A couple months ago, we heard about the 60 year old woman that gave birth to twins, and we discussed the issues that this raised regarding fertility treatments. Now, more and more issues are popping up about fertility. The most recent developments are the birth of a test tube baby that was frozen. This is a huge mark in fertility treatments, and the effects are already being seen.
Girls are born with all their eggs. Thus, this technique can be used to gather the eggs of children, freeze them, and then use in-vitro fertilization to form embryos to implant into the mature ladies. Why's that good? Why are we taking eggs from girls as young as five to freeze them? Well, it offers hope for children that have cancer. Should they survive the ordeal, they will have healthy eggs to have children with in the future. Of course, as the article explains, there are ethical implications with injecting hormones and removing the eggs from children that might not understand the implications of such a treatment. But it would certainly offer hope for pre-teen and teen girls that may wish to have children after their cancer treatment.
There's another situation going on, which I just find weird. The girl has Turner's syndrome, which means that she cannot have children. She is barren. So, to give her hope, her mother is freezing her eggs for her daughter's future use. Should her daughter use these eggs with her future mate, she will give birth to not her own child, but her half-sibling. The child will likely be raised to believe that his/her sister is in fact his/her mother. But will the family tell the child of its genetic place in the family? Will this traumatize the child? Who knows. It may be a heart-felt move by the mother, as she is giving hope that her daughter may one day have children, but at the same time, it's really an ethical dilemma.
Fertility treatments can be completely unnecessary (as I believe is the case with the 60 year old woman), but they can also give hope to girls that may otherwise be unable to have children. Of course, these treatments can also result in multiple pregnancies, and so put the health of the child at risk, as was the case with the Minnesota sextuplets. So, like with any other medical treatment, the risks must be weighed with the benefits. Fertility treatments are not right for anyone, but can be used for good. It just depends on the circumstances.
What bothers me about the fertility treatment debate is that people seem perfectly okay with manufacturing life in a test tube and ignoring adoption options, but when a woman is pregnant and wants to abort the fetus, there is all this hype about keeping it and giving it up for adoption.
Obviously the issues are very different and complicated, but I feel like it's a little socially irresponsible to advocate fertility treatments while simultaneously denouncing abortion and offering adoption as an option. Not that I'm saying this is what you, mv, are doing (at all), just that many people I've met who actively support fertility treatment are also adamantly pro-life.
Where do the people in this category suggest orphaned kids go?
I can understand people wanting fertility treatments to have children that are in their genetic line, and paying a hefty price for it, but it still ignores the greater need for people to adopt, especially with so many people against abortion.
You're right. People often ignore the adoption system. And that's something that needs to change, so that those children can get a home as well. I just don't know enough about the system to talk about it in detail.
~C
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I don't either.