit and justify a moral wrong in order to get something you understandably wanted desperately.
BTW, the fact that insurance covers IVF may be the deciding factor for people who are willing to sacrifice some children so that others have a chance to live, but really – should that be what we base our lives upon? Most insurance covers abortion, too, but it sounds as if you are pro-life regardless of this fact. The fact that your insurance won’t pay to raise your non-aborted child obviously made little difference in your decision to carry to term and incur the expenses of childbirth and raising a child, right?
Many companies offer assistance with adoption, and the government gives tax credits for it as well. Depending on whether or not the adopted child has special needs, the state also may give monthly subsidies to the adoptive parents.
You may never change your position, but Paladin’s right. You’re on shaky moral ground because you have chosen to be.
Maria – glad to hear that you do not condone embryonic stem cell research. Good. Now consider that in the future not to condone the experimentation on those embryos – in their creation, etc in IVF.
Your children are wonderful – and if you have the urge to add to your family – please consider adoption or foster parenting. Those children need your love also.
Consider reading up on the actual percentage of success of the IVF and some of the difficulties with that. The success rate is dismal, with much more human death occurring than life. With those kind of statistics, why not opt in the future for a pro-life solution that is 100% – adoption or foster parenting? risky, as all things, but not the possibility of death. AS I said before, I did not know or understand these things until recently (speaking) in my life. Somethings take time to simmer.
Continue praying on pro-life issues, continue learning and know that God knit every child together from the moment of conception. not implantation, not heartbeat, not birth, not first breath – conception. We are fearfully and wonderfully made – by our loving Father. Let’s protect all His children – from the moment of conception.
Blessings to you and your family.
Maria,
Thus my point earlier on having to have a heartbeat to survive, having to implant, etc.
The heartbeat is not what’s needed to survive, the heartbeat is what happens when the embryo survives to the point of having one. Humans also need lungs and brain waves to eventually survive outside the womb. Why isn’t the fetus a life until it’s lungs and brain develop?
Again, show me an embryo that develops into a fully forming human being in a petri-dish and prove me wrong.
What does that have to do with anything? The embryo is in a petri dish b/c that’s where you created it. If you remove an implanted embryo with a heartbeat and put it in a petri dish it won’t develop into a “fully forming” human being either. A human life is created in the petri dish and will die unless it’s implanted into a womb where it can continue developing.
I also believe that my children were my children from the moment of conception. The embryos that failed to implant were not my children. They could have been, but they didn’t make it. Thus not my children.
So before an embryo implants they are not human beings, but after they implant they retroactively become children from the moment when they were previously not your children?
Do you even know how many “children” you probably have had and lost? Do you have names for all of these unique living individuals that existed and love all of them from the moment they were conceived, even though you didn’t ever realize they were there in the first place?? Do you mourn their deaths? Or do you just simply choose to not think about their status as unique individuals because they didn’t develop into your children? Did you forget about them? Because I guarantee they did exist but they didn’t implant so your body must have unkowingly killed them!
Is this why you’re so riled up insisting they weren’t alive? You didn’t kill the embryos that didn’t implant. You miscarried them. I have no idea how many children I may have lost in early miscarriages. My lack of knowledge of their existence doesn’t mean they weren’t unique individuals. Many people pass without being mourned, remembered or even noticed. I do love them, though I can never know how many there are are if there are even any. If I did, I would love them specifically. You do know of at least some of your early miscarriages that happened during IVF. So I don’t see why you wouldn’t recognize the loss.
If you are all so convinced that life happens at the exact moment of conception, then why are we all ok with the fact that through the natural process of development not every conception results in a child?? Sperm meets egg ALOT. You probably have alot of dead “children”.
We probably do. We’re ‘ok’ with it b/c there is nothing you can do to prevent it. The issue with IVF is a total indifference in the industry and most of the patients to the staggering number of embryos that are created and lost in the pursuit of the ones who survive. And that’s without even getting into the ones that are deliberately killed or mistreated. You are the exception on the latter – not the rule.
Their hearts won’t start to beat unless they implant.
So? How does affect their status as individual, unique human beings? Does the start of the heartbeat or the moment of implantation magically make an embryo into a human being, or was it a human being prior to that point?
Again, each of you are taking every single sentence I write and then attacking me on that.
I’m trying to understand your view, but I’m finding it difficult due to those inconsistencies, hence why I ask for clarification.
An embryo’s heart starts to beat within days of implanting.
This is factually incorrect. An embryo usually implants within 6-8 days after conception. The embryo’s heart does not begin to beat until around 22 days after conception, or around the 6th week of pregnancy (4th gestational week).
Your other points have been answered by other commenters, so I’ll skip to this one:
Do you even know how many “children” you probably have had and lost?
I’ve been pregnant six times that I know about (i.e., that yielded a positive pregnancy test).
Do you have names for all of these unique living individuals that existed and love all of them from the moment they were conceived, even though you didn’t ever realize they were there in the first place??
I do:
Elanor (conceived 5/3/04 and born 1/13/05)
Noel (conceived 10/06, died 11 or 12/06; we don’t know for sure)
William (conceived 6/30/07 and born 2/25/08)
Chris (short for Christian or Christina), conceived 2/17/09 and died 3/13/09
Violet (conceived 6/9/09 and born 3/5/10)
Baby W (conceived on 3/25/11 and due to be born 12/16/11).
As to any children we conceived who died without my knowledge (if any), I won’t know their names until I get to Heaven, but I love them nonetheless and would have mourned their deaths had I been aware.
Do you mourn their deaths? Or do you just simply choose to not think about their status as unique individuals because they didn’t develop into your children?
See above.
Did you forget about them? Because I guarantee they did exist but they didn’t implant so your body must have unkowingly killed them!
Again, see above.
If you are all so convinced that life happens at the exact moment of conception, then why are we all ok with the fact that through the natural process of development not every conception results in a child?? Sperm meets egg ALOT. You probably have alot of dead “children”.
I may very well have more children in Heaven that I currently know about. However, they key difference is INTENT. When children are INTENTIONALLY created and discarded during the IVF process, they are deliberately killed. When a man and woman conceive a child (intentionally or otherwise) after sexual intercourse and the baby dies before or after implantation, that is a miscarriage. If the man or woman intentionally caused the death of the baby, before or after implantation, that is an abortion. Depending on the baby’s level of development, it can also be a homicide (see the Unborn Victims of Violence Act).
Do you see the distinction between deliberate abortion and unintended miscarriage?
Maria, I don’t think you understand, even now. There is no rage in me, or in Kel; if you think otherwise, then you really haven’t attended closely to anything we’ve said. We’re trying to get through to you because we care, and because we’ve seen the same sort of mistake you’re now making, made an uncountable number of times before, by pro-abortion commenters who use virtually your exact words to defend themselves. No opinion is strong enough to change reality; reality will win, in the end… so you might as well set to performing the hard work necessary to find it.
You’re certainly free to leave, anytime you like, or to comment (or not comment) as you wish; but you are not free to dodge the issue (whether with flippancy and affected callousness, as in your very last comment, or otherwise) and remain intellectually honest. Many post-abortive commenters on this forum follow what you’re starting to do: they unload their position, then they react in indignation when challenged, and proceed to bob, weave, squirm, twist and dodge every logical implication of what they’ve “chosen”.
Regardless of your mood or patience level, Maria, you’ll need to face this sooner or later; you might as easily do it with us, where some people can offer you both a reasoned critique of your position (which you’ve obviously not thought through in all its implications) and help in coming to terms with it (you’d be quite surprised at how gentle and compassionate we “rage-filled” commenters can be, if you only stop your own wild thrashings and talk with us, especially about how to accept the truth and mercy). Your choice, of course… but I do hope you’ll cool off, and think this through, at least on your own time, and consider what we’ve said. The ribald laughter you used to dismiss us in your last e-mail won’t be as fulfilling, later tonight (or on some other quiet night, alone), when some of these implications start to make a disturbing amount of sense.
JoAnna,
I would make a distinction between intentionally intending the death of the embryo (destroying it) and implanting it with the hope of survival and miscarrying. I think the latter still undermines the dignity of the human being and usually also involves an indifference to the the life of that unique human, but I would still not call it an abortion. Maybe you make that distinction too and I’m misunderstanding you – if so, apologies :-).
Paladin, I am laughing at your arrogance. Examples:
1)Maria, I don’t think you understand, even now.
2)so you might as well set to performing the hard work necessary to find it.
3)but you are not free to dodge the issue
4)Your choice, of course… but I do hope you’ll cool off,
and my favorite!
5)The ribald laughter you used to dismiss us in your last e-mail won’t be as fulfilling, later tonight (or on some other quiet night, alone), when some of these implications start to make a disturbing amount of sense.
I am still laughing, because you talk as if you are God. It is no wonder pro-choicers walk away, or in your mind bob, twist, squirm, weave, and dodge. Who are you to decide that tonight or some other night I am going to curl up in bed and bawl my eyes out because you have all enlightened me on what a horrible baby killer I am? For your information, later tonight, as much as you would like to believe it, nothing will disturb me about any of your beliefs that you are trying to shove down my throat.
And to Joanna, you have been pregnant six times, that you know about, because you got a positive pregnancy test, because the embryo implanted. You actually intentionally caused the death of many more embryos if you had unprotected sex more than 6 times. You can sugercoat it and call it a miscarriage if it makes you sleep better at night, but by your logic, the simple fact that you deliberately took that chance of having unprotected sex more than the 6 times you were pregnant makes you a baby killer like me. After all, my intention in transferring embryos that didn’t implant was to make a baby, just like your intention in having unprotected sex was to make a baby. So because you are not fully aware of those poor little embryos makes it ok?? You still intentionally chose to make them.
Paladin, am I still dodging, bobbing, weaving, and curled up shaking in utter shock at my lack of morals?
The sooner you will realize that the debate on when life begins will be around forever, the sooner you will sleep better at night not trying to play God to those that don’t abide by your rules. That was my turn at arrogance.
Paladin, am I still dodging, bobbing, weaving, and curled up shaking in utter shock at my lack of morals?
I said nothing about any lack of morals, Maria; you did what you did in ignorance, not from malice. But are you still “bobbing, weaving, etc.”? Yes.
If you are right (in that the children conceived via IVF, but who were not implanted, are not children at all), then you should be able to defend your position logically, without histrionics and other such theatre. If, on the other hand, you run off in a huff and a burst of emotionalism, that will not last. When your debate opponents are gone, you’ll have time to think, yes? This is not a “scare tactic”; it’s plain sense. It is not I, or Kel, or anyone else with whom you have to contend; it is plain logic, and plain truth, which you need to face.
Are you willing? If you’re right, then prove it. I’ll listen to every last word, I assure you… as will many on this board.
Maria; you did what you did in ignorance.
Paladin, there you go being God again.
If you are right (in that the children conceived via IVF, but who were not implanted, are not children at all), then you should be able to defend your position logically, without histrionics and other such theatre. If, on the other hand, you run off in a huff and a burst of emotionalism, that will not last.
I have been defending my positon for the last two days, quite logically, without histrionics and other such theatre. I don’t know how else to debate it any longer. You just refuse to see that because your logic is not my logic. As a result, you claim that I am ignorant. Thus your arrogance. On the other hand, I am completely fine with your beliefs, and don’t feel the need to continue to engage you as to why your logic is different than mine.
When your debate opponents are gone, you’ll have time to think, yes? It is not I, or Kel, or anyone else with whom you have to contend; it is plain logic, and plain truth, which you need to face.
Arrogant again. I do not have to contend or face anything. Totally at peace with my decisions, my logic, my beliefs, my babies, my life. I think thats something that you need to contend with though. Try to control the God complex.
Are you willing? If you’re right, then prove it.
I have nothing to prove, unlike yourself.
And to Joanna, you have been pregnant six times, that you know about, because you got a positive pregnancy test, because the embryo implanted.
That’s correct.
You actually intentionally caused the death of many more embryos if you had unprotected sex more than 6 times.
How does having unprotected sex deliberately and intentionally kill any embryos that are conceived as a result?
You can sugercoat it and call it a miscarriage if it makes you sleep better at night, but by your logic, the simple fact that you deliberately took that chance of having unprotected sex more than the 6 times you were pregnant makes you a baby killer like me.
Does the above mean that you do not see any difference between a miscarriage and an abortion?
After all, my <strong>intention</strong> in transferring embryos that didn’t implant was to make a baby, just like your i<strong>ntention</strong> in having unprotected sex was to make a baby. So because you are not fully aware of those poor little embryos makes it ok?? You still <strong>intentionally </strong>chose to make them.
Actually, my husband and I use NFP to space our family, so it’s incorrect to say that we intend to conceive every time we have sex. We are aware that it is a possible result of the sexual act, but when we are using NFP to avoid pregnancy we generally are having sex during my infertile period, when no eggs are present to be fertilized.
However, intentionally choosing to create a baby is not the same as intentionally causing that baby’s death. Do you not see the distinction?
“You actually intentionally caused the death of many more embryos if you had unprotected sex more than 6 times.”
No she didn’t intentionally cause the death of embryos and neither did you. You have had more miscarriages than you count, and she may have also (though she would count hers if she knew about them – as would I). It’s not sugar coating. You have a very weird understanding of “intent”. What people have been saying here is that the process of IVF – the industry and most of the patients – show a complete disregard for the lives of embryos. They don’t CARE how many die in the pursuit of the one who lives. I care very much if I have an early miscarriage and if there were something I could do to prevent that risk – I would do it. Now the indifference is not universal. I do know a couple who created and implanted just one embryo in each cycle b/c they didn’t think it right to risk the lives of others to try to achieve a better outcome. But they are the exception. You too are an exception in a way in that you wouldn’t freeze or discard embryos but instead implant them all. That is very laudable, but you still don’t care about their demise. You still have not provided a logical reason to define life as beginning with the heartbeat as opposed to an earlier time like implantation or conception or a later time like brain waves or viability outside the womb or when the child can feel pain, or when the child can express wants (a la Peter Singer). All we have is that you “feel” that that’s the line. So if we put you and an abortion advocate in a room it would go like this: “But I just feel that life begins at the heartbeat. An implanted fetus is alive in a way an embryo is not, but abortion is wrong b/c it kills a human being.” “Well I just feel that life begins when the baby can survive outside the womb. Until then it’s not a fully actualized human being. It’s not alive in the way that you or I are alive. That’s my truth and you have your truth. Don’t shove your morals down my throat.”
Maria, there is no arrogance on my part, or on the part of anyone who’s criticizing your position, nor is it “God-like” to call you on a provable error; in fact, it could be called prideful for you to reply: “How dare you have the temerity to challenge my opinions?!”, or to assume (without any basis) that you cannot possibly be mistaken. We’re pointing out the fact that your position (“pro-life”, while rejecting the personhood of non-implanted human embryos) is self-contradictory, and therefore cannot be true. We’re not trying to force you to agree with our favourite flavour of ice-cream, or any such thing; we’re pointing out that your thinking cannot be logically, objectively right in this matter. I would do the same, if you were insisting that 2 + 2 = 5, but defending it on the basis that “no one has the right to challenge me!” Yes, we do… and it’s not “God-like” of us to do so, any more than it’d be “God-like” for YOU to correct anyone else on that same point. You and I didn’t make “2 + 2 = 4” true, so we really can’t take credit for it; correct? If you’re provably wrong, then you’re provably wrong.
