People who are anti abortion from conception, how do you feel about IVF?

Of course miscarriage is a moral issue, if a man punches or kicks a woman in the stomach and she then goes on to miscarry the man has not only assaulted the woman but he has also killed the fetus. This happens a lot in dv situations.

Not that dv isn’t horrific by itself but that kind of outcome somehow feels extra worse. If that makes any sense? I wouldn’t dream of consoling the victim of such an attack with the pro-life lines like don’t worry it philosophically doesn’t have personhood” or “it was just a bunch of cells” etc etc.

I am pro-choice but the fact that I couldn’t say those things tells me the moral/ethical status of a fetus is not as clear cut as many pro-choicers
make out.

I'm pro-choice, very much in favour of abortions. I don't have much of an opinion on IVF. I'm glad people have benefitted from it.

What I would find interesting in prolifers thoughts on people creating embryos when there are so many children in care waiting to be adopted. Since they love to harass women into continuing a pregnancy and placing their child for adoption instead of aborting it, shouldn't they be lobbying for those who have struggled with having children to adopt some of those kids instead of creating new ones?

I don't personally agree, I just wonder how prolifers can justify IVF when they are constantly banging on about adoption.

Well it wouldn't be if you only tried to fertilize the number of eggs you would use each time.
The desire to reproduce is very strong, probably stronger in this case than the desire to tell others how to live their lives so I can see how you would end up in this situation.

I'm a pro-lifer (with some exceptions) and had IVF. Nothing hypocritical about it - I had a medical problem and that's how it could b treated

I think that position is illogical.

I'm still quite conflicted about the issue of frozen embryos. I went through IVF 2 years ago and my cycle produced a large quantity of freezable blastocysts (11). I was thrilled at the time as I knew my chances weren't great with each transfer so was relieved i would never have to go through the egg collection process again. We were really fortunate that our first transfer was successful and I'm so grateful to have my son.. we are thinking about #2 now and TTC but conscious we will likely have to go through a frozen transfer. But I don't have the mental strength to do that 10 times, so am facing the decision about what to do with leftover embryos once we are ready to call our family complete. I can't donate them sadly, I would do that in a heartbeat if I could. I didn't really think about this side of it when I was desperate for a baby (not that I would have done it differently tbh, it just never occurred to me that things would go so well!)

Yes I think we can all agree on that @endofthedays.

I know whilst I was going through treatment the hfea were toughening up on clinics with tighter regulation on storing embryos.

There's also a movement toward a lower number of eggs, quality over quantity. Mainly to reduce multiple pregnancy and the associated risks.

I think we had to sign something with regards to embryo storage. For us we didn't have any to store so it wasn't relevant but I probably would have donated them to another couple.

Then maybe it would be useful to agree that some viable embryos are in storage indefinitely/discarded/used for research but we don’t know how many.

Then we can maybe hear how IVF and abortion views relate to each other.

I think the problem is there is no factual information. Perhaps it is not recorded.

Norms, I have not claimed to know how it works in terms of numbers, nor have I claimed to.

I have simply asked for factual information, not anecdote.

I think it is worth noting that ivf has developed significantly since it started.
There are stricter rules on embryo numbers for example and the ability to influence the outcome has also developed.
The risks are better understood and how to mitigate them.
I suspect this could lead to reduced excess embryos as well. It would be worth looking at.

I think to be sure about the period, you would have to look at the original freedom of information request.

It's only marginally relevant to the OP question though, so I'm not that committed to tracking it down. If it happens at all, life at conception believers will object to it. If it doesn't happen often, that is probably why you do't see so many concerned with it compared to abortion.

The ideas that embryos would deteriorate during freezing wouldn't necessarily make it less objectionable to a pro-life position, it might well make it more so.

Yes I did read it. I came to assumption it was over the whole period ivf has been available but it wasn't clear

I saw the figures about frozen and discard, research etc, they were clear

The 1.7m figure. That lacked context

What about the other forms of assisted conception is that ok? Clonid etc?

