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

[KennDodd]

Watching Newsnight and the anti abortion debate in America. Person saying life begins at conception and deserves protection. Well what does that mean for IVF? If life begins at conception and deserves protection, then does that include protection for life before implantation in the womb? If not, why not?

Interested to hear pro lifers view on this.

Prolifers that I know of who have had/considered ivf would go into it with the caveat that all embryos must be implanted (and on that basis would have only one/two embryos created at a time, depending on rules of how many can be implanted. Doesn't apply to egg collection though, as they are your own cells, not a new unique set of dna).

If a clinic wasn't able to accommodate their wishes then they didn't go ahead with the ivf.

Those who oppose abortion generally oppose IVF since the process involves the creation of more than one embryo, most of which won’t be implanted. While I think they are wrong this is not logically inconsistent. What would be inconsistent is if they approved of one process but not the other.

Right. I've never heard this discussed in the context of IVF before. Has there even been any picketing of IVF clinics anywhere? I expect they dispose of a lot more embryos than the average abortion clinic.

The Catholic Church disapproves of IVF for a whole host of reasons, from the involvement of male masturbation up to very deep stuff about the meaning of life, but I’m pretty sure that the treatment of unused embryos is in the mix.

Don't many contraceptives work to prevent a fertilised egg implanting? What about those?

Yes - those contraceptions are out too.

In the US there's a movement (can't remember the name) to have left over embryos "adopted" by couples who can't have their own, so as not to kill the embryos. In the UK I think most people either ask for embryos to be disposed of if unwanted or donate them to science, but you can donate them to others if you want.

Yes, this is something that is fairly well known among serious Catholics, and to some extent evangelical Christians, as are problems with most hormonal birth control and IUDs.

I would say in practice, many people in those groups who aren't fairly involved in the topic may not know much about it, although I think most Catholics know about IFV being prohibited.

I have not heard of protestors picketing IFV clinics, it may happen but I don't think it's common. Perhaps people don't feel it's as urgent? I think when organisations picket in that way its meant more as a public protest than to stop individuals accessing abortion, its about the visibility, so perhaps its a bit like Greenpeace putting so much emphasis on cute but non-endangered seals.

I am pro- choice. So far as IVF however I was against it from the time of the first "test tube" baby and still am. I'm an atheist but some of the Catholic Church's "deep stuff about the meaning of life" resonates with me.

In the UK I think most people either ask for embryos to be disposed of if unwanted or donate them to science

I find that pretty horrific tbh. There seems to me a huge difference in an accidental pregnancy or a wanted pregnancy which has gone wrong and deliberately creating an embryo which one knows has every chance of being destroyed or experimented on.

The official Catholic line on this is unambiguous, if not widely known even among Catholics: IVF is viewed as sinful, partly because of the destruction of embryos and the selective reduction of pregnancies that is often part of IVF, but also because it replaces intercourse with a technical process.

I read that one of the states in the US that has made abortion illegal in all or almost all circumstances has made a exemption to allow ivf clinics to dispose of unused embrios.

Ah man I don't know too much about IVF but can someone explain the whole throwing away the embryo thing? I did try to read up on it before but couldn't a website that explained it in clear words and Google just told me about emotions rather than the actual details. I know so many people who are going down the IVF route but they have never mentioned the ins and outs of the disposed of ones and they are quite religious.

When you have ivf you can end up with more embryos than you might want to use. These are fertilized eggs that have grown to a few cells typically. If they are considered high enough grade you can freeze them to use later or donate them to medicine or have them clinically disposed of.
Just to be clear these are a multi celled little blob at this point with no heartbeat of any sort.

Well when you have IVF you try to make as many embryos as possible, using all the eggs you collect. There is a high attrition rate so you can't just collect one egg and make an embryo. For example, a women may have 12 eggs collected, 6 of them fertilise, and 4 make it to blastocyst stage.

However when you implant, you only put back 1-2 at a time (or you could end up with triplets or quads). So if the women in our example had 1 embryo implanted, and fell pregnant on the second cycle, she would still have 2 left in the freezer.

But interestingly none of the anti abortion legislation in the USA impacts ivf embryos because that situation doesn't involve a woman being pregnant. Which seems a an illogical reason to exclude it. It is fine to destroy the embryos if they are frozen, or in a Petrie dish but not in a uterus?

@KennDodd That is why there are so many Embryo Adoption agencies in the US run by the church.

Following with interest as this is what I started thinking about when reading about what's going on in the states. We ended up with 5 frozen embryos and after two transfers (single embryos each time) that failed, i fell pregnant on the third try. So we have two frozen embryos left - would i be expected to transfer them all if life has begun for those little guys too?

Also, we actually had 10 to freeze but did genetic testing on them and threw away 5 as they had chromosomal abnormalities. I guess that'd be out too? Crazy to think of a world that I'd have to transfer embryos that would lead to miscarriage and possibly complications, or worse would lead to death within days of birth etc.

I have always thought IVF was morally repugnant and unjustifiable and the posts on here have firmed that up.

As far as I am concerned life , or the potential for life, starts at conception. In the case of an unwanted or unviable pregnancy the women's interest trumps the foetus. I have no difficulty supporting the right to abortion. Abortion is the lesser of 2 bad things and is in the woman's interest.

However deliberately creating large numbers of embryos knowing the majority will be destroyed to me seems callous and was the first step into the Frankenstein territory referred to in the womb transplant thread.

I'm not in favour of abortion but a woman has a right to choose one though I wouldn't. In terms of IVF, it's not pro-lifers place to deny women the chance to become parents.

I'm not a pro- lifer , I am pro choice on abortion. There is no right to be a parent.

I don't think infertile people deliberately create loads of embryos knowing they'll throw them away. I'd say having 'extras' in the freezer is fairly rare given the stats. People usually hope they'll manage to create 1-2 embryos of they're lucky, and that they'll use up everything they manage to create. Not every transfer leads to a pregnancy. We're talking about people who value life so much that they're willing to go through a hugely invasive and financially costly process to have a baby.

We're talking about people who value life so much that they're willing to go through a hugely invasive and financially costly process to have a baby

Nobody has to have a baby. It isn't valuing life- it's to satisfy a want.

"Creating extras" is such a flippant way to describe it.

The OP was asking for pro- lifers' views. I don't think anyone has said they are anti-abortion.

It seems logical to me that if one is opposed to abortion one should as also be opposed to IVF

I know someone who has successfully used IVF and is vehemently opposed to abortion for the reasons given by a poster on here. She went through invasive and costly procedures and does not think other women should have the right to get rid of a baby , as she sees it, when she had to suffer so much , as she sees it to get one.