To put it another way: you’re not wrong simply because you disagree with me (or Kel, or JoAnna, or whomever); you’re wrong because you’re wrong… and you’d be wrong, even if I agreed with you. (The only difference would be that I’d be wrong, as well.) This isn’t “personal”, in the sense of “scoring points” against you, or trying to force an opinion on you; this is a matter of raw, logical fact… as cold and hard a fact as the multiplication table. As the old saying goes: “You’re entitled to your own opinions; you’re not entitled to your own facts.” The fact that you hold self-contradictory views proves, beyond all doubt, that your ideas are wrong. How can you not see this? Or is it easier for you to become indignant, and scold us for daring to contradict you? This issue has real, solid answers, Maria… it’s not simply a wrestling match between unprovable opinions (as you seem to think).
Maria: I have been praying for you all day. I don’t know why, I just felt the need to. I hope that is ok. My prayers were NOT intended to convince you of my way of thinking or anyone else’s way of thinking. I just prayed for you. I get the feeling, and please correct me if I’m mistaken, that part of your defensiveness on this topic is because you might be feeling like we are somehow criticizing your children. I just want to assure you that for me, and I think for most of the folks here, we are overjoyed that you have three beautiful children–a gift from God, in no small measure. I think perhaps that you see this argument as a slam against your beautiful children. Please know that this is not the intention.
I guess, for me, I just don’t follow your line of reasoning. And, as you said, I guess at this point we just have to “agree to disagree”. I am a student of logic and as someone else said, there is no opposing truths. Truth is truth. I will comment further when I have more time.
God bless you and know you and your family will be in my prayers.
Paladin:
Gosh, I feel so stupid! I tried to join your blog, but I don’t even know what a blog is! I’m on there, so you’re going to have to help me learn how to “participate”. My only “blogging” experience” has been my blogging with God. HELP!
:) Hi, Sister!
“Blog” is an internet slang contraction for “web-log”; it means a place where a particular person can post articles, writings, etc., that he/she has written, and it also allows (usually) for others to leave comments about any given article. This website, itself, is a “blog”, owned by (the irreplaceable) Jill Stanek, in fact! One need not “join” a blog, one can simply go to the website, read the articles, and leave comments as one wishes. (Some blogs are set up to allow only “members” to post articles… but mine is not set up thusly.) You may notice that my blog is rather neglected, and that I’ve not posted there for over a year! :) Thank you for your interest, though! (Just click on my name, and it should take you to my blog, where you can then “surf” around and click links, etc., as you like.)
Maria says:
August 15, 2011 at 11:23 am
Do you even know how many “children” you probably have had and lost? Do you have names for all of these unique living individuals that existed and love all of them from the moment they were conceived, even though you didn’t ever realize they were there in the first place?? Do you mourn their deaths?
___________________________________________________
My personal answer to all your questions is Yes, Maria…I do.I have ONE precious child who is still alive. I’ve lost FIVE that I’m sure I lost. My doctor had said at one time “Yea..you’re probably pregnant.”, but I never got to take a pregnancy test, then I started bleeding. That may or may not have been number 6, but just in case I WAS yes, I named that one, too. I mourned every one I lost. They WERE my children.
To protect the privacy of my students and patients, I’m not going to name my place of employment. I work in a health care facility where professionals (faculty who are professionals in their field) supervise students who are working toward getting their degrees and licenses.
Today I saw something amazing. One of my students is a twin! I never knew but as I was walking through the patient area I saw him, taking care of his twin. Do you understand what I’m telling you? One twin went into the health care field and is now taking care of his brother. If that doesn’t melt your heart, your heart is made of stone. Is he is brother’s keeper? Evidently so.
Curious that people who despise God find it so easy to pretend to BE gods and dole out death to those who are too small to defend themselves.
CT,
I do know a couple who created and implanted just one embryo in each cycle b/c they didn’t think it right to risk the lives of others to try to achieve a better outcome.
Uhm, explain to me how creating just one embryo is ok, but more than one is suddenly intentional death of a child? Are you not aware that that one embryo may have not implanted? Didn’t you just risk that one embryo’s life???
You also said “all we have is that you “feel” that’s the line”. And all I have is that you also “feel” life starts when sperm meets egg.
JoAnna, you said:
Actually, my husband and I use NFP to space our family, so it’s incorrect to say that we intend to conceive every time we have sex. We are aware that it is a possible result of the sexual act, but when we are using NFP to avoid pregnancy we generally are having sex during my infertile period, when no eggs are present to be fertilized.
Unless you are having an ultrasound prior to having sex, you have no idea if there are eggs present to be fertilized. A woman can indeed get pregnant even though she thinks she in infertile at that time.
So if it makes sense to you(oh, I can’t possibly conceive now!) or Ct, oh, its just one embryo!, then all of a sudden your rules do not apply anymore. Conception didn’t really happen in your eyes, so you will just pretend that perhaps no embryos may have possibly been created.
Your logic does not make sense to me. Just like mine does not make sense to you. Again, lets agree to disagree and call it a day already.
What most opponents of IVF don’t realize is that most eggs that are fertilized don’t result in a viable pregnancy. Whether conceived in a petri dish or inside a uterus, many embryos are unable to even implant. That doesn’t mean they were killed. Once transfered into the uterus they have just as good a chance of resulting in a live birth as if they had been conceived without assistance.
Also, the success rate is now much higher than 25% per cycle. Here are some stats from the top fertility clinics in the country:
http://fertilitysuccessrates.com/report/United-States/women-under-35/data.html
Uhm, explain to me how creating just one embryo is ok, but more than one is suddenly intentional death of a child?
**Sigh** It’s intentional disregard for the child’s life. Not intentional death. You didn’t intentionally kill your children, but they did die. Most parents implant more than one not in the hopes that all will survive but in the hopes that one will. In fact, as we see in the article, most parents hope only one or at most 2 survive. More broadly, IVF fuels this indifference (and worse) by treating embryos as means to an end. As many as necessary can die so long as occasionally some live. The remainder can be mistreated or destroyed (that would be intentional killing). Do you understand the distinction.
I don’t feel that conception is the line. Biologically conception is the line. Sperm and Egg alone are not a new human being. At the moment of conception the process of a new life begins and continues unless interrupted. Implantation is necessary for it to continue, but not for it to begin.
You say your line is based on logic, but can you describe why someone who draws the line at lung development is logically wrong. How would you argue with “their truth”, given what you have said. Your line is not based on logic or fact or anything but raw opinion.
Thanks, Paladin!! I will visit your “blog”. Hopefully, I won’t blog myself out of existence!!
Ct, you still haven’t explained how your friend creating the one embryo for the purpose of implanting is ok, given that if it didnt implant you just “intentionally disregarded the child’s life” by creating it via IVF in the first place. One embryo or five, does it matter according to your logic? You didn’t explain that to me, you just dodged the question. Do YOU understand the distinction?
Your line is also not based on logic or fact but raw opinion. It is your opinion that an embryo in itself is a human being. There are millions of others who do not have that opinion. The problem is that you, nor anyone else who has been commenting here, can deal with that.
Maria: I just want to say that, as staunch pro-lifers, (I think I can speak for most of us), we are well-aware that the numbers (the “millions of people who do not agree with us”) are against us. That is what is so sad. It wasn’t always so. These are the challenges that face us every day. Do we stand up to what we believe (and know) is right and moral, or do we join the others because we don’t want to be alone or because it is and “easier” path and meets our desires at the moment? I remember once hearing a story by Bishop Fulton Sheen. I know I cannot repeat it verbatum, but I will try to repeat its essence. It goes something like this: There was a man (or a woman) walking on the outside of a huge crowd of people going in the opposite direction. They were all walking and tripping along a crumbling edge of a deep, dark abyss. When they saw the other person walking in the opposite direction all alone on the outside of their crowd, they began to laugh at him/her and then called: “You fool! Can’t you see you’re going the wrong way! See! Everyone else is going this way!” Now the edge began to crumble under the heavy weight of all these people. Bishop Sheen asked, “Now, who was really going in the wrong direction?” And that is what we/I have to keep in mind whenever I have to decide which way I should walk. What side of the abyss do I want to chance? Do I make the bold, but scarey decision to go against the prevailing opinion? What risks do I take on personally when I make these decisions?
My point here is that, as a staunch pro-lifer, (and, more importantly, as a Catholic Christian) I have to be willing to go to any lengths, even to die to defend what I know to be true, beautiful and good…and that means even if I am the only one in the world going the “wrong” way. That is living by conviction and principles. I’m NOT saying that you aren’t. I’m just replying to your comment about “millions” of others who do not believe the same way I/we do. I realized early on in my life (and I’ve lived a good long time, and made a LOT of mistakes!)that if I am to be what I claim to be, I must be willing to risk all to defend those tenets with which I live, even if I am the only one in the world on the “wrong” side of the abyss.
Hey Sydney did I read correctly? Are you pregnant? If so, CONGRATULATIONS!. Sorry you are so sick, reminds me of my second pregnancy. I was happy but sooooo sick for 3 months. God bless.
Sister Terese,
Thank you for praying for me.
It has been a glorious 2 days of conversation with all of you. God bless and Good Night!
Maria
Unless you are having an ultrasound prior to having sex, you have no idea if there are eggs present to be fertilized. A woman can indeed get pregnant even though she thinks she in infertile at that time.
Actually, I have a fairly good idea, given I’ve been using NFP and charting my cycles since 2003. Eight years of experience has given me a fairly good idea of when I’m fertile and when I’m not. However, like every method, it does have a failure rate so I can concede that it is impossible to know, every cycle, with 100% certainty.
So if it makes sense to you(oh, I can’t possibly conceive now!) or Ct, oh, its just one embryo!, then all of a sudden your rules do not apply anymore. Conception didn’t really happen in your eyes, so you will just pretend that perhaps no embryos may have possibly been created.
I’m not sure what your point is here. My husband and I are fully aware that conception may occur after every act of intercourse (assuming there is an egg present to be fertilized, and assuming I am not already pregnant, as I am now!).
What I am confused about is why you equate conceiving a child with intentionally killing a child as though the two are synonymous. Have you ever tried to conceive children in your womb via sexual intercourse? If so, does that mean you intended to kill your children as well?
Your logic does not make sense to me. Just like mine does not make sense to you. Again, lets agree to disagree and call it a day already.
It would help if you could explain your logic. Do you see a difference between miscarriage and abortion, or are the two synonymous in your opinion?
Maria,
I wasn’t dodging the question I just had to run out the door and as I tried to post that I would get to the other question later, my battery died.
I only asked if you understood the distinction b/c you keep saying we’re accusing you of killing your children. We’re not. We’re just saying that they WERE your children and some did die in the process. There are two life arguments related to IVF (intentional destruction/mistreatment and disregard for casualties) and you seem to be conflating them.
Regarding the one embryo, my point was that my friend only wanted one child and was not willing to risk implanting two while hoping that one would not make it. When the child didn’t implant, she mourned her loss. She tried to respect the value of her child’s life. One is not the magic number – any parent who only creates the number of embryos they intend to transfer and transfers all with the hope that they all implant and continue to grow would be in the same position of trying to respect the lives of their children (if not their innate human dignity – but that is a different issue). But on an individual level, most parents do not do that or hope for that. They implant extras not in the hopes of having multiples but in the hopes of upping their chances of implanting 1. The make and freeze extras for their later convenience. They destroy the ones they don’t ‘need’ and ‘reduce’ the ones they don’t want (deliberate killing). The industry encourages that (and worse). It devalues human life – willing to sacrifice as much as necessary. It doesn’t matter what the success rate is b/c most dr’s and patients would defend it whether it was 50% successful or only 1% successful. The lives of embryonic human beings means nothing.
JoAnna,
My point is that you have been saying all along that IVF is wrong because embryos are created that are then destroyed. By simply having unprotected sex, embryos are also created that don’t result in a pregnancy each and every time. Are they not then destroyed in the same way, regardless if sperm and egg met in a petri-dish or in the fallopian tube? They do not all result in pregnancy. Why is it destroying human life if its IVF and NOT destroying human life if its unprotected sex? Both create embryos that don’t implant.
I am not equating conceiving a child with intentionally killing a child at all. I am saying that that you are equating conceiving a child with intentionally killing a child if in fact your claim is that embryos are the tiny human beings that I have no disregard for. By your logic, simply having unprotected sex is destroying human life since there are countless embryos that result.
I have tried to conceive unsuccessfully via sex for 8 yrs. Does that mean whatever embryos we created from all that sperm meeting egg was me destroying life for 8 years?
I see a huge difference between miscarriage and abortion. Neither of which happens simply because you put sperm and egg together in a petri-dish. My logic is the embryo alone, without entering the human body, does not constitute a live human being. That IS my logic. I’ve explained it 15 million different ways. Its not my fault if you can’t understand it.
And once again, good night to all and God Bless!
What part of “Abortion – on demand, without apology” don’t you understand?
To all the abortion rights advocates out there:
Now that we have abortion on demand without apology, explain to us “hayseeds” in the midwest, how we are now such a kinder, more compassionate society, in which every child is wanted.
Yeah, wanted like any other consumer product.
And Maria, we’ve already told you that we acknowledge that we may have had early miscarriages. If that has happened, I still recognize the dignity of those unique children. But do you see the difference between accepting that nature may take it’s course in a tragic way and deliberately creating circumstances where that is likely to happen and not caring that it does? I wasn’t clear about my example of the couple being conservative with the creation of one embryo and I see that it added to your confusion. I hope my answer above made it clearer.
Maria,
So if an embryo is created in the body and not in a petri dish – is that a life? If not, perhaps we could better understand your logic if you explain why an embryo created in the body suddenly becomes a life when it has a heartbeat and how you would respond to someone who thought a later line delineated the “life” line.
CT,
Embryos that do not implant are not early miscarriages. You have to be pregnant in order to miscarry. Simply placing embryos in the uterus does not make you pregnant. We are talking about embryos and embryos alone are we not? You can’t recognize the dignity of those unique children, especially if you conceived them via sex, because you wouldn’t have even known they were there in the first place, unless they implanted and you were pregnant!
I could ask you the same question “so if an embryo is created in the body and not in a petri dish – is that a life?” Because if you answered yes, which you did, then are you not destroying that life simply by having unprotected sex if it doesn’t result in a pregnancy? My answer to that question is no, it isn’t a life yet unless it implants. That’s why woman only get positive pregnancy tests after implantation. They don’t get positive pregnancy tests simply by transferring embryos into the body, because a life hasn’t formed yet.
I have GOT to get off this computer!
My point is that you have been saying all along that IVF is wrong because embryos are created that are then destroyed.
That’s ONE of the reasons IVF is wrong, yes, but not the ONLY reason. IVF is still wrong even in cases where no excess embryos are created or destroyed.
By simply having unprotected sex, embryos are also created that don’t result in a pregnancy each and every time.
Yes, this does happen in nature.
Are they not then destroyed in the same way, regardless if sperm and egg met in a petri-dish or in the fallopian tube? They do not all result in pregnancy.
Do embryos sometimes fail to implant, regardless of the method in which they are conceived? Yes.
Why is it destroying human life if its IVF and NOT destroying human life if its unprotected sex? Both create embryos that don’t implant.
It’s destroying human life in IVF if excess embryos are created which are then discarded and NOT implanted. If an IVF process is done in which no embryos are deliberately destroyed (as in, they are not even given the chance to implant, but thrown into a biowaste container), then there is no intentional killing of human life in that particular round — but it is still wrong. The reasons for that are too long to put in a combox, but there’s an excellent blog post about that here.
I am not equating conceiving a child with intentionally killing a child at all. I am saying that that you are equating conceiving a child with intentionally killing a child if in fact your claim is that embryos are the tiny human beings that I have no disregard for.
