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.

It wasn’t written in that context. Can you provide a link to the HEFA info that says how many viable embryos there will usually be, because I can’t see info suggesting there normally won’t be any left over for freezing or destruction.

So, I found a Telegraph article which says that 1.7 million embryos have been discarded in relation to IFV. I don't know how to link on here but it was easy to find with Google.

I don't have links to hand sorry, my Ivf days are behind me.

If you take a look at the infertility board here and many of the other infertility forums you'll see that it's more unusual to be left with several freezable blasts than otherwise. Obviously that's just anecdotal evidence though. The hfea also provides cycle breakdowns by clinic which is interesting.

There are many reasons why we treat some symptoms of health issues and not others. Ethics being one and lack of resources another.

Many health issues are caused by lack of resources in the first place.

@LassOfFyviei find your "morals" repugnant

You are entitled to. I find IVF and surrogacy morally repugnant. They are making humans to order.

We very much disagree but I'm interested to hear the points of view. Should we be naming the embryos and providing funerals when they fail? No. That is ridiculous.

If they're a life, should they have legal documentation? No

Is there a question of fault and blame if a miscarriage takes place and that life is lost?

I said nothing that remotely suggests that. As far as I am concerned IVF is making humans to order and not caring to address the implications of that.

I'll catch up later, my "made to order" little humans have just arrived home from swimming.

So 1.7 million discarded, many more still frozen in storage, and many used for experimentation?

Please provide actual facts if you catch up later.

Scientists use embryos to research cancer, congenital conditions, heart disease and many more. If it's so repugnant I presume if you're against this research you check before taking any drugs that they weren't developed using embryo research

That is a whole other moral area of decision making.

There are many animal and human drug trials that have historically happened, particularly horrific ones done on the destitute.

We still generally use the knowledge gained from them.

No doubt we all check up on all the things that might entail some sort of practice we disapprove of. Otherwise we need to give up our scruples....

I wonder if there needs to be some understanding of the term "discarded". Were these all fully formed blastocysts that were suitable to be frozen and transferred at a later date? Or were many (as I suspect) failed embryos that would never have implanted and lead to a pregnancy.... whether conceive by ivf or naturally. There really is a massive difference.

For people understanding of the process I am currently 17 weeks pregnant having had (private) ivf.

I had 14 eggs collected, 12 were viable and 11 fertilised. Only 3 made it to blastocyst. Only one was transferred (as it was v high quality and it is not advisable to risk a multiple pregnancy for mother or child) and 2 are frozen. They will be used at a later date.

All along the process it was continually repeated that having something to freeze was far from common

So on my stats I wonder if all but the 3 would have been counted as discarded in some of the number quoted in the post (the 1.7m for example) In one sense they were but ONLY becauSe they stopped developing and would NEVER have resulted in a pregnancy.

I'm not seeing the issue with made to order humans, not least because the only other type is unplanned.
Most of my friends who conceived through sex made their dc to order too.
IVF can only produce the optimum conditions for a successful pregnancy, nothing more. It works through the same stages outside the female body as would be worked through inside. There are no magic wands, no super powers just the very best conditions possible.
I know some people who had left over frosties but they were not the norm in my circle, embryo creation has a high drop off rate at every stage as outlined by pp.

If the discard rate is really so low, that would rather answer the question of why pro-life organisations pay more attention to abortion. It wouldn't however mean that it should not be a concern at all for such an organisation, as there would always be some cases where there were unused potentially viable embryos, at least the way it is done now.

I had IVF, we had several spare "good quality" embryos left over and frozen.

We had to pay to keep them frozen. After we had 2 DCs of our own we decided not to pay anymore.

Our choices were; donate to another couple or donate for scientific research.

We debated this for months, I desperately wanted to help another couple but was terrified about how we would all feel if an 18 year old child came looking years later and had suffered a horrible childhood. I also hated that my kids might have siblings they didn't know.

After agonising we chose to donate to another needy couple. But strangely DH and I then had to undergo extra tests to allow them to be donated. It turned out that DH is a cystic fibrosis carrier (I think that's the correct condition). And so our lovely embryos were not allowed to be donated!!! So scientific research it was.

I found that very strange! Our 2 DC are completely healthy and no one checked before we were allowed to conceive!

Throughout all of this I genuinely never considered the pro-life view of IVF. To me the embryos were a bunch of useful cells with the potential to bring joy, but not with any rights of their own yet!

I'm now a little bit against IVF, only because I think that there are too many unwanted babies in this world. Of course I love my DCs completely and utterly but I think we should have considered adoption. (Easy for me to say now that I have my 2 DCs, I know).

praying makes a good point. I had 7 successfully fertilized eggs but only 2 developed into implantation grade embryos. The rest were discarded.
The discarding of low quality embryos is something the human body does naturally though.

nc rest assured from a children's social worker there are not lots of babies looking to be adopted, demand far outstrips supply.

I would like to hope something more is happening in procreative sex than having a baby to order.

In our clinic you can let them know if you feel that all embryo's should be used due to the reasons mentioned in your OP. Those couples get less drugs so less eggs develop. That means that the success rate is lower but you only end up with one or two eggs so it's more in line with these peoples beliefs.

Also, in our clinic you can opt to give away any left over embryo's.

That's positive Dreich

My friends and indeed myself started 'trying for a baby' when we felt ready to start a family. This meant ceasing contraceptive methods whatever they are, starting to have sex with half an eye on the calendar. Baby making sex is different to regular sex unless you have an unplanned pregnancy.
Ivf is the next step up in planned pregnancy, usually because the more basic diy methods have failed.

My third (privately funded) cycle was successful (1 & 2 weren't but followed a similar pattern) 12 eggs were collected, 12 fertilised, at 5 days zero had reached blastocyst. The two most developed were implanted. I got one baby. I had a total over three cycles of approximately 30 fertilised eggs but not a single one suitable for freezing. The same would have happened in my body, though admittedly over a longer time scale because my infertility is a result of fertilised eggs not developing properly. I don't give a sparkly shit if anyone else finds that immoral. I'm off to tell my aged mother to cancel her NHS fund cataract surgery as it not life saving. I will also be hugging my beautiful "made to order" (as oppossed to what? Unwanted?) little boy extra tight tonight because I forgot sometimes that there are people out there who think the "right thing" would be for him not to exist.

I’m not keen on the blurring of IVF into sex because we do need to make very clear distinctions between ordinary human processes and medical/technological interventions.

Some interventions are very positive in an ethical sense but we can’t make those moral distinctions unless we’re really clear that those interventions are really different and need to be scrutinised as such.

Science continues to develop new technologies, and we need to keep asking questions about the consequences and ethics of them.

I'm now a little bit against IVF, only because I think that there are too many unwanted babies in this world. Of course I love my DCs completely and utterly but I think we should have considered adoption. (Easy for me to say now that I have my 2 DCs, I know).

I read so much about adoption on this forum. Is it that easy in the UK? Because it's damn near impossible in the Netherlands and it costs a lot of money. Basically you have to be young, married, already have children, finished with any fertility treatments, have about 10.000 euro left over and then maybe, maybe you can qualify to adopt a severely mentally and physically disabled child from Africa. Providing that you actually go to Africa for two months or so to collect said child. How you can go away for so long and keep your job and family, I have no idea.

If there are no children needing to be adopted in the Netherlands, that is a really good thing.