It would really depend on the details of what happens with the treatment, and the particular reason the individual was pro-life.
From the Catholic position, there are a few main points that they would consider. If t will potential involve discarding an embryo, if it involves a technical interruption in the sexual act, and whether their are donated or bough gametes. Those are the ones I can think of, anyway.

I was definitely given a hfea leaflet regarding single embryo transfer which gave a percentage of embryos making it to blast and it was low. The same as I was given a leaflet on pregnancy rates from ivf which were also low. These numbers don't mean a great deal as each round of ivf even on the same person will have a different outcome.

@endofthedays obviously doesn't understand how many variables there are during the whole ivf process.

Sensationalist headlines about 1.7m embryos discarded yet it doesn't really give any accurate information on what stage of the process they were discarded or why. Plenty of embryos don't survive the thawing process or are found to be degraded, plenty of embryos don't make it to blast stage. Are these counted in that figure?

Myself and plenty of others who have actually been through ivf have all said the same thing about fertilisation rates and embryos dropping off through the process but that's not enough so as a pp mentioned maybe a freedom of information request would be a good idea for those of you who want facts.

PrayingandHoping

From what I remember the article says it covers 21 years, and they give a breakdown of what happened to the embryos. Particularly the ones frozen and stored and those donated to science are relevent. In the first cases and likely some of the second you are going to be taking about embryos that appear to be viable - they haven't been discarded as non-viable.

Nevernotstruggling, no one goes straight to IVF if there are simpler ways to get treated.

IME lots of Catholics oppose IVF until they need it, then suddenly it’s all different.Gotta love the hypocrisy of religion.

As opposed to non-religion? People justifying things to themselves, or changing their mind in thoughtful response to experience seem across the board human traits.

The Catholic Church has been pretty consistent on this, they make changes sometimes in light of new technologies or information, but they've always opposed IVF.

@Goosefoot I have read the article and have issues that no timeline was clearly given on the data nor the status of the embryos discarded relating to the 1.7m number

Ivf is a last resort. What about the other forms of assisted conception is that ok? Clonid etc?

When I said they don't exist it's because I also can't find them on the hfea website

The numbers the telegraph article got were from the hfea (just not written with any scientific context)

If you feel strongly there is an issue here why don't you write to them and ask for figures. I'm not expert on the freedom of information act but it may come under it and they could give you the numbers in a useful (rather than dramatic journalism) context

If you want context on the 1.7 million number, you can look up the article, it is fairly detailed. There were certainly numbers of embryos that were viable that were stored, or given to research.

Anecdotes can tell us something, but they don't really give us data.

This is an odd thread. The OP question seemed to be asking about this in light of the pro-life movement, where there is sometimes criticism that they don't also object to IFV treatments. Something which you hear particularly from feminists and I have read it on this forum. Someone on this thread suggested it was proof pro-life campaigners only care about controlling women, not about babies.
To which people have said, yes, actually, many pro-life campaigners do object to IFV, for that and sometimes other reasons.

So, now the main argument seems to be, actually, no, this doesn't happen. So perhaps that answers the OPs question, its a false premise. I'll mention that bit of context whenever someone argues that it is an inconsistency.

No, I posted a HEFA quote. Norms said the stats are on the HEFA website. I can’t find them and now you say no numbers exist.

So we’re pages further on and still have no idea of the actual numbers, much less able to debate what would or would not be considered high.

I'm a pro-lifer (with some exceptions) and had IVF. Nothing hypocritical about it - I had a medical problem and that's how it could b treated.

I do potentially face a bit of a conundrum and I'm not sure what we'll do. I asked the clinic to freeze all my embryos, even the ones that looked half dead and like they didn't have a chance. Morally, I felt I'd like all of them put back to give them a chance. As it is, I've now had a baby and still have lots of embryos in the freezer. Unfortunately, they can't be donated to another couple as I didn't meet the criteria. And I don't feel like I could cope with that many children either... We'll have another transfer this year and see what happens. It might be that they don't take or I suffer a miscarriage but if we do have another child or two, I'll be well and truly stuck with the remaining embryos.

Ok.... and norms post stated a hfea quote that myself and others have tried to back up that a high percentage of those discarded are not viable and the likelihood of spare viable embryos is low