Monday, July 29, 2013

About 170,000 IVF Embryo Deaths Per Year in the U.S.

NEW YORK, November 22, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A study in the current issue of the journal Fertility and Sterility, the official journal of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, boasts that artificial fertility techniques have become more effective over the years.  The author of the study, Dr. James P. Toner, of the Atlanta Center for Reproductive Medicine in Woodstock, Georgia, writes that the rate of births per IVF attempt at pregnancy has increased from 10% to 30% from 1985 to 1999.  However, a look at the government statistics Toner used in his analysis reveal that approximately 170,000 human embryos created in 1999 (when the practice became more effective according to Toner’s analysis) died in the process of attempting to conceive a child viain vitro fertilization.
The statistics from the Centers for Disease Control indicate that in 1999, some 21,501 children were born using assisted reproductive techniques (ART).  In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) accounts for 73.5% of the ART methods.  In order to achieve the 21,501 births, 86,822 ART cycles were reported wherein on average 3 embryos are transferred per cycle.
See the Reuters coverage of the study:  http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20021120/hl_nm/reproduction_success_dc_2   See the CDC stats on the 1999 ART report:  http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/drh/ART99/section1.htm

Monday, July 22, 2013

Frozen Embryos: Biotech's Hidden Dilemma PART 3 of 3

Ron Stoddart, director of Nightlight Christian Adoptions, a nonprofit that facilitates Christian adoption, David Cook, a Wheaton College bioethics expert, and Ellen Painter Dollar, the author of a forthcoming book about Christian perspectives on reproductive and genetic technology, weigh in on what should be done with frozen embryos left over atfertility clinics.


First, Help Couples

Christians need much better resources for ethical and theological reflection.
by: Ellen Painter Dollar
Our oldest daughter inherited from me a disabling bone disorder called osteogenesis imperfecta (OI). When she was 2 years old and living through a harrowing cycle of broken bones, we underwent pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) in an attempt to have a second child who would not have OI.
PGD is in-vitro fertilization (IVF) with the added step of genetic screening. Only one of four embryos tested negative for OI and was implanted, but I did not get pregnant. (We eventuallyconceived both our second and third children naturally; neither of them inherited OI.) We had the other three embryos destroyed. We made that decision with little reflection, in the emotional muddle of caring for a broken toddler while undergoing a strenuous procedure loaded with tough questions.

Monday, July 15, 2013

Frozen Embryos: Biotech's Hidden Dilemma PART 2 of 3

Ron Stoddart, director of Nightlight Christian Adoptions, a nonprofit that facilitates Christian adoption, David Cook, a Wheaton College bioethics expert, and Ellen Painter Dollar, the author of a forthcoming book about Christian perspectives on reproductive and genetic technology, weigh in on what should be done with frozen embryos left over at fertility clinics.


Take Responsibility for Embryos

There are no ideal scenarios, but we must work for a solution.
by: David Cook
Before we can set significant guidelines regarding the fate of unused, frozen human embryos, we must ask: Who is responsible for them? Since embryos cannot make decisions, who gets to decide whether they will be donated, adopted, or destroyed?
Parents decide for their children, and families decide what will happen to an unconscious or dying family member.
Good fertility clinics will have clear protocols protecting the rights of parents and donors. The embryos in question were created to help the childless, so adopting or donating fulfills the same goal for the benefit of the child and the childless.
But parents are not the only ones who need to take responsibility.

Monday, July 8, 2013

Frozen Embryos: Biotech's Hidden Dilemma PART 1 of 3

Part One by: Ron Stoddart
Originally posted by Christianity Today, July 28, 2010

Ron Stoddart, director of Nightlight Christian adoptions, a nonprofit that facilitates Christian adoption, David Cook, a Wheaton College bioethics expert, and Ellen Painter Dollar, the author of a forthcoming book about Christian perspectives on reproductive and genetic technology, weigh in on what should be done with frozen embryos left over at fertility clinics.
When couples choose in-vitro fertilization to create embryos to help build their families, the unused embryos are frozen for future attempts at pregnancy. Most couples are unprepared for what to do with remaining embryos once their family is complete. There are over 500,000 embryos currently frozen in storage at American clinics.
Although together these embryos occupy a space the size of a 12mm cube—the size of a board game die—they represent the population of a city the size of Atlanta. Size is subject to perspective. We all look mighty small from the moon. But to God, we are wondrously made and valuable at every stage of development.

Monday, July 1, 2013

“The Disposition Decision” — What to Do With the Embryos?

by: Albert Mohler


For most Americans, the moral status of the human embryo is a question that seems quite remote. Even as hundreds of thousands of “excess” human embryos are now stored in American fertility clinics and laboratories, to most Americans these frozen embryos are out of sight and out of mind. Thus, one of the most important moral challenges of our day remains largely off the screen of our national discourse. The issue cannot remain out of sight or out of mind for long.
Indeed, for hundreds of thousands of couples (and in many cases, just individuals) this crucial moral question grows more difficult to ignore by the day. For those whose progeny are now frozen in fertility clinics, the “disposition decision” will eventually have to be made. The decision about the eventual disposition of these human embryos will reveal what these couples truly believe about human dignity and the sanctity of human life. On the larger landscape, the pattern of these decisions and the policies adopted by medical practitioners will reveal the soul of our culture as well.
Writing in The New Atlantis, Jacqueline Pfeffer Merrill contributes an essay on this issue that is both informative and haunting. She begins with an anecdote that establishes the moral sense of urgency we face on this issue:
Noah Markham was born in January 2007 to worldwide media notice. Like his Biblical namesake, this Noah had been saved from a flood. He had been one in a barrel of frozen embryos transported in a flat-bottomed boat from a flooded east New Orleans hospital in the days after Hurricane Katrina by the Louisiana State Police and Illinois Conservation Police. Interviewed at the time of Noah’s birth, his mother, Rebekah Markham, said that she and her husband Glen were uncertain about whether they would use their remaining three frozen embryos to add to their family of Noah and his big brother Witt. Interviewed again on the occasion of Noah’s first birthday, she said, “How can I not? I’m happy with two, but how can you not when you know what the possibility is? We almost lost Noah. I don’t want to lose the others voluntarily.”

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