No, that’s not my claim; that is, based on what you’ve said so far, I don’t believe you, in your particular IVF cycles, have intentionally discarded any of your conceived embryos. But I do disagree with you when you say that the embryos that failed to implant were not children, and were specifically not your children. They had half your DNA and half your partner’s DNA; thus they were genetically your children from the moment of their conception even if they failed to implant in your womb.
By your logic, simply having unprotected sex is destroying human life since there are countless embryos that result.
Not unless the partners in question performed a deliberate act meant to destroy embryos in the womb, which I have never done since I began using NFP. (Sadly, I did use the Pill for the first two years of my marriage, before I became Catholic, and the fact that I may have unintentionally caused embryos to die will haunt me for the rest of my life. I never learned about the abortifacent capabilities of the Pill until after I had stopped using it.)
I have tried to conceive unsuccessfully via sex for 8 yrs. Does that mean whatever embryos we created from all that sperm meeting egg was me destroying life for 8 years?
No, not unless you were performing an act that by which you intended to destroy life (e.g., ingesting abortifacent medication with the direct intention of killing embryos).
I see a huge difference between miscarriage and abortion.
Thank God for that, because I have had pro-aborts tell me that my miscarriages were no different than if I had aborted my babies, since in miscarriage and abortion the end result is the same (a dead baby). I wrote a blog post about that here.
Neither of which happens simply because you put sperm and egg together in a petri-dish.
If the sperm and egg in the petri dish result in conception, and the resulting embryo(s) are thrown away with other medical waste because they weren’t wanted or weren’t good enough, then I disagree with you — it may not technically be an abortion but it is the deliberate destruction of innocent human life. Just the same, if conception takes place in the fallopian tube of the woman but the embryo is prevented from implanting by abortifacent medication (the Pill, Plan B, ella, etc.) that is a very early abortion as well.
My logic is the embryo alone, without entering the human body, does not constitute a live human being.
I disagree, wholeheartedly. You have stated that implantation and/or a heartbeat is your litmus test for constituting human life, but both points are arbitrary and illogical. Dictionary.com defines a human being as, “any individual of the genus Homo, especially a member of the species Homo sapiens.” This definition is true for a one-celled zygote as well as a 95-year-old woman.
That IS my logic. I’ve explained it 15 million different ways. Its not my fault if you can’t understand it.
Your “logic” is contradictory and makes no sense. Again, too long for a combox, but there’s an excellent refutation to your argument (that an embryo is not a human being prior to implantation and/or a heartbeat) here.
I am never going to get off this computer….
JoAnna,
It’s destroying human life in IVF if excess embryos are created which are then discarded and NOT implanted.
Do you mean not transferred? There is a big difference between embryo transfer and implantation. You have been telling me all along that I had “children” that died simply because I transferred all my embryos and only 1 in the first, and then 2 in the second, implanted. I disagree wholeheartedly. But now you tell me its only destroying human life if they are discarded and not transferred? So now I am really confused. Did I or did I not destroy human life simply by transferring embryos into my body?
You see, your “logic” is just as confusing and contradictory as you claim mine is.
Yes, Maria, you are right. I was typing too fast (I need to get off the computer too, LOL) and meant transferred, not implanted. Well, I meant “implanted in the uterus” but I see how that terminology is confusing given the IVF process. Thank you for the correction.
You have been telling me all along that I had “children” that died simply because I transferred all my embryos and only 1 in the first, and then 2 in the second, implanted.
Actually, I don’t think I have told you that. If I did, it was before I knew the facts of your particular IVF procedures, and I apologize for making that assumption.
But now you tell me its only destroying human life if they are discarded and not transferred? So now I am really confused. Did I or did I not destroy human life simply by transferring embryos into my body?
If you transferred every single one of the embryos that you created, then you did not destroy human life, and I thank you for giving ALL your children a chance at life even if, sadly, they did not successfully implant. However, the fact is that IF embryos are created for an IVF cycle and some of those embryos are destroyed (i.e., not transferred), that is destruction of innocent human life and is but ONE of the reasons that IVF is morally wrong.
Thank you for pointing out the confusing elements in my responses. I hope my position is clearer now.
Well I agree with you 100% in your last statement, which is why I don’t believe in stem cell research.
But whether it was you or another commenter, I am pretty sure a majority of you, knowing full well I transferred ALL of my embryos, were still claiming I created them selfishly because they wouldn’t all implant and therefore I was destroying human life.
Still a bit confused on who believes what now, but with that, I AM getting off.of.this.computer.
It’s a life whether it’s created in the body or a petri dish. Yes. It’s a life.
I call it a miscarriage b/c that’s essentially what it is. It’s the loss of a developing human life b/c of a failure of your body or something wrong with the embryo. It’s true you don’t know, but just b/c a pregnancy can’t be detected until implantation doesn’t mean the child hasn’t begun to develop before that. The human entity is created at conception.
Yes, when you are having unprotected sex trying to get pregnant you are taking the risk that you will have a “miscarriage” and lose the life whether before implantation or later. That is a risk. It’s tragic. Short of not ever trying to procreate, though, there is no way to avoid that risk. There are some people who try to undertake IVF with that same sort of restraint in minimizing the casualties (creating and transferring a conservative number of embryos all of which you hope will result in a pregnancy), and recognizing the loss of those that do die. But the industry as a whole does not operate that way.
Also you keep talking about implantation, but then draw the line at the heartbeat which happens a couple weeks later.
Maria,
I’m very late to this thread. The human embryo in its single-celled (zygotic) stage of development is a whole and complete human being in form and function for that particular stage of development. The same is true for every subsequent stage of development. That is scientific fact.
A heartbeat is not necessary for the human organism in earlier stages any more than a placenta is a necessary organ after birth. Your argument is scientifically without merit. As for the rest, I will simply repost a comment I wrote earlier today for my blog and Deacon Greg Kandra’s blog regarding this NY Times story:
What we glimpse here is the underlying malignancy of IVF, and the reason why we ought not allow our sympathy for the childless to cloud our reason and judgement.
Regina and I both lived the bitter and sorrowful disappointment of not being able to conceive for over four LONG years. We went into our marriage agreeing that, come what may, we would abide the teaching of the Church. We would not do IVF, nor would I see my wife juiced up with ghastly levels of cancer-inducing hormones, all in the name of having a biological keeper.
It was after we stopped trying and agreed to proceed to adoption that our first child was conceived.
That said, the grotesqueness that the desperate swallow in the pursuit of biological progeny is evident in this article. The euphemistic reductions are the most noticeable tip of the iceberg.
In the process of IVF, several eggs are harvested after pumping women full of hormones to stimulate hyper-ovulation. The consent to this by any husband ranges between ignorance to unspeakable selfishness.
Then, the husband is handed a specimen cup and shown a room where he must manually produce a semen sample. At this point, the procreative work is no longer that of husband and wife, but rather that of a team of lab technicians who will facilitate the union of egg and sperm. Husband and wife are relegated to the sidelines as mere observers.
Once the clutch of eggs is fertilized, the embryos are sorted and graded according to ‘viability’. At this point, a cell may be taken from the embryo to test for genetic and potential developmental anomalies. The poorer candidates are thus tossed away, the best implanted, and the rest frozen at -320 degrees F in liquid nitrogen.
Thus, the entire process of IVF treats the child as an accessory in the lives of he parents, with little to no regard for that child’s weaker siblings who are simply thrown away, or immersed in liquid nitrogen indefinitely, a process that kills half of all who are frozen. No amount of desperation can ever justify this hideous mockery of God’s wise design. The experience that Regina and I had shows the value of respecting and obeying the Church as a matter of habit, so that when the storms hit, one has a safe refuge.
People may ridicule the Church and the teaching handed down by our celibate bishops, but as this article demonstrates, perhaps it takes a celibate to help the rest of us weather the storms.
Maria,
An additional response to one of your arguments. Many spouses having relations that are open to a fruitful outcome will inevitably have children who fail to implant, and still others that will miscarry later on after implantation. None of this is willed by the parents, who are open to the life of each of their children.
In IVF, we see parents actually consenting to the sorting, grading, discarding, and freezing of their children, condemning half of them to certain death in the process. The other half have their lives and development molested in the most brutally unimaginable manner. You can’t seriously compare this willful molestation and callous disregard of their children on the part of IVF parents to the natural, unpredictable, and entirely unavoidable deaths of children in the wombs of mothers who conceived their children naturally, and welcome them with love.
In the more extreme cases, we see IVF parents actually slaughtering their babies in order to get to some palatable number. This isn’t an accident. It is the selfishness and callous disregard of IVF.
Those who have engaged in this need to repent of the evil they have done, to themselves, their marriages, and most of all their children. There’s no sugar-coating this issue. It’s abortion on steroids, practiced by desperate couples who have entirely lost their perspective.
Dr. Nadal:
Thank you for your crystal clear explanation of what actually happens during IVF procedures. In trying to explain myself, I get all tangled up in words sometimes. It is always a joy to read other comments by people who are much more experienced and intelligent than I.
One comment: be prepared to defend your statement about “celibate” bishops. I understand exactly what you mean in that it is through those holy bishops who have remained faithful to their vows that the truths of the Church are handed down intact. Of course, always cognizant of those bishos in our history (i.e. Augustine, et al) whose histories before conversion has been anything but celibate. Unfortunately, there are scandalous events taking place in the Church today which tend to diminish her credibility in the eyes of non-Catholics or poorly catechized Catholics. Again, logically speaking, the Truth never changes or diminishes because of historical or current behaviors or attitudes. Truth will always be truth for it cannot be what it is not.
God bless you!
Dr. Nadal,
Excuse me for my bluntness but I think you are crazy. I am completely aware of what happens during an IVF cycle because I did it TWICE. The fact that you keep calling embryos in its earliest form, before they even get transferred into a human body CHILDREN is ridiculous. Given shots to produce more eggs in my body is not SELFISH on my husbands part. In fact I am grateful for that since I was hardly able to produce any on my own.
And yes I am comparing what happens in a petri-dish to what happens naturally after intercourse because its the same damn thing, except sane people don’t call all these initial embryos that dont result in squat CHILDREN, either inside the womb or out!
Those who have engaged in this need to repent of the evil they have done, to themselves, their marriages, and most of all their children. There’s no sugar-coating this issue. It’s abortion on steroids, practiced by desperate couples who have entirely lost their perspective.
Dr Nadal, I have no need to repent for my 3 living children for having them via IVF. Having IVF to conceive them was the best decision I have ever made in my entire life! How you can refer to anything that happens outside of the female body as “abortion on steroids” is insane.
I originally found Jill Stanek’s website because I admired the courage she had to uncover the horrible live birth abortions that were taking place in the same hospital where I gave birth to my babies. However, seeing as there are a bunch of freaks on this site, I will probably take a peek at her posts now and then, but I will never associate with the weirdo’s on this site who make insane comments such as yours by commenting along with them.
And with that, I am out!
Perhaps I missed this Maria, but what is your personhood theory? In other words, a toddler, a child, a teenager, and an old man all have inherent dignity and moral worth (and hence a right to life) because ______________ . How do you fill in that blank?
I’m going to let Maria’s last comment stand on its own regarding who is appealing to logic and who is appealing to emotion.
Uhm, one last comment CT. Aren’t you all appealing to emotion? You are so emotionally upset about what IVF is about that you lecture everyone else about it don’t you? Try to come back and tell me you are appealing to logic, and you’d be wrong. And that’s as logical as it gets.
The fight against abortion is because people have feelings aka emotion. They know its terribly sad to abort what would otherwise be a baby if left to continue to grow. Its all very emotional isn’t it?
Now you can let Maria’s last comment stand on it own. Peace!
Maria,
CT’s emotional upset-ness at IVF is based on his logic, though. That is the difference. He lets his emotions be determined by his logic rather than lets his logic be determined by his emotions.
Maria,
LOL!! You aren’t the first person here to call me crazy, and you won’t be the last. That’s the sort of thing that happens when ideological worlds collide. The fireworks can be spectacular!!
Now, on to the reasons why I am crazy.
Calling embryos children. You’ll forgive my colloquial use of children to refer to your embryonic offspring. The colloquial usage is not sloppiness, or insanity on my part, but actually exactly how people use the language. When asked how many children a pregnant mother of four has, she does not respond with,
“Two actual children, one toddler, one infant and one embryo.”
Get real, Maria. A normal woman says,
“Four, and one on the way.”
She may then go on to break down the clan by sex and age. In truth, it is your response that sounds insane. Now, for the next issue regarding sanity.
I’m a scientist, specifically, a biologist. We are the ones who tell you what a living thing is, or is not. The field of embryology clearly teaches that a new human organism, a new human animal with its own genetic identity, its own body, set on its own dynamic developmental trajectory comes into being at the moment the egg is fertilized by the sperm. There is no such thing as potential or partial life in biology.
Either a thing is its own organism, or it is not. Either it is alive, or it is not. Your embryonic offspring are each a separate and distinct human being. You actually have even less place to hide than the post-abortive trolls here, because you can’t claim bodily autonomy and Roe v Wade’s protections in the killing of your offspring. They weren’t attached to you in the first place.
The fact is, that IVF IS abortion on steroids. You are people’s exhibit A of its callousness and cruelty:
Your offspring are only human beings when YOU say they are, not when science says they are.
Your offspring are merely property to be disposed of as you see fit.
Your offspring are only humans entitled to rights if YOU say they are.
Your body is yours to do with as you please, and not subject to any restrictions imposed by either morality or a well-informed bioethic.
Gee, where have we heard all of that before?
Yes, I do think your husband either terribly naive, or terribly selfish. In our desperation for a child of our own, I was not prepared to go to a fertility clinic and see my wife juiced up with frightening levels of hormones that would have increased her odds of developing cancer down the road. Even if she wanted to, I would not have consented.
There is such a thing as moral and ethical limits, Maria. There is also such a thing as human greed, and no shortage of scientists and physicians who are perfectly willing to cast morality and ethics to the wind as they prey on the desperation of childless (or, in keeping with your nomenclature, shall we say embryoless) couples.
Finally, you say:
“Dr Nadal, I have no need to repent for my 3 living children for having them via IVF.”
You will one day realize that those three children have quite a few dead siblings who never made it out of the lab, and that’s where our paths diverge.
I’m with science, you are not (though you are with technology). From the moment of fertilization a new human being comes into existence. You were evidently okay with killing as many as it took to get to where you are now. I’m not.
This process has less to do with marriage and family, and more to do with hi-tech animal husbandry in marriage (if you’ll excuse the pun).
Does that make me crazy? Perhaps from where you sit it does, but then, deviance distorts the lens of perspective.
Maria wrote:
Dr Nadal, I have no need to repent for my 3 living children for having them via IVF.
Maria… who, may I ask, ever asked you to “repent for your 3 living children”? If anything, we (if we thought you were at all receptive to the idea, rather than huffing off in an insult-laden tantrum) would invite you to repent for your unknown number of DEAD children… and, if you were even more receptive, to repent for using such a barbarous, dehumanising, utilitarian technique for bringing those good children into the world. It escapes me, how you can’t realize the distinction… and it really makes me start to question your honesty; upbraiding us for allegedly “demanding repentance for your children” (a painfully vague phrase) is slippery and disingenuous.
