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What Do You Think About IVF?

Discussion in 'Political Debate & Discussion' started by PrivateWoman, Sep 20, 2010.

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  1. It is Wrong

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  2. Unsure/Undecided

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  3. OK in Certain Circumstances

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  4. It is Perfectly Fine

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  1. PrivateWoman

    PrivateWoman Member

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    As many of you know, I started a thread about abortion. Someone brought up the question of "Who would you save: an embryo in petri dish or a person" in a burning building? This made me think about IVF and I felt it was best to start a new topic about IVF because I feel that IVF is a different topic from IVF.

    I have done some study and I don't feel that IVF is right. But I don't want to condemn anyone here who may had IVF done or had relatives who had IVF done. I know that infertility is very painful when you want to have a baby so badly. I am still learning things about IVF.

    The reasons I have reservations about IVF is:

    1.) They freeze a number of embryos and they are often never used.

    2.) Many Embryos are killed in the process of IVF. I have a problem with that because I believe that embryos are humans.

    3.) I feel that it is playing God.

    4.) Many homosexual couples use IVF. I cannot support homosexual couples birthing a child.

    I personally think couples who are infertile and want children badly should look into contacting pregnancy crisis centers to let them know they want to adopt a newborn baby. There may be some pregnant women who are seriously considering abortion because they don't want their babies at all. There are so many pregnant women who would be willing to continue with their pregnancies if they knew that their medical bills would be paid in full by a couple who wants to adopt their baby. IVF is very costly. Think about how many unborn babies could be saved by the same amount of money or even less.
     
  2. annsni

    annsni Well-Known Member
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    Well, I can speak as one who has struggled with infertility.

    In our case, we really strongly felt that we wanted a child that was produced from our own "relations", so to speak. The only involvement I wanted from doctors was to make sure that everything worked well enough for us to conceive in the "natural way". So we did fertility drugs, both in pill form and injectables. We would not selectively reduce a pregnancy so I was carefully watched to be sure we would not end up with high order multiples. With the fertility drugs, I conceived 4 children and lost two of them. Three were with Clomid, the pill form of fertility drug and one was with injectables. I lost the child from the injectables and one of the Clomid babies.

    As for IVF, if I did not have any children and that would be the only way for us to have natural children, I would do it with some personal guidelines. The biggest being that whatever embryos that were created would all be implanted at the same time. This would mean that we would be restricted to how many eggs would be attempted to be fertilized, thus decreasing the chance of success for a cycle. It would also mean that for each cycle we wanted to try to get pregnant, we would have to pay the full price for an IVF cycle and do the full process rather than saving some for a next cycle attempt. But that would be the only way that we would have considered doing the IVF if we were in that position.

    But I was blessed to have had 2 children conceived after just a number of months on the Clomid so when I began experiencing the full infertility, if we did not get pregnant with the drugs and the "natural method", we would have been happy with our 2 children and been finished with childbearing. But God chose, through medication that treats the basis of my infertility, to bless us with 2 more living children.

    So, bottom line, I am not against IVF but it needs to be carefully approached so as to not produce excess embryos.
     
  3. FR7 Baptist

    FR7 Baptist Active Member

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    The main issue with IVF is the fact that many embryos end up frozen indefinitely or destroyed. One possible partial solution for pro-life couples would be to not create more embryos than the maximum number of children they are willing to have. The way IVF works, from my limited understanding, is that they "insert" one or more embryos at once. The vast majority of those fail to implant. By only creating as many embryos as the maximum number of children a couple can deal with, you reduce outright wasting of embryos. If an embryo implants on the first couple of trys, the remaining embryos can be frozen and thawed for later use.

    Even with that, I have serious ethical problems with IVF due to the fact that there is a far greater number of embryos that die/ get "flushed out" than with natural fertilization. While I'm more concerned with fetuses and post-birth people than embryos, I believe that embryos are of moral significance. This, in my opinion, makes IVF an improper option for all couples, not just Christian ones, because moral standards are absolute and apply to all people regardless of their religion.

