Strollerderby : embryo

Should Mixed Up Embryo's Mom Get to Weigh In on Abortion?

JeanneSager — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 14:25:00 GMT

Remember the outrage over the Japanese doctors who oh-so-accidentally transferred one couple's embryo into the wrong mom-to-be?

The story's back in the news - with a twist. It turns out the woman whose embryo was accidentally transferred into the womb of an ususpecting IVF patient (who later aborted) did not find out about the incident for a full two and a half months. Doctors said the woman, who was in her forties, was not overly concerned. Her exact words (according to the health officials) were "I'm sorry to hear that."

So what's the problem? Some members of the press are now debating whether that woman should have had a chance to weigh in on the subject when doctors realized the mistake. In other words - some are debating whether the embryo's "Mom" should have had the right to talk the pregnant woman out of aborting her "child."

Wait, what? Technically, they're suggesting that one woman should have the right over another woman's body. And they're not the only ones.

Some of the commentors on the original reporting of the story here on Strollerderby expressed their outrage at the woman who underwent the abortion - even pro-choice moms. As Emma says, "That's pretty disgusting. This woman was so desperate for a child she paid for expensive IVF treatments, but she couldn't bear to keep a child that wasn't her's biologically? I completely understand her anger, and a large settlement would be justified. For me, despite being pro choice, the abortion is unfathomable."

As a woman who was very happy to get pregnant and even happier when the pregnancy ended (with the birth of my daughter), I'm not sure I'm OK with the idea of going forward with a pregnancy for the sake of someone else . . . especially someone I've never met. Planned surrogacy is one thing. Accidental surrogacy, and suffering through all the ill effects of pregnancy for someone else's child is quite another.

On the other hand, this woman and her husband provided egg and sperm in good faith. They thought their embryo would become a child, and it was their flesh and blood. They didn't impregnate some poor woman on purpose, and they sure as heck could have suffered exponentially from the loss of either the chance to become pregnant or the loss of that fetus.

Should the biological parents' of the embryo have been allowed to know the situation right away? Should they have been allowed contact with the pregnant woman? Or was there enough of a burden on the women who suffered from the wrongly transferred embryo?

Image: PatDollard.com

Proposed Anti-Octomom Law Stalls, For Now

Kate Tuttle — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 15:30:00 GMT

A Georgia state bill that would have imposed severe limits on IVF, promoted as a measure to prevent future "Octomom" situations, is unlikely to be passed this year, according to observers. The proposed legislation, which has been sent to a senate subcommittee for further study, would have required doctors and fertility clinics to fertilize no more embryos than they planned to transfer into a woman, and would have limited the number to no more than two or three, depending upon the woman's age. Proponents have suggested that this kind of legislation is sorely needed to protect both women and taxpayers from situations like Nadya Suleman's, in which the transfer of a large number of embryos resulted in a case of super-multiples with no visible means of support.

And we can all get behind that, right?

Well, not so fast. As Slate's William Saletan pointed out in a column this week, the bill, S.B. 169, is really a backdoor attempt to impose the same kind of "personhood" rights on embryos and fetuses that a state legislature in North Dakota recently passed. Under the guise of imposing sanity on the Wild West atmosphere still prevailing in some fertility clinics (and yes, Octomom is pretty much Exhibit A for what's wrong in that world), S.B. 169 would penalize all fertility patients, ban stem-cell research and declare that legally an embryo has rights that should be paramount (over the rights of living, breathing human beings).

Since the stem-cell and "personhood" issues are both facets of the whole reproductive freedom issue and most people have already made up their minds how they feel about them, I think it's most interesting to see how S.B. 169, if it ever were passed, would effect regular people seeking IVF or other fertility treatments. Under the bill's provisions, a mother could only have 2-3 embryos transferred, and due to the bill's "fertilize only as many as you transfer" language, she could not produce other fertilized eggs that could then be frozen and used in subsequent cycles (which is how nearly all current IVF patients proceed). This would vastly reduce the likelihood of success of each IVF cycle since not all fertilized eggs become transferrable blastocycts, and not all of those transferred blastocycts become implanted embryos, and not all of those embryos stick around long enough to become human babies; the more non-medical limitations placedon the number of eggs fertilized, the smaller the pool for even potential success. And given the cost of each IVF cycle, couples would quickly find themselves priced out of the fertility game unless they got very lucky, very early on.

As Saletan says of the bill's limits on egg fertilization:

How does this restriction "protect the mother" and "reduce the risk of complications" for her? It doesn't. If you wanted to protect the woman, you might limit the number of embryos that could be transferred to her womb, not the number that can be created in the dish. In fact, by limiting the number that can be created, you increase her risk of complications. The fewer eggs you fertilize, the lower your chances of producing an embryo healthy enough to be transferred and carried to term. That means a higher failure rate, which in turn means that women will have to undergo more treatment cycles, with the corresponding risks of ovarian hyperstimulation and advancing maternal age.

So why limit the number of embryos created per cycle? Because the bill's chief purpose isn't really to help women. It's to establish legal rights for embryos.