At first, I approached you with the idea that you were a good-natured, sincere person who was innocently misled into using IVF, and who was (somewhat understandably) indignant and defensive after being challenged to admit that you’d done something wrong. Given your steadfast belligerence, your logical incoherence (in vacillating between “heartbeat = human person”, “implantation = human person”, and Heaven knows what else, etc.), and your utter refusal to engage the issues (rather than “It’s my opinion, my truth and my choice, so shut up!”), I’m starting to re-evaluate that view… and, ironically, I may give you (and encourage others to give you) what you wish: silence. You seem not only unwilling to have a reasonable discussion, but you seem incapable of it. I’d very much be pleased if you proved me wrong.
Thanks Bobby – And so you know for the future – I’m a she :-) Jacqueline and I were just discussing on another thread how hard it is to keep people straight w/ no faces to go with the monikers. For some reason I had been convinced she was married. lol.
Maria, the fight against abortion is very emotional and sad. It’s sad b/c there’s a loss of life and we can defend that position with logic. If we couldn’t it would be nothing but our opinion that abortion was sad and everyone else would be entitled to their opinions that it’s not. Human life begins at conception. I try not to go down the road of personal anecdotes b/c I don’t think they’re necessary, but I just want you to know I personally understand the pain of infertility. I deeply understand the temptation of IVF. I’ve been in the offices with the glossy coffee table books full of pictures of smiling chubby cheeked babies that the doctors have “given” to other couples. The implicit promise – “this can be yours!”. I get it. And I think you approached it with more respect for your embryos than most. I just find that respect puzzling in light of the fact that you think it’s “crazy” to think of embryos as human beings.
Also, you should answer Bobby – he’s one of the most rational people on here.
Oh sorry about that CT! I did not know that… Actually, I can tell you why I thought you were a “he.” In fact, I can tell you WHO I thought you were. A while ago on Gerald Nadal’s blog, he had a discussion about the book “Embryo” by Robert George and Christopher Tollefsen. Tollefsen was actually part of that discussion and he posted using his initials CT… I don’t know if I ever consciously and directly thought that you were Christopher Tollefsen, but I think I subconsciously did. Either way, at least to me, your arguments are consistent with the hypothesis that you are professional philosopher :)
CT,
I too have wondered if you were Chris Tollefsen. So I understand Bobby’s perspective.
Paladin,
It’s become pretty obvious to me that IVF requires the same preconditioning as abortion. Maria has very ably demonstrated that here. Pro-lifers, being a kindly bunch, are usually caught up in an awkward and embarrasses silence in debating IVF parents, not wanting to offend.
I think we see the fallacy in that approach. Because we are loathe to tell another human being that their response to their human suffering (infertility) has been catastrophic IVF grows deeper roots in the popular culture.
I do not at all advocate targeting parents who have has IVF, but we must not allow ourselves to be cowed into embarrasses silence when dealing with folks contemplating a walk down this road. Nor must we be cowed into silence by the Marias who advance such stridently proabort apologetics all in the name of relieving their existential sufferings.
Yeah, Dr. Nadal, you’re “crazy.” How dare you come on here spouting facts from biology, genetics, and medical science? How dare you present your educated explanation of the facts of this subject — an explanation based on an understanding of the subject which you’ve honed after years of specialized education and experience? You should just spout off a bunch of scientific myths and emotional rationalizations to make your point. Leave the facts alone! Because I don’t want to accept reality, I’m just going to ignore science and medical fact and call you crazy.
(Sorry about the sarcasm … I really couldn’t help myself.)
I am blushing to have been in any way taken for Christopher Tollefsen. That pretty much makes my week!
IVF is only remotely comparable to abortion in cases where embryos are intentionally discarded or destroyed. Those transfered into the uterus have just as good a chance at resulting in a successful pregnancy than those conceived naturally.
It’s not about the babies who survive IVF. Thank God they lived! They are blessings! The problem is that so many babies die as a result of the IVF process. Just because they children’s lives began in a lab does not mean that their lives are subject to the whims of whoever paid the doctors to join the sperm and egg. They’re people with human dignity, every one of them. To act as if the ones who die were disposable is lunacy.
Hey CT,
If the shoe fits… You really had me wondering. Do you have formal training in Philosophy?
As for my use of personal anecdote, I think it useful for a few reasons. The first is practical. In other debates, I have had my three children with my wife hurled in my face by pro-IVF folks:
“Easy for you to say! You had three naturally!”
So the witness up front preempts that little barb. Also, there is the dimension of those who are reading and may be on the fence. I think that the entire purpose of religious/ethical training is to build shelters for our humanity so that we have a safe place when life’s storms hit.
Nicole intentionally discarding/destroying/freezing embryos is the NORM in IVF. People like Maria are the TINY minority. A lot of human beings die in the fertility industry. The numbers probably put abortionists to shame.
Since you admit that this destruction is akin to abortion, then you must also agree that failure to implant is death. Some of Maria’s children did die in the process (they weren’t killed, but they did die).
Those transfered into the uterus have just as good a chance at resulting in a successful pregnancy than those conceived naturally.
I’m not sure if this is true. Can someone help me out? In a setting of natural conception – you typically have one or less frequently two embryos trying to implant. I think we need to know if (1) There is anything about creation in the lab that makes embryos less able to implant (2) If increasing the number of embryos transferred decreases the odds for any one embryo to be able to implant. I don’t know the answers to this or if the answers are known, but you need to know them to make the statement above.
Dr. Nadal,
Ok….I”m going to out myself…..I’m a lawyer. *Ducking* :-) I don’t practice now, but that’s my background.
I don’t mind other people’s use of the anecdote at all. Just the opposite in fact. I’ve just never been able to integrate it into my points very well – probably b/c it never meant anything to me when I was becoming pro-life so I feel uncomfortable with it. The logical implosion that inevitably comes for an intellectually honest pro-choicer is what convinced me I was on the very wrong side of morality. It’s also what brought me back to the Church. So I tend to hang out in the land of linear analytical arguments. It’s just where my brain is happy.
Embryo adoptions
http://www.nightlight.org/adoption-services/snowflakes-embryo/default.aspx
CT,
Recent research is showing that the father’s semen in normal conception is necessary to attenuate the response of the woman’s immune system in the uterus, better evening the odds of a successful implantation. This may give the woman who conceives naturally an advantage over the IVF mother.
I can dig out the references if anyone wants them.
Carla – along the same lines – wasn’t there a post on this site with a picture of two embryos that were adopted and the children those embryos grew into? I thought that was one of the greatest testaments to the fact that human beings are the SAME entity – from the moment of conception.
I can dig out the references if anyone wants them.
Me! :D That’s pretty incredible if it’s true. Wow.
CT,
I don’t recall the exact post but I have seen the children adopted as embryos with their parents witnessing the signing of legislation.
Can’t find what I am looking for though!! :O
Found it!
http://www.jillstanek.com/2010/09/meet-adopted-embryos-grace-and-luke/
Carla – was it this?
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/19/washington/19cnd-stem.html
YES and YES!!
You’re good, CT. Very good.
YES and YES!!
You are good, CT. Very good!!
That is awesome. I am glad that someone recognized the humanity of those “non persons” and adopted them.
Gerard, I agree that personal stories can be very powerful. With my and my female friends stories about how abortion affected us, we have reached people who were left cold by other arguments.
Kel,
Here are the references:
1. Sarah A. Robertson and David J. Sharkey. “The Role of Semen in Induction of Maternal Immune Tolerance to Pregnancy.” Seminars in Immunology 13 (4), August 2001:243-254.
2. Sarah A. Robertson, John J. Broomfield, Kelton P. Tremellen. “Seminal ‘Priming’ for Protection from Pre-Eclampsia: A Unifying Hypothesis.” Journal of Reproductive Immunology 59(2), August 2003:253-265.
3. M. Johansson, et al. “Semen Activates the Female Immune Response during Early Pregnancy in Mice.” Immunology 112(2) June 2004:290-300.
I know I’m coming into this terribly late.
First things first–Sydney, congratulations! How awesome! Did DH come around? Did you poke holes in a condom? Or did it just happen with that 5% failure rate? Feel free to not answer that though :) Anyway I am thrilled for you.
Maria, I have a lot of sympathy for women who have experienced infertility. I am one of them. To answer your question earlier, I believe I have lost somewhere around 10 embryos between the ages of 10 and 21 days. I am not sure because I only got a positive pregnancy test for one of these events. But I would rather mourn a child who never was than let one of mine pass through the world unknown and unloved. I believe it is something God wants me to do. I acknowledge there might be some I don’t know about, especially since I took the birth control pill for a year, not knowing it could kill very young children (if I could change anything, that would be it). I have a syndrome which makes early miscarriage more likely, even now that I am eating correctly and taking medication to help control things. To answer another of your questions: Joseph, Isaiah, Elisha, Enoch, Maranatha, Michael, Joy, Ruby, Ebenezer, Mary, and Paul. God has also granted me two children who survived, Hannah and Peter.
I commend you for making sure every one of your children–and I do believe they were children–had the chance to grow and survive. Thank you! So many who do IVF don’t do that. You sound like you are a great mom and I am so glad you had 3 beautiful children who survived. I don’t believe that you need to mourn the children who did not survive, or do anything specific to acknowledge them–but as a woman who has lost children at 10 days, I am hurt by the suggestion a child only a week younger has no value or meaning. By saying your little ones who died after transfer were never alive, and had no value, because they never had a heartbeat, you are saying my children who died before 21 days never had any value either. I think it is possible to say that you don’t mourn those embryos, or love them, without saying they were not human beings.
I think that if it could be proven that embryos created in a petri dish had no worse chances of survival than naturally created embryos, and if those involved never created more than they intended to transfer and raise, there would be no problem with IVF being available. It is not a procedure I would pursue–and I have been asked by medical professionals–but at that point it does come down to a person’s personal decisions. However, at present IVF often leads to the destruction of embryos and at very least, by putting money into it, people put money into an industry that devalues and destroys children. Embryo adoption, which saves lives, is a slightly better option, though it usually supports the same industry.
I greatly admire those who do foster care. My husband and I wanted to adopt when we thought we would not be able to conceive and carry to term. We started the process but did not continue when we conceived our daughter. No drugs, no technology, it just happened on its own after 4 years. (With Peter I also took drugs to help increase the chances of his making it to term). It has always mystified me why women who have repeated miscarriages would turn to IVF–isn’t it clear conception is not the problem? Why not try to treat whatever the problem is? Won’t IVF just be putting more children who will be miscarried in the same miscarrying womb? If IVF can work, so could either using drugs to support normal conception or just continuing to try.
My husband and I are also embarking on a journey to adopt a little girl with special needs from Eastern Europe. So I know more than a bit about adoption. If one decides on domestic infant adoption, one’s money (if not heart) is fairly safe with a reputable agency, though there is often a waiting period when the baby’s mother can change her mind and decide to parent (which is good–that’s a big decision). If one decides to adopt through the child welfare system, one will usually have to foster first, and if one is looking for a young, healthy, typical child, that person will rarely be able to adopt the first person he or she fosters. International adoption has huge wait times for healthy children, especially girls. On the other hand, a family who is open to special needs can face a very short process. There is little legal risk with international adoption–you will bring home a child and he or she will always be your son or daughter. If you go the special needs route there is almost no chance the child has been stolen or bought on the black market.
If anyone here is interested in adopting, how about Tabitha? Tabitha is just one year old. She lives in Russia and has Down Syndrome, and associated heart and kidney problems. Tabitha is a precious little girl who is truly unwanted where she is. It would cost $28,000 to bring her home. But you would be saving her from being put into a mental institution where she might be tied to a bed and malnourished when she turns 5. It’s a lot of money, but it pales in comparison to the price Jesus paid for us.
YCW, Gerard, Jack, and others,
Thank you (!) for sharing your stories; not only are they edifying, but they reminded me that personal stories can sometimes reach where logic cannot. My wife and I are infertile, in fact (on her part, and on mine), and we know something of the pain associated with that… but we cannot subject any children of ours to the brutality of IVF, for too many reasons to count… but of which here are only a few:
1) IVF, at least psychologically, reduces the child to the level of a commodity; no parent has a “right” to the gift of a child (i.e. no parents are “owed” a child; one can be owed “things”, but never owed people), and any ideas to the contrary cannot help (usually quite unconsciously, beyond any good intentions of the parents and technicians) but de-humanize the children and warp the mind-set of the parents. Any gift becomes perverted when it is demanded, and when it is not received freely, but rather “taken” by biological force, as it were. The word-choice may seem graphic and melodramatic, but… there you are.
2) Along the lines of #1: IVF is a violation of the rights of the child! Every child has an inherent right to be the product of the loving marital embrace of his biological mother and father; and any conscious effort to uproot that rightful origin does violence to the child. It simultaneously reduces the child to the level of a mere “biological requisition” and tilts the parent(s) toward a raw materialistic, non-theist view of life, where “we’re all simply biological material anyway, so what’s the difference?”
3) As Gerard pointed out: the mercenary and chevalier way by which countless children (yes, Maria, children) are frozen, brutalized in experiments, and killed is not only monstrous in itself, but it sets everyone involved up for a smooth transition to the abortion-tolerant mentality. Some examples of this are subtle (as in #2, above), and some are much more blatant (e.g. when the “designer baby” has so-called “flaws”, such as Down’s Syndrome, Trisomy 13, and the like, and the parents “mercifully” decide to “end the pregnancy” and “try again”).
As for your process using all of the fertilized eggs (at least according to one account, by someone else… but I couldn’t find confirmation in your comments), Maria: if that’s true, then that was good, so far as it went. I hope you understand that such is not the norm… and given the fact that you went through the process at least three times (by your own account), and given that the typical IVF attempt creates more embryos than can reasonably be implanted (if you’re quite sure that was not the case with you in any of your three attempts–i.e. if every last embryo who was created was transferred into your body to attempt implantation, then I’ll stand corrected; can you clarify?), it’s only reasonable that we’re worried about the many children who died in the process… and we’re equally concerned with your “convenient redefinition” of “personhood” to mean “an offspring which has developed a beating heart”. (Honestly: you do realize that the bumper-sticker, “Abortion stops a beating heart” is a conscious over-simplification, as most bumper-stickers are, do you not? Surely you didn’t settle your mind on the matter, based on that?)
And… believe me or not, as you like… my intent was neither to offend you nor to condemn you. My intent was (and is) to get you to re-examine a conclusion of yours about which I assert that you’re very mistaken… and which has grave moral consequences (which you can now piece together, given the data people have given you on this thread)… because, so long as you hold your view (especially if your view had gone unchallenged to readers on this thread who might have followed your ideas, and your lead), and so long as you seek children, you might do this again… and be the co-cause of the deaths of more of your own children. Hence our passion on the matter, Maria.
To put it in the hardest nut-shell, then: if you are right about an offspring not being “a child” (i.e. a person, with the right to life) until his/her heart starts beating, then you have no cause for concern, since embryos from IVF never get anywhere near that stage. If you are wrong about that, then you were the unwitting participant in the negligent homicide (morally speaking, not legally) of several of your own sons and daughters. I really do think that you need to settle your mind on the issue using facts and reasoning, rather than wishful thinking and feelings (however strong they may be), given the grave stakes?
Thanks, Gerry! :)
Paladin – excellent points! And for some reason I thought you were a woman, though I have no reason for why I thought that except perhaps is Praxedes (sp?) a woman? Revelations all around.
I hope everyone understands that I was not at all condemning the use of personal anecdotes. They reach where logic does not as Paladin so aptly put it. I just don’t do it well – so I’m grateful that others are more adept than I am at expressing themselves in that area. In this case, also, I emphasized that my anecdote was ‘unnecessary’ so as not to add any fuel to the ridiculous opinion held by some people that unless you’ve had an experience you can’t speak on the issue or you are somehow less credible. I am no more credible on IVF having been through infertility than someone with 10 children is.
