September 2019 – Article 1:
Anytime we mess with God’s plan for procreation, things can go wrong—terribly wrong.
When using In Vitro Fertilization (IVF), couples often don’t get what they paid for. Worse, in far too many instances, “excess” embryos are misplaced, used for life-ending research or destroyed.
Destroying, losing, or otherwise mistreating babies at this stage of development shows a total disregard for the Personhood of every single human life.
IVF is a booming business. The latest data shows that clinics conducted 263,000 implantation cycles in the United States in 2016, resulting in 66,000 deliveries.
A Heart Breaking IVF Story
An especially heartbreaking example of the process gone awry is when a fertility clinic gets donors or embryos mixed up.
An Asian couple in New York recently experienced exactly that. Unable to conceive, they turned to the Los Angeles-based CHA Fertility Center, which bills itself as the “mecca of reproductive medicine.”
It wasn’t long after the successful implantation of two embryos that the couple was shocked to learn she was carrying twin boys, despite the fact CHA said they had used two of their female embryos.
Aside from not being their children, the boys, who were not Asian, weren’t even genetically related to each other.
As a result, the couple was forced to give custody of each child to their biological parents, who also were CHA clients.
Even more heart breaking, they don’t know what happened to the two female embryos they created.
Many serious mix-ups no doubt go unnoticed, especially if there is no obvious ethnic mismatch.
“We have no idea how often [this kind of mistake] happens, and there’s no requirement that prevents it from happening,” Dov Fox, a law professor at the University of San Diego and author of Birth Rights and Wrongs, told The Atlantic magazine.
Serious IVF Risks & Complications
Aside from the issue of tragic mistakes in the IVF process, women turning to IVF, and the children they conceive, face additional possible medical problems including:
- Ovarian hyper stimulation syndrome. Use of injectable fertility drugs, such as human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG), to induce ovulation can cause this condition, in which the ovaries become swollen and painful. In severe cases, the condition may lead to rapid weight gain and shortness of breath.
- Heart problems. Women who undergo IVF treatments are 19 percent more likely to experience a cardiovascular event, particularly heart failure.
- Egg retrieval complications. Use of an aspirating needle to collect eggs could possibly cause bleeding, infection or damage to the bowel, bladder or a blood vessel. There are also risks if general anesthesia is used.
- Ovarian cancer. Some studies say there is a link between IVF and ovarian cancer, while others don’t. More studies are needed.
- Birth defects. The age of the mother is the primary factor in the development of birth defects, no matter how the child is conceived. More research is needed to determine if IVF increases this risk.
- Ectopic pregnancy. About 2 to 5 percent of women who use IVF will experience this condition, in which the egg implants outside the uterus, usually in a fallopian tube.
- The rate of miscarriage for women who conceive using IVF with fresh embryos is similar to that of most women who conceive naturally—about 15 to 25 percent—but the rate increases as a woman ages, which often is the case for women who turn to this procedure. Also, using frozen embryos may slightly increase the risk of miscarriage.
- Use of IVF can be financially, physically and emotionally draining.
Certain Deadly IVF Procedures are Wrong
GRTL empathizes with couples who desire to have children and turn to IVF. However, any IVF procedure that results in the death of a child at any stage of development denies their Personhood and is strongly opposed.
In addition to evaluating the potential mix ups and health risks to both women and children, GRTL urges parents to limit the number of embryos created in a single cycle to the number that will be transferred in that cycle.
Equally important in protecting the sanctity of human life, parents should not choose pre-implantation genetic diagnosis or “selective reduction” to limit the number of children born.
Sources: mayoclinic.org; 11alive.com; patch.com; theglobeandmail.com; liveaction.org; foxnews.com; washingtonpost.com; theatlantic.com; webmd.com.
By Wayne DuBois
Georgia Right to Life
Media Relations Advisor