    There are a couple of other options, however. You can, at some clinics, "adopt" left over embryos from other couples. While that still has the problems that I outlined in my second paragraph, it is better than letting the excess embryos be destroyed/ frozen indefinitely so that makes embryo "adoption" okay. The second option is just to adopt a baby. If/ when I get married I'd certainly have the discussion of adoption with my wife. There are so many babies that need parents, and I don't see why my hypothetical wife and I should make more babies when we could give a home to those precious infants.
     
  4. targus

    targus New Member

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    Execpt in the case of possible harm to the mother right?

    In that case the word "absolute" becomes inoperative.
     
  5. FR7 Baptist

    FR7 Baptist Active Member

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    Do you have any thoughts on my views on IVF? Let's not derail this thread.
     
  6. preachinjesus

    preachinjesus Well-Known Member
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    IVF is undertaken too carelessly by many couples. There are serious bio-medical ethical issues that need to be understood and dealt with before just haphazardly engaging in this. Jon and Kate (formerly) are great examples of how it can be abused.

    FTR, I believe life begins at implantation and fertilization. Too many things happen between conception and fertilization to end the viability of an ovum which call into question the point of life beginning.

    I'm not against IVF, but it needs to have careful parameters. The other, most significant issue, is what to do with the unfertilized ovum. This, inevitably, leads to a discussion (now) about stem cells. (Then the rhetoric goes even higher and more hysterical)
     
  7. Gold Dragon

    Gold Dragon Well-Known Member

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    I don't see a problem with this.

    Whatever was causing the infertility (often an endometrial problem interfering with implantation) before IVF is likely to be there during IVF. I don't think the decreased implantation rate of IVF compared to the rest of the population is necessarily a problem with the IVF procedure but it is often related to why the couple needed IVF in the first place.
     
  8. annsni

    annsni Well-Known Member
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    And we honestly don't know how many fertilizations do not result in implantation in a regular woman.
     
  9. Gold Dragon

    Gold Dragon Well-Known Member

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    Absolutely. But my guess is even if we did know, it would still be higher than IVF implantations simply because IVF patients are a subset of the population that we already know has problems with infertility, many of which are implantation related.
     
    #9 Gold Dragon, Sep 20, 2010
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 20, 2010
  10. annsni

    annsni Well-Known Member
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    Actually, I believe that most of the causes of infertility are ovulation function related. These would be issues that would cause the ovary to not release an egg to be fertilized. Implantation issues are not as widely a cause of infertility but are usually caused by uterine fibroids or hormonal issues affecting the quality of the lining.
     
  11. Gold Dragon

    Gold Dragon Well-Known Member

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    Yes, I corrected my error after posting it too quickly. Thanks for the clarification.
     
  12. annsni

    annsni Well-Known Member
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    Having dealt with so many years of infertility, I know a little too much about it. But I have 4 gorgeous kids so I'm blessed.

    Funny thing?? I'm not infertile anymore - now that I'm 45 and done with childbearing. If I were younger and didn't need c-sections, I'd have a bunch more!
     
  13. Gold Dragon

    Gold Dragon Well-Known Member

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    Praise God for blessing you so abundantly!

    I have a completely non-evidenced based, non-scientific theory that for some cases of mild female infertility, a pregnancy "resets" the hormones and ovaries in the woman and increases future fertility. Of course getting that first pregnancy is the difficult part.
     
  14. annsni

    annsni Well-Known Member
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    I do agree but in my case, that was not so. I had my infertility increase as I went along. But praise God that there was research into my condition (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome) and it was found that a large issue with it is insulin resistance and by taking metformin, a diabetic medication, it decreases the amount of insulin I make and now I ovulate on my own. Before this treatment I never ovulated without fertility drugs!
     
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