Paladin,
Maria did not only fertilize three eggs. That isn’t the way it goes in an IVF lab. Maria discounts all of her embryos as human beings. In her eyes, they weren’t. Hence when she says,
“I did not kill any babies while going through my IVF treatment. The ones that were strong enough to survive in me our now my 3 precious gifts from God.”
the emphasis needs to be on “The ones that were strong enough to survive in me are NOW my 3 precious gifts from God.” [My emphasis on NOW]
NOW they are human, because Maria has a desperate need to believe that she is a good person who would never condemn her children to death. That’s why she attacked me, calling me crazy for referring to her embryos as her children.
As I said. Her children have a bunch of dead siblings, and Maria consented to the process that created this reality. In truth, she is the mother of more than just three.
CT,
:) Ironically enough, I was lamenting to my wife, just this very afternoon, about my own short-comings in “reaching the heart”! I can do it, but I much prefer logic; I worry (perhaps needlessly) about being manipulative, when “tugging heart-strings” of an audience to persuade its members. I’m in good company, it seems! (And thank you for the kind words; I assure you, I’ve been enjoying your comments, as well!)
Ah. I feared as much; thank you for clarifying, Dr. Nadal. (I’d wondered if Maria had ordered the technicians to “over-ride” the normal protocols [and signing whatever release papers and issues extra funds necessary, etc., to do that] and “create” only the number of children to be implanted/transferred/attempted/what-have-you). I’d thought that I missed a tactical point of her story, somewhere. Yes… I’m all too aware of the deadly “standard procedure” by which children are mass-produced (so as to maximize “good selection”) and killed/left to die/frozen in large numbers; several friends did just that, to our horror, over the past years.
Father, forgive them; they know not what they do.
Paladin: Oh, but some of them DO know what they do. That is the sad part. All of this horrifying manipulation of life has come about because of a number of things. One of them is one of my favorite subjects: EVOLUTION. I know I’m risking being accused of belonging to the “flat-earth society”, but I firmly believe that it is no accident that Marx, Freud, and Darwin were contemporaries of each other, and each espoused the same thing: atheism. Marx tried to convert the world to communism, and one of the first tenets of communism is that you must be an atheist. Freuid tried to explain humanness by blaming our mothers, fathers, siblings, the world, sex, and providing for humanity an excuse for every single problem or challenge during our lives. Then, we have Darwin: ah, one of my favorite people! Oops…I guess he was just an evolved ape…. Each of these men used whatever means were at their disposal to bring about the destruction of belief in God. They’ve done a pretty good job, in my opinion. When we believe we have come from apes, or the slime on the bottom of a pond, then why should we care about embryos? Why should we care about anyone, for that matter? After all, it is survival of the fittest, right? So, it makes sense that someone would believe that a human embryo isn’t a real person, or isn’t human until this happens or that happens. Therefore, the destruction of these impersonal entities (I really don’t know what else to call them in the pro-abort lingo…) isn’t given a second thought. This is why, as a science teacher, I do not teach evolution as a fact or even as a theory–because it is a pretty poor theory from a scientific point of view. The evidence does not support the theory of evolution…I’m a big fan of Michael Behe et al.
I worry so much about what is being taught in our schools–both public, and even private/parochial. I’ve taught in both, and it is a sad state of affairs. In some ways, I almost prefer a public school because at least they are what they are and they don’t hide behind smoke screens.
Anyway, I guess I got off the topic. I enjoy so much reading the posts on this thread. I really admire all of you and wish I could express myself as eloquently as you do. God bless you!
I’d wondered if Maria had ordered the technicians to “over-ride” the normal protocols and “create” only the number of children to be implanted/transferred/attempted/what-have-you.
Yes, based on her comments here, I believe that is exactly what she did. I don’t know why Dr. Nadal is assuming otherwise. And that means the ethical issues are quite a bit less significant in Maria’s case as compared to the way that IVF is usually practised. You should all cut Maria some slack here. I think Dr. Nadal’s response is particularly over the top.
Dan, I didn’t get from Maria’s post that only three eggs were fertilized. She speaks of those strong enough to survive. However, I’m open to any clarification.
Thanks Dan! That’s exactly what I did. All of my embryos were transferred. Every single last possible child! But good ol’ Gerry here has assumed otherwise, and he has also assumed I am not a good person period, seeing as he states that I am “desperate to even believe I am a good person” because I had IVF. I love it!
Then, are you sitting down?, Gerry has the audacity to copy and paste my comment here to his own blog site where he created a new post about me entitled “Hell Hath No Fury Like I Woman Scorned!”
http://gerardnadal.com/2011/08/16/hell-hath-no-fury-like-an-ivf-mother-scorned/
When I posted a comment there to indicate my disgust about his need for attention(quite brilliantly I might add ), he scolded me again. But best of all, he then proceeded to tell me my comments are no longer welcome there! Those same comments he copied and pasted to his advantage! Apparently they worked just fine for him until I hit a nerve. Ouch Gerry, the truth hurts.
Maria, I don’t think you improved matters by going to the blog post in question and calling everyone who read it a “freak.” You kind of proved his point, actually.
I’m really interested in your answer to Bobby Bambino’s earlier question:
“Perhaps I missed this Maria, but what is your personhood theory? In other words, a toddler, a child, a teenager, and an old man all have inherent dignity and moral worth (and hence a right to life) because ______________ . How do you fill in that blank?”
Kel: Anyone willing to undergo IVF in the first place is willing that some children should die so that they can obtain at least one healthy child who survives.
I’ve heard it’s like throwing velcro beanbags to a slightly weaker velcro wall and hoping some stick. 75% of all IVF cycles fail, or so I’ve read.
It’s hardly the case that “children” necessarily applies, but, from the situations I know of personally, it’s true that it’s seen as somewhat of a “shotgun” approach, accepting some misses – which means the deaths of some embryos – to secure one successful implantation.
Maria said: “All the embryos that were created for me were implanted in me for one purpose only. To create life. I did not freeze embryos. I did not discard embryos. I did not look at pictures and pick the prettiest embryos and throw the others away. I did not murder them as much as you would like to find me guilty of it.”
So she did treat her embryos with more respect than most. The question of why she did that or why it matters if others don’t remains open since she has stated that embryos are not human lives. Not until a heartbeat (or implantation?) which she may erroneously believe happens nearly simultaneously. No reason for the heartbeat as a line except you need a heartbeat “to live”. No answer on why other things that are needed to live like lungs or brainwaves shouldn’t be the line instead. I think that’s a summary of where we are.
Maria,
I believe you got the title of my post wrong.
I commented on IVF, by posting comments I left on Deacon Kandra’s blog, and you led off by calling me crazy. You made yourself fair game.
This isn’t a tea party here. This is bioethics, and this is the pivot-point for western civilization, and the issues are searing. It is also a public forum, and not a closed blog. If you’ve been reading here for some time, as you say, then you knew the landscape coming in.
If we allowed ourselves to be shut down by every person who had an abortion, who performed IVF, who engaged in euthanasia or assisted suicide because they couldn’t take hearing their behavior being discussed in objective terms, and in a manner not laudatory of their behavior, then Jill’s blog would have lasted less than a week.
I banned you from my blog because of the derogatory manner in which you spoke of the people who read and comment there. Had you restricted your vituperation to me, I would have allowed you to make as much of a spectacle as you wished. My house, my rules.
As for your personal participation in IVF and the strictures you placed on the process, I offer the following from the President’s Commission on Bioethics, which deals with human embryos created via cloning:
Consider this quote from former Chairman of the President’s Council on Bioethics, Leon Kass, M.D., in Human Cloning and Human Dignity, The Report of the President’s Council on Bioethics:
“We realize, of course, that many proponents of cloning-for-biomedical-research will recommend regulations designed to prevent just such abuses (that is, the expansion of research to later-stage cloned embryos and fetuses). Refusing to erect a red light to stop research cloning, they will propose various yellow lights intended to assure ourselves that we are proceeding with caution, limits, or tears. Paradoxically, however, the effect might actually be to encourage us to continue proceeding with new (or more hazardous) avenues of research; for, believing that we are being cautious, we have a good conscience about what we do, and we are unable to imagine ourselves as people who could take a morally disastrous next step. We are neither wise enough nor good enough to live without clear limits.”
This is serious stuff, and if you can’t handle stiff opposition to what you have done, then you have no business bringing it up for discussion in a public forum such as this. What you have demonstrated here today is that you are intellectually dishonest, and an emotional bully. You can’t defend your beliefs without labeling me as crazy and insulting the readers at my blog. And you are wildly out of control because I didn’t back down from your bullying tactics.
I enjoy so much reading the posts on this thread. I really admire all of you and wish I could express myself as eloquently as you do. God bless you!
I so enjoying reading these posts too Sister. I hope to meet some of these characters in person someday! I have learned so much just on this one thread alone. Some of the most compassionate and brightest people post regularly here. You eloquently express yourself as well and I enjoyed all of your comments. I sure hope you stick around. God bless you too!
Oh, and Maria…
You were not having a peaceful conversation until my arrival. Look back over the thread. You have been an imperious, insulting snob from the beginning. I especially love your admonitions to Carla and others to get their facts straight, when it has been you spouting scientifically fallacious postulates about the human identity of the embryo in its earliest stages.
You showed up with bad info and a bad attitude.
Praxedes: Thank you for your kindness. I only wish I were better at blogging. I would love to participate in the “Coming Home” blog of Dr. Nadal, but I just can’t seem to log on (or is it “blog” on???) Anyway, I do so enjoy all of the comments here and at “Coming Home”. Does anyone have any other blogs, websites, etc., that are stiffly pro-life? Would you believe that I used to be a computer programmer/operator back in the days of keypunching on cards and magnetic reel to reels? Ah yes…those were the “good ol’ days”!!
Gerard,
HA. I did not even see my admonishment way up the thread there. Consider me properly admonished by Maria. :) Which I find particularly hilarious as I was commenting on the original quote not to her specifically. Let me get my facts straight!!!
Sister,
You can comment on Gerard’s blog just like you do here. :)
If you click on my name you will go to my blog. Pretty much what I am up to in my little prolife corner of the world.
Ok, Carla…here I go. If the electricity goes out in the USA, you’ll know why…
Sister,
Ok. :)
Well, I guess I did it. I managed to get a “feed” onto my “Favorites” menu. I guess I’m coming up in the world, eh? Now, if I can only figure out how to read it! :) Thanks for your help–and vote of confidence!
If the electricity goes out in the USA, you’ll know why…
:) Now, *that* was funny!
Sister Terese,
To get to my blog, you can simply click on my name on the comments here, or go to http://www.gerardnadal.com
Thanks for your gracious comments last night.
Maria,
I don’t know if you’re reading this thread anymore, but: you mentioned that you’d been through IVF at least twice (cf. your comment on August 13, 2011 at 10:30 am), and you now say that your three children were the only embryos “transferred” in any of those cases. Just so that we’re working with accurate information (especially given the wildly different definitions of “pregnancy”, “child” and “personhood”, on this thread alone): how many embryos, total, were created in all of your IVF attempts (including any fertilised eggs whatsoever)? You seem to be saying that the total number of eggs fertilised in all of your IVF attempts combined was three (perhaps only one egg was ferilised in the first mentioned attempt, and two in the second, given your twins?); is that accurate?
I hope you can understand the confusion, here. Not only is it extraordinarily unusual (though not completely unprecedented) for IVF to be done on a “single egg by single egg basis” (and many IVF doctors would refuse even to consider it, since they’d consider it an absurd waste of time and resources), but you’d already gone on the record as calling the non-implanted embryos “non-children”… so it wasn’t much of a stretch for us to assume that you simply weren’t counting those, since “they didn’t count”. We’re concerned that you were not counting the fertilised eggs which died immediately (or soon) after fertilisation, etc., because they were beneath your notice. If you can assure us that “three was absolutely it” (read: if you can recount how the doctors assured you, as per your orders, that no extra eggs were ever fertilized apart from the three who were implanted, in any of the sessions), then it would take a great deal of weight off our minds, and I’ll then be happy to apologize for any misunderstanding. (I’d note: this would not resolve all of the serious issues with this whole affair; but it would resolve the most urgent one, in my mind.)
Sister,
Don’t feel bad! I still can’t figure out how to get the “feed” to work. I just come to the site directly and click on posts I was reading. My husband, who is amazing with all things technology, just shakes his head at me. :-) I’ve so enjoyed reading your comments! I hope you stay!
Paladin,
My understanding is that she transferred all the embryos each time but that not all made it. She didn’t kill them deliberately, but they did die (the issue in dispute). I don’t know how many she transferred each time or if she transferred them all in the hopes of having multiples (intending all to survive) or just to up her chances (not caring if they survived). If I understand her correctly, she claims that she loved her “children” from the moment of conception by arguing that only the embryos that survived became her children and then she retroactively loved them from the moment of conception. The ones that did not implant/develop to the point of heartbeat did not become her children and so retained their status as non-living embryos that for some reason deserve respect. The maze of “logic” is too convoluted for me.
The statements I base that on are:
Maria says:
August 15, 2011 at 1:33 am
Yes I can say I loved my children from the moment they were conceived because they developed into my children. I can’t say I loved the embryos that were transferred and did not implant because their cells absorbed into my body rather than implanting and therefore did not result into my children.
___________________
Maria says:
August 15, 2011 at 11:23 am
JoAnna,
Their hearts won’t start to beat unless they implant. Again, each of you are taking every single sentence I write and then attacking me on that. An embryo’s heart starts to beat within days of implanting. Thus my point earlier on having to have a heartbeat to survive, having to implant, etc.
Again, show me an embryo that develops into a fully forming human being in a petri-dish and prove me wrong.
I also believe that my children were my children from the moment of conception. The embryos that failed to implant were not my children. They could have been, but they didn’t make it. Thus not my children.
Hm. That’s possible (re: Maria having [x] eggs fertilised with each attempt, and having all [x] implanted, each time, with only the three resulting children surviving), I admit… but it would be rather improbable… especially since the technicians usually don’t even mention the embryos who die within minutes of coming into existence, and so on. If Maria ordered the techs to implant/transfer every last fertilised egg (i.e. embryo/child) in every last instance, and if the techs managed to keep every last embryo alive until every last one of them were implanted/transferred, then at least one of the urgent moral issues (which Maria has yet to recognize) would be eased.
I do want to be clear, for the sake of everyone else: the entire IVF process is inherently abusive to the children who are brought into being by it (even when it doesn’t “cull” the “unfit” embryonic children and use/dispose of/freeze them, as is normal procedure). It places the new children in unwarranted and artificial danger (with manifold steps which risk the destruction of those children en route), and it violates the rights of the children to be the product of the loving sexual union of their parents, rather than the product of commerce and requisition. At the risk of going on even more of a soap-box: I’m reminded of the quote from (of all things) Jurassic Park (paraphrased from memory): “People are so excited about whether we CAN do something that we don’t ask whether we SHOULD.” We are not free to excuse ourselves from settling moral issues, simply because the price of the alternatives seem to high (e.g. enduring infertility, waiting for a child, etc.).
CT: Oh, don’t worry! I like this place too much to leave! I have a hard enough time leaving for meals and bedtime! (Only kidding, of course!) I have garnered so much from all of you in just the few days I’ve been participating. That’s why I asked if there were more “blogs” or websites like this with which to participate. So, you guys are stuck with me!