So don't be fooled. This kind of bill will no doubt make its debut in other state legislatures, particularly in states with a strong lobby against reproductive freedom and for embryo rights. If its advocates would come right out and say that's what they're fighting for, I'd have a lot more respect for them. Instead, by using impressive-sounding scientific language and making grand gestures toward women's health and taxpayer's dollars, they're trying to fool the public and use state legislative means to make an end run around Supreme Court precedent. As for women who only want a healthy baby or two, they become the innocent bystanders who stand to get hurt if bills like this pass.

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Girl Eats Twin; Says "Needs Salt"

Mike Adamick (Cry It Out!) — Thu, 15 May 2008 17:58:00 GMT

A 9-year-old girl complaining of stomach pains had a 2-inch-long embryo complete with head, hair and eyes removed from her belly, while her parents issued this statement from the waiting room: "So that's where the other one went! I knew we were missing something."

Doctors in Greece, where this occurred, said that one in a set of twins absorbs the other in about 1 in every 500,000 births. The girl -- I mean the one who was not eaten -- had complained of stomach pains, went to get checked out and voila, there was a lump in her stomach. (Did this lump remain for the girl's entire 9-year existence? Was this the first time she ever felt discomfort? Good questions -- no answers.)

Doctors Want Fewer Twins

Madeline Holler — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 22:33:00 GMT

Doctors are suddenly on a tear to reduce the number of twins and triplets born in the U.S. Twins are everywhere and triplets aren't really all that original anymore either thanks to advances in fertility treatments.

But considering the health risks multiple births pose to both moms and babies, those in the business are looking for ways to lower the number of triplet -- and even twin -- births.

For starters, they want to implant fewer fertilized eggs. But everybody knows fertility treatments cost a fortune.

From the NY Times:

“People have to recognize that there’s a connection between cost and how the treatment is going to play out,” said Barbara Collura, executive director of Resolve, a patient advocacy organization for people with infertility. “If you have $10,000 that you’ve begged, borrowed and stolen for this one I.V.F. cycle, you’re not going to say, ‘Please just transfer one.’ ”

Others want to wait five days after the extracted egg is fertilized instead of only three. That gives more time for abnormal chromosomes to be revealed, thereby disqualifying a greater number of embryos and allowing fewer to be transfered while maintaining the odds one will turn into a viable pregnancy.

Better screening, fewer embryo transfers, and telling would-be moms of the risks that mulitple births carry is the plan so far. What else? Do you think multiple births are a problem? What was your experience?

Acupuncture Might Help You Get Pregnant

Madeline Holler — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 18:53:00 GMT

This might be some good news for people struggling to get pregnant: acupuncture, administered shortly after embryos have been implanted, might actually boost the chances of a viable pregnancy. The bad news is that it's acupuncture and, therefore, slightly fringe. (The good news response to that close-minded, Western-medicine-centric statement is that the study of acupunture's effects on fertility treatments is actually being done by scientists.)

Where were we? Right. The findings are far from conclusive, but here's what the researchers are thinking:

Acupuncture involves placing very thin needles at specific points on the body to try to control pain and reduce stress. In fertility treatment, it is thought to increase blood flow to the uterus, relax the cervix and inhibit "fight or flight" stress hormones that can make it tougher for an embryo to implant.

A pool of seven studies, which included more than 1,300 women in four countries, was looked at. Only three of those studies showed positive results, but with smaller studies in the pool, there was a 65 percent boost in the odds of a pregnancy outcomes for fertility treatments that included acupuncture.

Experts warn against focusing on that number, because this type of analysis with pooled results is not proof that acupuncture helps at all, let alone by how much. IVF results in pregnancy about 35 percent of the time. Adding acupuncture might boost that to around 45 percent, the researchers said.

Still, it's something, right?

Embryo Rescued From Katrina is Now a Baby

Karen Murphy — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 22:00:00 GMT

Lab workers at a flooded New Orleans hospital rescued 1400 embryos in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina last year by putting them on boats in sealed canisters filled with liquid nitrogen. One of those embryos, the first to be born, has now become a baby named Noah, joining his older brother who turned 1 just before the hurricane.

Test-tube ethics and questions of "when does life begin?" aside, I think this is awfully cool, and a beautiful reminder of what happens when people believe that what they do can make a difference. The embryos almost didn't survive the storm. Special help was requested, along with flat-bottomed boats necessary to keep the canisters from tipping, to move the embryos from the hospital where they had been stored, which had lost electrical power due to the hurricane. The embryos were safely moved to another hospital that did have power. And now one of them has become a new life.

Strollerderby : embryo

Should Mixed Up Embryo's Mom Get to Weigh In on Abortion?

Japan: Woman Impregnated With The Wrong Egg

What If The State Kept Your Kid's Blood for "Research?"

Court Nixes Couple's Request for Dead Son's Sperm

Texas Wants Women to Listen to Fetal Hearbeat Before Abortion

Proposed Anti-Octomom Law Stalls, For Now

Girl Eats Twin; Says "Needs Salt"

Doctors Want Fewer Twins

Acupuncture Might Help You Get Pregnant

Embryo Rescued From Katrina is Now a Baby