Paladin: You thought my comment about the electricity was a joke?? I was being dead serious…anyway, I’m glad you got a chuckle out of it! I do so enjoy your comments because I LOVE logic! It is the language of my analytical brain! If only my poor mouth could verbalize what my brain is saying! But, I have always loved logic, esp. in the Classical Education model of Socrates and Aristotle. Did you know that Classical Education is, although very small, taking root in some education circles in elementary school these days? Yes…I belong to a small group of classical educators who are trying to implement that model of education into not just elementary schools, but also homeschooling. It’s quite exciting! So, keep on commenting because I get so much out of them!
Dr. Nadal: Thanks for your suggestions. One of these days, I’ll get it…and by that time, technology will have changed so drastically that I will find myself back in the dark ages again! *sigh* Oh well, what is one to do? You are someone whose credibility cannot be questioned for various reasons, not in the least of which is your professional accomplishments. But even more so is the fact that you and your wife have gone through the agony of infertility–at least for awhile. And, instead of choosing the “easier” path, you chose to put your lives in God’s hands. That is the most difficult challenge for any believing human being. “Lord I believe, help my unbelief.” Even if you did not have all your impressive credentials, I would still admire you and your wife BECAUSE of the fact that you are an unapologizing Catholic and pro-lifer and you have “walked the walk.” In addition, I had never heard of “Dr.” Gosnell and Shulman. I googled Gosnell and was absolutely floored by what I read. That man needs an exorcism! I have not been able to find any info on Shulman, though. What’s up with him?
I love this place and all of you. I am still praying for Maria (and everyone here, too). I don’t know why–I don’t know the woman really at all. But, something (hmmm…I wonder what that Something could be?) has urged me to pray for her. I hope she stays here and doesn’t run away. But, again, that is in God’s hands.
I digress…! Thanks EVERYONE!
Dr. Nadal,
With all due respect, I have read all of these comments in addition to taking a peek at your blog and I can see why this IVF mother is resentful and lashed out (though innappropriately I might add). But it may not be for the reasons you have stated.
First, her initial comment intriques me. She seems honest in her disapproval of the abortion of one of the twins. She also later states how she came to discover Jill Stanek and even going so far as saying she admired her courage in speaking out against the abortions that took place in the hospital where her own children were born. Yet you tell her she showed up with a bad attitude and even go so far as calling her a troll. How is that right? It seems as though the longer the thread gets the more you seem to lose your temper just as much as she did.
Secondly, although she may have a distorted view of what the pro-life movement stands for, she does repeat often that she is pro-life, even so far as saying she does not agree with stem-cell research.
Third, she makes reference to having a poor number of eggs. Is it not possible that, even with whatever medicines she may have been taking, only a small number of eggs fertilized? She also repeats that all of the embryos that were created for her were transferred. Which may be why she equates this with the natural process of fertilization.
Fourth, it appears she tried several times to remove herself from commenting further, rather than being the imperious insulting snob you accuse her of being from the start. I don’t see that she was being inappropriate to the other commenters on this particular site, even thanking some and God Blessing others. Commenters were quite harsh with her and I believe she was trying to defend her particular experience. Rather heated perhaps, but not inapproriate.
Finally, I believe she lost her temper because you created a story about her on your blog that was based on events the way you saw them happen. In addition, you made accusations that you can not know for sure are true. The particular post that may have sent her over the edge is this one:
Paladin,
Maria did not only fertilize three eggs. That isn’t the way it goes in an IVF lab. Maria discounts all of her embryos as human beings. In her eyes, they weren’t. Hence when she says,
“I did not kill any babies while going through my IVF treatment. The ones that were strong enough to survive in me our now my 3 precious gifts from God.”
the emphasis needs to be on “The ones that were strong enough to survive in me are NOW my 3 precious gifts from God.” [My emphasis on NOW]
NOW they are human, because Maria has a desperate need to believe that she is a good person who would never condemn her children to death. That’s why she attacked me, calling me crazy for referring to her embryos as her children.
As I said. Her children have a bunch of dead siblings, and Maria consented to the process that created this reality. In truth, she is the mother of more than just three.
Dr Nadal, you announce quite knowingly that she did not have only 3 eggs fetilized. How do you know this for sure? You also accuse her children of having a bunch of dead siblings in a lab somewhere, even though she repeats over and over again that all of her embryos were transferred to her.
And most importantly, I believe you may have indeed snowballed the situation by creating your own story about her out of this thread, hurtful title and all! Once she discovered that, you can clearly see how she lashed out. She even comes back to this blog to comment on that. It obviously upset her tremendously and I don’t think you had a right to do that to this woman without her consent, and especially without knowing for sure all the facts of her particular IVF case.
We should all give this woman a break here. I believe she came to this forum with good intentions, and was unprepared nor appreciative of what was to come. We are passionate about our fight to protect life, but we should not target someone to further advance our cause, especially without knowing all of that someone’s facts.
Dr Nadal, I respect your knowledge as a doctor in your field, but I have to admit I have lost quite a bit of respect for you because of how you treated this woman.
Roseanne, your web IP address happens to exactly match that of Maria.
Are you Maria or perhaps a member of her household? If you’re a household member, you act as if you don’t know Maria.
If you are Maria, the rule on this site is to use one moniker.
Thanks.
Roseanne,
I’ll let Dr. Nadal write back to you in his own time; but since you mentioned me (at least in passing), and since I seem to have become somewhat enmeshed in this thread/issue, let me try to resond to a few of your observations.
You wrote:
First, her initial comment intriques me. She seems honest in her disapproval of the abortion of one of the twins.
That certainly seems to be so; and I’ll add that (to my knowledge) no one accused her of lying about that. We pointed out that her “pro-life ethic” was internally inconsistent and incoherent, yes… and when she, rather than back-tracking and re-examining her position, chose to pull out her “snark-thrower” at anyone who dared to question her decision (which she defended on the basis of utter, text-book moral relativism: “my truth for me, your truth for you”), I think it was understandable that we “down-graded” our estimate of her sincerity in general. “I’m right, and to blazes with you all!” is the battle-cry of a boor and/or of a troll, not of a thoughtful listener/commenter. As to whether she’s a “classic troll”, in the full sense of the word (i.e. came only to make trouble), well… I’ve always been of the mind that the definition was a bit broader than that.
She also later states how she came to discover Jill Stanek and even going so far as saying she admired her courage in speaking out against the abortions that took place in the hospital where her own children were born.
I assume you mention this in order to present her as honest, sincere and reasonable? Well and good… if she’d only stopped there.
Yet you tell her she showed up with a bad attitude and even go so far as calling her a troll. How is that right?
Because it is quite accurate… as you’ll see, if you read the rest of the thread. Did you read her comments at all (or Dr. Nadal’s, other than skimming enough of them to get you angry)? Maria started out with anger (e.g. “You really shouldn’t judge something you know so little about” to Kel, “Wow, people like Praxedes and Joanna are why abortion will never die. Its the crazy radicals who take the meaning of life to the absolute ridiculous extreme that scares the hell out of people.” to Praxedes and JoAnna, and “Crazy is as crazy does and I will not be a part of it.” to all of us of like mind on the issue; do you approve of such language?); she proceeded to mock, condescend, and rage at virtually everyone who challenged her.
It seems as though the longer the thread gets the more you seem to lose your temper just as much as she did.
Roseanne, I must ask you to go back and re-read the thread with a bit more care. Maria is obviously defensive about her position (which is riddled with inconsistencies), and she made no bones about using insults and vitriol to answer her critics; she provoked a great many people before Dr. Nadal came anywhere near the conversation. If you agree with Maria’s absurd position (about an unborn child in stages before heartbeat “not being a child at all”), so be it… but let us not be confused about the fact that Maria was the first to “launch” (at Kel, which brought Praxedes, et al., to Kel’s defense, and so on); it is not just (nor helpful) for you to pass down judgments on things which are simply not the case.
Ultimately: our intention was to lead Maria out of the error-ridden position she currently holds (which is a matter of life and death, not simply a matter of choosing chocolate over vanilla, and her choices can lead herself, her children (whom she does not recognize before “heartbeat”–do you still not see the source of our concern?), and those who are innocently misled into following her wrong example into a deadly disaster. If you’re keen on respecting the zeal of sincere people, then perhaps you might also include us, who have an even higher and more urgent cause?
Good grief! Don’t tell me that I wasted all that concern and verbiage on a sock-puppet?!
Ah, now I get it, Paladin :)
Sister: God bless your efforts… both in the (hopefully inevitable) restoration of the Classical curricula, and in your efforts to nurture home-schooling! (By the way, I’ll renew my perennial offer, even despite the fact that Bobby Bambino is by far my mathematical superior… :) …I offer free over-e-mail tutoring for high school math to any home-schoolers who need it, and who [through a friend, whether in-person or over cyber-space] request it! I’m a high school math teacher, by trade, who supports home-schooling with all his heart!)
…and my electricity is still up and running, if that makes you feel better! :)
Ok, Paladin…what the heck did you mean by a sock-puppet?? (I know what a sock-puppet is–yes, I’m that old, but I’m not sure I understand what you meant!) I guess it takes me awhile…
Oh, btw. I loved your concern and verbiage!!
:) No honour lost in not knowing that one, Sister! It’s a bit of new-ish internet slang.
“Sock Puppet”, in internet parlance (a bit more verbiage, free of charge!), is the nick-name given to an internet commenter who comes on under one name, and then the same commenter comes on under a nom de plume, pretending to be yet another [unrelated] commenter who agrees/sympathizes with the first. It’s a fancy way to lie and deceive by means of internet anonymity, in short. One might picture a human wearing a “physical” sock puppet; the human says, “I think [x]!”, and then the person makes the sock-puppet say “Yes, I agree with him/her!” It gives an illusion of additional “supporters” to one’s comments, when there are, in fact, none.
Paladin: You are sooooo funny! A true educator in my opinion! Thanks for the offer–I will let some of my students know you are available. One of the biggest problems I’ve had in my 25+ years of teaching math and science, but particularly math, is getting students to understand that there is a REASON that I require them to SHOW THEIR WORK. They just don’t get it. I’ve tried all kinds of methods to facilitate that, but it all winds up a battle of the wills–and MINE ALWAYS wins out…LOL! (much to my students’ chagrin! :( )
When I was principal of a small, private, Catholic school back in 2000, I used homeschooling materials and textbooks to develop our curricula. I used many Catholic (read: REAL Catholic) publishing companies (i.e. Seton, Catholic Heritage Curricula, Memoria Press–a Classical education group) to furnish my teachers with the BEST possible Catholic textbooks and resources I could find. I had gobs of workshops with my teachers to help them understand the Classical education model and I even invited some local Catholic homeschooling parents to come and talk about their experiences. You would think such a school would be a tremendous success, right? Well, it wasn’t. At first it was, but it only took a few years before parents were losing their jobs, couldn’t afford the tuition (and we were one of the least expensive in the area!), or because most of the students were transfers, parents were not prepared for the academic challenges their children faced. So, in 2009, mostly due to budgetary concerns, we had to close the school. Sad. But, God had a reason for it…I’m still waiting to find out what He plans to do with me! :) God bless you…I guess I got off the topic.
So glad to hear about the electricity…but it is still early in the day and I’ve since ”signed up” for several other “blogs” “feeds” “websites” or
whatever…:)
Paladin: Good grief! If these “sock-puppets” would use half of that energy into doing something useful and meaningful, they’d be…well…US!! LOL! (At least, I know what LOL means!) Gosh, this inernet stuff makes me feel really, REALLY old!
Thanks for the explanation, though!
:) You’re quite welcome… and thank you for telling your school saga! It sounded wonderful (while it lasted), and its collapse must have been heart-breaking! God bless your dedication! (Romans 8:28… God will work good out of this!)
Maria thank-you for posting your comments and opinions on IVF. I have learned a lot about the procedure/process due to your comments.
Dr. Nadal thank-you also. Your comments were very enlightening and informative.
CT your later posts were excellent. You appreciated and understood Maria’s points very well.
If I may say I think the confusion and disagreements lies on two realities:
1) The reality of when life begins; and
2) The ethics of IVF.
Unfortunately, Maria does not agree that life begins at conception but only at the moment of successful implantation.
Amazingly (Sorry Maria if this is not the right word) Maria does acknowledge that embryos should not be discarded or experimented on. I am not clear on why she feels this way. Personally Maria I think it may be the Grace of God working in you.
Dr. Nadal, in my opinion you clearly explained why IVF is not ethical: it treats embryos as a means to an end. From what I can understand, the ethics of IVF is not entirely dependent on the intention of the Parents. Rather, the very nature of the process is unethical. Furthermore, as Maria has pointed out, the intention of many parents who participate in IVF is to create new life just as it is that same goal for the most loving parents who engage in sexual intercourse. Both sets of parents are open to new life. However, and paradoxically, the problem is not simply a number game as CT pointed out. It is about the value of those embryos lost in the process. The process of IVF itself appears to ensure that some embryos will be lost no matter how careful the prospective parents and medical doctors are – indeed, the very act the parents require/choose IVF implies they know that they are having difficulty getting pregnant. IVF has the characteristics of gambling. It does not provide dignity to the parents themselves. It seems to say those couples who can not procreate naturally that they are not worthy of love unless they procreate. All people have dignity – celibate, barren, or fruitful. All life should be respected – from conception to death.
In addition to determining the ethics of the IVF process I think all parents and couples should know how being involved in IVF affects the marital act. In IVF there is no marital act. According to the Church’s teaching the marital act is comprised of two aspects and three actors. The two aspects are the unitive and procreative. The three actors are the husband, wife and God. IVF mimics the procreative nature of the marital act while divorcing it from the unitive aspect. It is unnatural. From the Chruch’s perspective one does not engage in sexual intercourse only to procreate. According to the Church, the marital act involves a total self-giving to the other. It is not only an “expression” of love, it is loving the other in order that one gives their entire self the other, while simultaneously being open to the possibility of life. I believe from the Church’s perspective IVF discredits the unitive aspect of the marital act.
Maria, CT, and Dr. Nadal I apologize if I misrepresented any of your ideas or points of view. God, I apologize if I misrepresented the Truth or the teachings of your Church.
I am open and would appreciate any corrections required in my understanding of IVF or Church teaching.
Tyler: You took the words right out of my mouth–or my heart, actually. I’ve been processing this whole issue for two days now and something just was missing from all the arguments. I realized earlier that that Something was God. I am not anywhere as learned as most of the folks here on the biological/medical aspects of IVF. I have an idea, but not learned. However, I knew instinctively that something was amiss. When couples have difficulty in getting pregnant, I can’t imagine how heartbreaking that must be. And, so I hesitate sometimes to try to express myself for fear of hurting someone who might already be hurting. But, when we take God out of the equation, it is no longer an act of cooperating in the creation process, but becomes an end unto itself. As many have said on this thread, it becomes a selfish act born out of desperation for something we feel we are owed.
Surrendering our will and our lives to the care of God is not just humbling, but it is also freeing. We tend to make slaves of ourselves in the things we want, think we need, and things we think will make us happy, at peace, or fulfilled. There is a saying that I love, but I can’t remember who said it: “You cannot expect to receive from the second love, what only the first love can give.” That is selfishness. Our First Love must always be God. Only God can give us what will ultimately and truthfully give us happiness and peace. It took me a very long time to come to that realization. Surprisingly, (maybe for some of you), many of those years were while in the convent. (You see, we religious struggle with many of the same concerns & issues as lay people.) But once I let go of my stubborn will to have everything my way, I felt a peace I never experienced before. I have that peace still. God is so good. I know that it might seem easy to say those things, but rest assured, I have struggled with many life issues–many of which involved difficult and painful events. I finally realized that my way wasn’t working. So, I gave everything to God. Truthfully and completely. I found peace. I just hope there are others who are suffering who will also invite God into their lives completely…even into their marriages. Gee…sorry…I sound like I’m on a soap box! :)
Maria/Roseanne,
Since you have the same IP address, I’m assuming that you are the same person. Since you accused me of running a cult over at my blog, and then writing under the guise of Roseanne-the-moderate who has now lost a great deal of respect for me, allow me to deal with this junior high school popularity contest nonsense that you’re so hung up on.
I’ve had my fair share of pro-life women friends tell me when I have responded to women in a manner that women can’t hear the message when a man speaks that way. I’ve had others accuse me of being crazy, as you have. I’ve also endured death threats.
Do I care what you think of me for giving witness to the truth as it is grounded in scientific fact, natural law, scripture, and the teaching of the Catholic Church?
No. Not a bit.
I’m not here casting about for a girlfriend, wife, new friends, or disciples for a cult. I’m here to throw my hat into the ring and take on those who would diminish our collective human dignity by advancing an anthropology that is rooted in bad science and narcissistic hedonism. If that means some people whom I’ve never met are going to dislike me, or even hate me, so be it.
I don’t lose any sleep over it.
The truth of the matter is that you were an imperious snot with Kel, Carla, and others here, suggesting that they get their facts straight, when in fact it is you who were the ignorant one.
Now, to clear up ALL doubt about your three children, the transfer of embryos, etc, these were your own words before I weighed in:
Maria says: August 15, 2011 at 1:33 am Yes I can say I loved my children from the moment they were conceived because they developed into my children. I can’t say I loved the embryos that were transferred and did not implant because their cells absorbed into my body rather than implanting and therefore did not result into my children.
So, you freely admit that there were embryos created that did not implant. Does that make you somehow more virtuous than those who freeze their excess embryos?
Well, it’s not much of a distinction, considering that far more humans are brought into existence than are expected to survive, knowing that many don’t stand a chance at implantation. So your extras died in your womb instead of the deep freeze. From an ethical perspective, that’s nothing to crow about.
The bottom line is that you did NOT only make three embryos, and they all took. Your words above clearly indicate otherwise. Your words, you eat them.
As for being pro-life in other arenas, that’s a great thing, but it doesn’t give you license to contribute to the culture of death in other arenas, especially with your inane claim that the embryos are not human until they have a heartbeat. Spoken like a proabort!
As for copying your words onto my blog and engaging in commentary there being some sort of ethical breech, get you head out of the clouds! Jill’s entire blog takes people’s words from one arena and reposts them here for commentary. You’re just stung to fury because you were outed big time as contributing to the culture of death not only by your IVF creation of more embryos than implanted, but also by your Planned Parenthood talking point about the child not being human until a heartbeat.
If you’re proud of what you have done, I should think that you wouldn’t mind people knowing about your contribution to cleaning up the IVF industry. However, your posts here speak for themselves. You weren’t exactly behaving as Doris Day before I entered the fray.
Tyler you’re exactly right. I was hesitant to bring up those aspects b/c we were so bogged down in trying to establish the humanity of the embryo, but once established, the fact that IVF intrinsically violates the human dignity of the both the embryo and the parents has to be addressed.
CT: Simply and beautifully put! :)
Dr. Nadal
I don’t think you should feel that you have to apologize for speaking the Truth about embryos. Your scientific knowledge of the IVF process and your understanding of when life begins is most helpful.
It is clearly understood that it is frustrating for a person when that person speaks the Truth and is not heard/understood.
If we had more vocal scientists like you there would be more understanding about the IVF process and the poplulation would be less confused on the topic.
Keep posting.
“Since you have the same IP address, I’m assuming that you are the same person. ”
Improbable. NAT. Perhaps in the same household, campus, or workplace.
Improbable. NAT. Perhaps in the same household, campus, or workplace.
Or, perhaps, the same public library or Internet cafe. That’d be a pretty bizarre coincidence, though, and it’s telling that neither “Maria” nor “Rosanne” has returned with any explanations.
Sister Terese thank-you for your kind comment.
Rasqual,
Considering that all of the arguments made by Roseanne are the same as Marias, I’m inclined to believe that the IP and the authors are all one.
Tyler, Thanks so much for your kind words.
I intend to keep speaking the very inconvenient truth to those who would obfuscate that truth.
God Bless.
So, you freely admit that there were embryos created that did not implant. Does that make you somehow more virtuous than those who freeze their excess embryos?
I don’t think that makes her any less virtuous than people who are trying to conceive a baby naturally who might end up fertilizing an egg that doesn’t implant or is absorbed that they never even know about. At least she’d have the opportunity to know they were there and alive briefly and mourn them, unlike the couple attempting to naturally conceive. While I think according to her (albeit backtracked) words, I think if all the embryos which were created were implanted, then that’s fine, and she really has no control over it. I just think that her attitude towards those who didn’t implant is rather callous and sad. I wouldn’t hold it against a couple trying to naturally conceive who try for years with no success but who theoretically could have had tens of embryos die (far more than the number of Maria’s attempts). But as I said, I would hold her attitude towards the ones who didn’t make it against her.
Xalisae,
To quote a doctor:
“Many spouses having relations that are open to a fruitful outcome will inevitably have children who fail to implant, and still others that will miscarry later on after implantation. None of this is willed by the parents, who are open to the life of each of their children.
In IVF, we see parents actually consenting to the sorting, grading, discarding, and freezing of their children, condemning half of them to certain death in the process. The other half have their lives and development molested in the most brutally unimaginable manner. You can’t seriously compare this willful molestation and callous disregard of their children on the part of IVF parents to the natural, unpredictable, and entirely unavoidable deaths of children in the wombs of mothers who conceived their children naturally, and welcome them with love.
In the more extreme cases, we see IVF parents actually slaughtering their babies in order to get to some palatable number. This isn’t an accident. It is the selfishness and callous disregard of IVF.”
(Emphasis added by this poster.)
None of this is willed by the parents, who are open to the life of each of their children.
And by Maria having all of them placed in her womb, she wasn’t willing that to happen, either. I disagree EMPHATICALLY with the freezing/discarding/etc. of human embryos. I just think that IVF can be done responsibly in the same nature as traditional procreation.
Xalisae,
You are missing a key distinction here. IVF intentionally creates many more human beings than will either implant, or that will survive the pregnancy. That was the starting point of the pregnancy reductions that have gotten out of control. When a parent consents to IVF, all of this MUST be explained during informed consent. So Maria consented to this murderous calculus in order to get at least one biological keeper.
Parents attempting to conceive naturally understand that there are no guarantees, but will for every child conceived to be born. They also generally conceive one at a time. They do not rig the system to conceive a bunch of babies with the understanding that in the eventuality that all implant, there may be grave peril for some or all.
You just can’t equate the two, because the two simply do not equate in either intent, or parental disposition.
Gerard, I see no evidence Maria did not want every embryo to implant and grow. I don’t think IVF is right, and I would never do it, but I think if it can be proven that the process itself does not endanger embryos (it probably does) it could be done ethically. If a child conceived in a petri dish and then transferred to the womb–no freezing or PGD–has an equal chance of survival to a child conceived in the fallopian tube and making his or her way to the womb naturally, I don’t think this is something society should be legislating against. It may not uphold the dignity of the human being–but nor does premarital sex or overeating, among other things, and I do not believe these things should be legislated either. Law is for protecting human beings from each other, not from themselves. I would never fight to keep IVF legal, even if done in the most ethical way possible, but I don’t think it’s fair to say an IVF procedure in which each embryo is transferred, and the parents want them all to live, contributes to the culture of death. To the commoditization of children, the dehumanization of the embryo, the dehumanization of the parents, the devaluation of the marital act in its fullness–yes. But I believe Maria if she says she gave each of her children a chance. That’s not the same as the moms in this story, other mothers who abort, or women who have dozens of embryos created. Women who are at increased risk of miscarriage–which includes myself–may be said to disregard the potential loss of life when they try to have children. If I lost a child, no matter how early, I would mourn that child. But I risk that each time I try to conceive, and it is probably more likely than most that I will miscarry. I don’t even know that my chidlren have a 50/50 shot. I wish they did–I would do anything to give them a better chance, and few people know how much I have given up to that end; I’ve changed my entire diet. I will never be content to just practice “birth control” by eating whatever I want; I will live with this diet at least when conception is likely until menopause, because I would never risk my children’s lives if I could help it. Still, the child I conceive would be less likely to live to birth than the child of the average 28-year-old. Does that obligate me to avoid conception? Does that mean my children have less value? Neither. God has given me this burden. He has given me each of my children–born and unborn, known and unknown. He is in charge. I don’t tell Him no to any little one–even if he or she would only live a few days.
I am glad you are in this fight.
YCW,
Thank you for your kind words. I’m glad you’re in this fight too.
Look, I’m sorry to be so tenacious on this one, but I have to strenuously disagree with your statement:
“But I believe Maria if she says she gave each of her children a chance. ”
I believe that Maria believes that she gave each of her children a chance. The fact is, she didn’t. That’s because the deck was stacked against them. Statistically, comparatively few embryos survive the process. That’s a part of the informed consent parents should receive.
To create children in a petri dish knowing that you are condemning a statistical majority to death is simply unthinkable. That differs from the complete uncertainty about whether or not a child conceived naturally might, might miscarry.
If we take a step back and analyze Maria’s behavior here.
She came pronouncing an embryo inhuman until the presence of a heartbeat.
She became belligerent with Carla and Kel when they offered her the truth with their characteristically soft and gentle demeanor, telling them they need to get their facts straight.
When I weighed in, matter-of-factly offering scientific correction, I was labeled ‘crazy’, and she took it downhill from there.
She went to my blog and was enraged that a social commentary blog would (gasp) quote someone and then comment.
She then called the folks at my blog cult members, and me a cult leader. She called the folks at my blog freaks.
She posted here today under a different name, making all of her arguments in a more controlled voice.
She lied about her previous posts, stating that she was having a civilized conversation until my arrival, when the posts speak to the contrary.
She claims to be pro-life while rejecting the clear teaching of embryology, which I have never heard a pro-lifer do.
With ‘pro-lifers’ such as Maria, who needs proabort trolls? The truth is, she sounds pretty trollish to me. Most of her babies never stood a chance with Maria. Neither does anyone who disagrees with her or has the temerity to suggest that her science is a little off.
It is highly unlikely that “Maria” would hang around a cafe, library, campus computer lab, or any other public facility for hours on end responding to comments made on this blog. If she did, she has a bigger problem that just a skewed opinion of IVF and the pro-life cause. In addition, she would have had to sit for hours in one place where ever she was to respond so quickly to the comments here. Any public facility would probably have concern for anyone being online for that many hours at a time.
I do believe that Maria/Rosanne is probably sincere in her beliefs that she is pro-life and that her actions were honorable. However, “ignorance of the law is no excuse for breaking the law.” We all have to become informed about so many tricky issues today. We humans are consummate liars. We hide behind what we believe is our “truth” when in fact, most of the time, we are very cognizant of what reality is. We want what we want and we want it now.,..come hell or high water. That is definitely taking God out of the equation.
I have to also say that if I were Maria, seemingly intelligent and reasonable, I would have to pause after all these extremely credible people have offered their generous and heartfelt comments to consider whether or not I am operating on a need to excuse myself, or if there is some truth in what others have said. She has not done that, but won’t even consider that her beliefs are not based in truth. That, to me, is a telling sign that she is not being honest with herself or with us. Probability leans more toward Maria not being what she says she is. Although, I must always be careful not too judge too harshly. But given what we know of “Maria/Rosanne” I would tend to believe that she is not who she says she is.
Maybe Maria/Rosanne is a “sock puppet.” Sorry…I just learned that term last night and was hoping to have an opportunity to use it. :)
Well, I do have my theories, but I try to give people the benefit of the doubt.
I have never claimed she was being calm or reasonable or handling criticism as well as possible.
Her demeanor has very little to do with the facts of the matter. I see no difference in Maria using IVF to conceive as long as all embryos were implanted and given a chance and a couple trying to conceive naturally when the female partner has some sort of disease/defect-known or unknown-of her uterine lining. Or heck, if you want to really dig in here, couples practicing NFP who have sex when the uterine lining is inhospitable to avoid conception. Do they know for certain that this is happening? No, but it doesn’t stop the same thing from happening, and if the occurrences are the same, one person shouldn’t be chastised while the others are applauded.
Dr. Nadal
I think I have a better idea of your points and the IVF process after having a chance to sleep on the issue and to read your comments this morning. I don’t think you are denying that Maria had a valid and honourable intention to have children, but that you are saying that couples involved in IVF implicitly have a secondary intention: to create a sufficient quantity of embryos to facilitate a pregnancy. If you are saying this, then your point about the intention(s) of the couples involved in IVF makes sense to me. This secondary intention illuminates why couples choose to have IVF in the first place. If they did not want to statistically increase their odds of getting pregnant they would not have elected for this procedure if the first place. In fact, if the couples did not think that IVF would increase their chances they would have just kept on trying the natural way: sexual intercourse. This secondary intention is frightening! I now see that knowledge of this secondary intention could upset a person very much. IVF appears to be a willful utilitarian use of life. Dr. Nadal could you please let me know if I understood your point or if I misrepresented your point. Thank-you.
By the way, Dr. Nadal do you have an example of the informed consent for the IVF process that I could read?
X: I don’t think Maria’s demeanor is what initially caused concern by the participants here. It was her demeanor AND her responses AFTER others, more knowledgeable than most on the subject of logic and IVF, had tried, in vain, to explain the FACTS of IVF and the inherent evil that is involved. There IS a HUGE difference between a couple using IVF and those who use NFP. If you will read some of the earlier responses, you will see how simple it is to understand. I couldn’t possibly try to re-explain it again–I just don’t have the brain power to do so. I think the explanations were more than adequate to resolve any questions about the inherent evil in IVF as opposed to NFP. In one instance, God is invited into the equation, and in the other, God is shut out. For some, that might seem trivial, but for me and many others, that is a huge moral/theological deletion.
Also, I have take exception to your last comment about “…one person shouldn’t be chastised while the others are applauded.” I do not believe that Maria was chastised while others were applauded. Maria made numerous contradictions (read all her previous responses) and when called on them, SHE was the one who resorted to calling the participants here and on another blog, names. I just wonder if the same objections to the responses to Maria had the topic been on other social/personal matter rather than IVF.
Xalisae,
I think you misunderstand NFP and biology. If my understanding of biology is correct, eggs are not released during a woman’s non-fertile days and, therefore, conception (embryos) can not be created. But perhaps Dr. Nadal could correct me if I am wrong.
“During the first few days of your cycle, your levels of estrogen decrease, signaling your body to increase its production of FSH. This helps promote the maturation of the follicles that contain the eggs. From the 20 or so eggs that are stimulated every month, one egg will manage to attract the most attention from FSH. This helps the follicle to produce more estradiol, which in turns tells the pituitary gland to stop producing so much FSH. As a result, the other follicles die off when they stop receiving enough FSH to survive.
The increase in estrogen also sends a signal to the endometrium, causing it to start thickening. Your cervical mucus will begin to change in consistency, from thick to thin and slippery. Additionally, more mucus will be produced, thereby aiding any sperm that enters your vagina in its quest to fertilize an egg.
About a day and a half before ovulation occurs, your estrogen levels will climax, causing the pituitary to release a surge of LH. Once the follicle releases the egg, the follicle itself shrinks and gathers fatty substances known as lipids. This then becomes the corpus luteum, which is responsible for the production of progesterone. As progesterone levels in your body increase, the endometrium begins to prepare itself for implantation by a fertilized egg.
Once the ovaries have released an egg, it has approximately 72 hours to be fertilized. Since sperm can survive in your body for several days, it is usually recommended that you start to have unprotected sex before the onset of ovulation to increase your chances of fertilization.
If the egg is fertilized, your body begins to produce human Chorionic Gonadotropin (hCG), which is often referred to as the “pregnancy hormone.” HCG helps ensure that your body will continue to produce the correct amounts of estrogen and progesterone to provide the ideal conditions for implantation. If pregnancy does result, the corpus luteum will be stimulated by the placenta and continue to produce progesterone.
If the egg is not fertilized, the corpus luteum will dry up after about 14 days and become scar tissue. Your endometrium lining will shed itself as hormone levels fall, resulting in your period. Because of the drop in hormone levels, more GnRH will start to be produced and your monthly menstrual cycle will begin again.”
Article from http://www.pregnancy-info.net
It is shame that they need to refer to life producing sexual intercouse to “unprotected sex.” How far has society strayed from what is natural. Natural sex now needs to be defined for the public as “unprotected”! The world is absolutely bizarre.
Yes, Tyler, you understand me correctly. I’ll try to get a consent form for you.
Xalisae,
Couples using NFP know when the woman is ovulating, which is during a time when the uterine lining is most receptive. If they choose to have relations at a time when the uterus is not receptive, it is also not when an egg is present to be fertilized, so I fail to see your point. You are starting to grasp at straws now.
Your language is also a little vague:
“I see no difference in Maria using IVF to conceive as long as all embryos were implanted and given a chance…”
I think by this you mean that her embryos were transferred and given a chance. Yes they were transferred, but no, they weren’t given much of a chance. Earlier on this thread I posted references to studies that show a father’s semen to be very instrumental in priming the uterine immune response to make the uterus a more hospitable environment for the embryo.
IVF lacks this benefit, The odds simply are not the same, which is why so many couples bankrupt themselves on round after round of failed IVF. In the interim, millions of new humans are made, sorted through, discarded, transferred in numbers too great to ever expect a reasonable chance for all, and still hundreds of thousands more are frozen.
No serious pro-lifer would ever, EVER go to a Planned Parenthood for their gynecologic needs ad console themselves that they were still a pro-lifer in good standing. In the same way, no pro-lifer could financially support an IVF clinic and legitimately claim that they were virtuous for not practicing ALL of the evil, and then dismiss the evil they did practice by claiming that the embryos were not even human.
Some people build castles in the air.
Some people build castles in the air and then move into them.
Just because Maria offers us a weekend at her condo in the clouds doesn’t mean that we should take leave of our senses ad start packing.
Yes, Tyler, you understand me correctly. I’ll try to get a consent form for you.
Xalisae,
Couples using NFP know when the woman is ovulating, which is during a time when the uterine lining is most receptive. If they choose to have relations at a time when the uterus is not receptive, it is also not when an egg is present to be fertilized, so I fail to see your point. You are starting to grasp at straws now.
Your language is also a little vague:
“I see no difference in Maria using IVF to conceive as long as all embryos were implanted and given a chance…”
I think by this you mean that her embryos were transferred and given a chance. Yes they were transferred, but no, they weren’t given much of a chance. Earlier on this thread I posted references to studies that show a father’s semen to be very instrumental in priming the uterine immune response to make the uterus a more hospitable environment for the embryo.
IVF lacks this benefit, The odds simply are not the same, which is why so many couples bankrupt themselves on round after round of failed IVF. In the interim, millions of new humans are made, sorted through, discarded, transferred in numbers too great to ever expect a reasonable chance for all, and still hundreds of thousands more are frozen.
No serious pro-lifer would ever, EVER go to a Planned Parenthood for their gynecologic needs ad console themselves that they were still a pro-lifer in good standing. In the same way, no pro-lifer could financially support an IVF clinic and legitimately claim that they were virtuous for not practicing ALL of the evil, and then dismiss the evil they did practice by claiming that the embryos were not even human.
Some people build castles in the air.
Some people build castles in the air and then move into them.
Just because Maria offers us a weekend at her condo in the clouds doesn’t mean that we should take leave of our senses ad start packing.
Xalisae,
I think you are misunderstanding biology and therefore the practice of NFP. My understanding of biology tells me that eggs are not released during a woman’s non-fertile phase and therefore the creation of embryos (conception) is not possible in the period when couples practice NFP. I don’t think you are right when you say:
“Or heck, if you want to really dig in here, couples practicing NFP who have sex when the uterine lining is inhospitable to avoid conception. Do they know for certain that this is happening? ”
I don’t think the above statement is correct but perhaps Dr. Nadal could clarify?
I have attached an article that explains the female menstrual cycle.
The article sadly refers to natural life producing sexual intercourse as having “unprotected sex.” It is so sad that in our culture today we no longer know what is natural. Here is the article:
“During the first few days of your cycle, your levels of estrogen decrease, signaling your body to increase its production of FSH. This helps promote the maturation of the follicles that contain the eggs. From the 20 or so eggs that are stimulated every month, one egg will manage to attract the most attention from FSH. This helps the follicle to produce more estradiol, which in turns tells the pituitary gland to stop producing so much FSH. As a result, the other follicles die off when they stop receiving enough FSH to survive.
The increase in estrogen also sends a signal to the endometrium, causing it to start thickening. Your cervical mucus will begin to change in consistency, from thick to thin and slippery. Additionally, more mucus will be produced, thereby aiding any sperm that enters your vagina in its quest to fertilize an egg.
About a day and a half before ovulation occurs, your estrogen levels will climax, causing the pituitary to release a surge of LH. Once the follicle releases the egg, the follicle itself shrinks and gathers fatty substances known as lipids. This then becomes the corpus luteum, which is responsible for the production of progesterone. As progesterone levels in your body increase, the endometrium begins to prepare itself for implantation by a fertilized egg.
Once the ovaries have released an egg, it has approximately 72 hours to be fertilized. Since sperm can survive in your body for several days, it is usually recommended that you start to have unprotected sex before the onset of ovulation to increase your chances of fertilization.
If the egg is fertilized, your body begins to produce human Chorionic Gonadotropin (hCG), which is often referred to as the “pregnancy hormone.” HCG helps ensure that your body will continue to produce the correct amounts of estrogen and progesterone to provide the ideal conditions for implantation. If pregnancy does result, the corpus luteum will be stimulated by the placenta and continue to produce progesterone.
If the egg is not fertilized, the corpus luteum will dry up after about 14 days and become scar tissue. Your endometrium lining will shed itself as hormone levels fall, resulting in your period. Because of the drop in hormone levels, more GnRH will start to be produced and your monthly menstrual cycle will begin again.”
Article from http://www.pregnancy-info.net
Xalisae, in a natural cycle, the lining is infertile because there is no chance of an embryo’s creation. If everything is natural, the lining should be capable of supporting the embryo when there is an embryo. Using NFP to avoid conception would never result in a conception but not allow implantation; any condition which caused this would also cause failure in a planned pregnancy. I think NFP can be and is misused by Christians, but I don’t think it ever results in a child that is conceived and cannot implant because of the timing of intercourse (rather than other defects of the uterine lining or reproductive system, such as short luteal phase or endometriosis, which would affect embryos regardless of timing).
The science is quite clear–one or more ova are released at ovulation. Ovulation may occur again within 12 hours or so, resulting in the release of a second egg. But when ovulation occurs, the lining thickens. The egg dies in 12-24 hours if fertilization does not happen; in that case, it will not be fertilized by later intercourse. There’s only that 24 hour window. If the lining is not fertile, there is a problem which has nothing to do with NFP.
It is shame that they need to refer to life producing sexual intercouse to “unprotected sex.” How far has society strayed from what is natural. Natural sex now needs to be defined for the public as “unprotected”! The world is absolutely bizarre.
Tyler, I agree! The notion that I need to be “protected” from my husband’s fertility, or that he needs to be “protected” from mine, is absolutely ludicrous. We love each other wholly and completely, fertility and all, and neither of us ever feel the need to be “protected” from one another.
Given the origin of the IP which matches Maria’s, it is highly unlikely that these people are from the same town or same campus, NOT knowing each other, who just *happen* to be on the blog at the same time, on the same thread. Nope. Sock puppet, indeed.
(Just for clarity, Sister, since I didn’t explain in detail: technically speaking, it’s the “fake persona”, not the original commenter, that’s called the “sock puppet”. In this case, “Maria” would be considered the “commenter”, and the [presumably] fake persona called “Roseanne” would be Maria’s “sock-puppet”. Of course, someone could argue that the sock-puppet was Maria, who came on *first*, but… well… it’s a horse apiece, I suppose.)
“Her demeanor has very little to do with the facts of the matter. I see no difference in Maria using IVF to conceive as long as all embryos were implanted and given a chance and a couple trying to conceive naturally when the female partner has some sort of disease/defect-known or unknown-of her uterine lining. Or heck, if you want to really dig in here, couples practicing NFP who have sex when the uterine lining is inhospitable to avoid conception. Do they know for certain that this is happening? No, but it doesn’t stop the same thing from happening, and if the occurrences are the same, one person shouldn’t be chastised while the others are applauded”
X: No one said that her demeanor had anything to do with the facts. Her demeanor didn’t change until she was faced with the scientific and moral truth of IVF. If you would read the posts from the beginning, you will see that very clearly. The fact that you see no difference between what happens in the natural process of reproduction and the unnatural process of IVF tells me volumes. Please read ALL of the responses from the perspective of what the theological, moral, biological, and scientific implications can and are regarding IVF.
In addition, I have to take exception to your last statement. Maria/Rosanne was NOT chastised. The people on this blog presented the TRUTH to her and she couldn’t take it for whatever reason. In fact, in my opinion, it was SHE who chastised others and NOT the other way around.
Xalise a couple quick points:
NFP (at least the methods I’m familiar with) doesn’t track hospitability of the uterine lining, but rather ovulation markers. Testing is needed to look at that (ultrasound and possibly endometrial biopsy). So the idea of NFP is not to conceive and hope the child doesn’t implant b/c of an inhospitable environment, but to avoid (or not) conception in the first place by tracking ovulation.
As for whether naturally conceived embryos and embryos created in a lab have the same chance of survival – that we don’t know, though Dr. Nadal did link to some interesting research suggesting that semen may play an important role in making the woman’s body more receptive to implantation. We also don’t know if the number of embryos transferred in a given attempt reduces the odds of any one individual implanting. If a woman transfers 3 embryos each time, does each have the same odds as if she had transferred 1? The indifference to the answers to these questions does separate IVF parents from parents who conceive and miscarry naturally.
We also don’t know how many embryos Maria created and transferred each time or what her intent was. Did any die almost instantly after creation (which happens often) and she just doesn’t count those (did the dr. even tell her)? Did she intend all to live and hope for multiples. Did she hope some would die and just one or two would take?
I’m willing to give Maria credit for whatever above-average treatment she gave to her embryos. I just hope she calms down, returns, answers these unanswered questions, and continues to flesh out her puzzling and contradictory views on the status of embryos.
Oops – didn’t see that there were newer comments, Xalise. Others beat me to the NFP explanation.
Sorry I didn’t know my previous comments were on the board… :(
good grief, what’s half an abortion? :(
It’s interesting how the “Jenny” really does KNOW what she’s doing . She knows that IVF is against the natural order of things and that one “choice” in this entire unnatural process simply leads to more and more “choices”. She views reproduction as a business transaction with her and her husband purchasing a product (a baby in this case) and they got more “product” than they paid for.
It’s incredible to me that she could put herself through all of what constitutes the IVF protocol and then selfishly decide that she and her husband can only look after one extra child anyways.
She justifies the abortion in the same old way: better dead than neglected.
Overall the selfishness and utilitarian ethics in this piece just sickened me.
I can’t imagine being “Shelby’s” daughter and being told that my mom aborted my two siblings for what amount to very frivolous reasons. I wonder if her daughter will be as “open” to “choice” as she thinks?
I wonder if there are any studies on the effects of being an abortion survivor in reduction situations, seeing as these have been going on for so long?
Angel, I’ve read cases about survivor siblings. Since the early 80’s (thanks, Roe v. Wade!) there are therapists whose entire practices are devoted to this. I can’t even imagine what it must be like for the twin or triplet who witnessed their siblings’ death and then lived with, as the NYT article describes, their “shriveled” brother or sister. What is delivery day like?
When pregnant with my second daughter, I read a fascinating book (I wish I could find it again in the library system) which contained studies about twin interaction, begun in utero, observed by ultrasound and followed to 5 years of age. It was looking at behaviors and personality (yup, I know, impossible cuz their “not persons” unless Mom says so!) and it was just remarkable. I recall the brother and sister who would play together (observed on ultrasound), he stroking her face and even kissing her. As toddlers their favorite game was for one to hide on the other side of a curtain and repeat this behavior (two amniotic sacs, a “curtain” between them?). Now, imagine if sister had been reduced and her body left response-less to his play.
I am floored, aghast, heartbroken and perplexed by the quotes from the women who have done this. Shelby’s attempt to make things as “ethical as possible” for herself is the equivalent of telling your hit man: “In this room, I’ve got my 3 children. Murder two, any two, and it’s like I’m not really guilty of it since you’re doing the selecting!”
Or “Jenny”, saying, “This is bad, but it’s not anywhere as bad as neglecting your child or not giving everything you can to the children you have.” Riiiight, keep repeating that until you believe that depriving a child of life is somehow morally superior to not being able to give them the latest trends in clothing or electronics.
I noticed that though the article does explain the “fatal potassium chloride” to “the fetal chest” and hints at how seeing it on ultrasound is graphic, no where does anyone explain what this tiny human is being subjected to (sans anesthesia, mind you!): cardiac arrest. This isn’t an injection like putting your pet to sleep. Even death row prisoners get 3 chemicals: first a barbiturate (anesthetic), then pancuronium bromide (paralyzes the inmate) and then the potassium chloride to stop the inmate’s heart. And no, doing this to an unborn child who has had no due process of law would not make things better. It is all so barbaric.
Reading this article, I shudder at the callousness of human beings and can’t help but think of the Jefferson quote: “I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that his justice cannot sleep forever.”
thank you for your response klynn73.
Gosh I never thought about the effects in utero on the surviving twin. :(
I thought this article was excellent
http://www.slate.com/id/2301322/
Carla: You are absolutely right! I read this article and was stunned by some of the terminology. SLATE does not normally interest me because of its increasing extremist left mentality. However, this article seems to be an exception and honest. I especially found some of the terms very telling: “consumer mentality in assisted reproduction.” Isn’t that what Dr. Nadal and others have been trying to say for the past 4 or more days to Maria/Roseanne? Here’s another ons: “activated eggs”…hmmm…that’s a humdinger if I ever heard one! Who does the activating??? Another: “half aborbing” (referring, presumably, to the human beings in embryonic stage who do not implant onto the uterine wall). I also thought that the following statement was critical:
“…it’s the deliberateness of getting pregnant, especially by IVF, without being prepared to accept the consequences. But the main problem with reduction is that it breaches “pro-choice psychology” (well, what the heck is pro-choice “psychology” for Heaven’s sake??!). This is the most telling of all. It supports what I said in an earlier post: “It exposes the EQUALITY between the offspring we raise and the offspring we abort.” That is, that pro-aborts already KNOW the truth about abortion…that they are KILLING a human being.
Great article, Carla!!! :)