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.

Conception: How It Works

To become pregnant, the following steps must occur:

Sperm transport — The sperm must be deposited and transported to the site of fertilization.

Egg transport — Ovulation must occur and the egg must be "picked up" by the tube.

Fertilization and embryo development — Union between the sperm and egg must result.

Implantation — The embryo must implant and begin to grow in the uterus.

All of the above steps have to take place in order to say that conception has taken place. Those of you insisting that conception is at the moment of fertilization don't appear very versed in fertility.

When is the moment of conception?

I'm not sure how you are concluding that, Stopthepplanet.

I’d be interested to know how people who are anti abortion in all cases feel about Universal Credit.

@Goosefoot as many who have been through the ivf process, included myself, have commented on this thread..... yes embryos are discarded in the process but these are the ones that are NOT viable, that have stopped progressing and would never result in a pregnancy. The (uncommon case of) viable good quality blasts are then frozen for future use. But this is very very far from "high numbers"

Ivf clinics do not discard high numbers of high quality embryos that would result in a pregnancy. It just is not the case

The particular objection of some pro-life persons is that in IFV you knowingly create embryos with the idea that if there are too many, they will be discarded

But that is just not true. At all.

In IVF, you knowingly create embryos based on how many eggs you produce
And then those embryos are observed for a couple of days to see which ones develop normally, and which ones don't develop normally and therefore die off. Just like in a natural conception where they would be flushed out of the body.
Those 'dead' embryos - which are just a 6-10 cell microscopic ball - are discarded. But let's not weirdly fetishise some dead cells, unless you also cry a river when you scrub your face.

If you're lucky like me and get 3 or 4 good embryos, some go back and some get frozen to become future potential siblings.

I've had plenty of IVF and none of my embryos were 'discarded' anywhere other than into my cervix

But I still don't understand why getting pregnant naturally, when you know you have a condition which will almost certainly lead to a miscarriage is merely unfortunate but IVF is 'morally repugnant'

If life begins at conception, then you're condemning that embryo to a death sentence just as you would if you have IVF knowing that embryo won't be put back

Dervel There was also a high profile celebrity case, Sofia Vergera and Nick Loeb. She wanted the embryos destroyed, he didn't, so he had the embryos sue her for their right to life. Yep, the embryos sued her. He lost.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Loeb

How many viable embryos are discarded then?

Miscarriage is not merely unfortunate. It is a complex social and moral issue.

@Endofthedays no idea of actual numbers but just have a read of the infertility boards and you will see very very few! Very few people have embryos to freeze and very few times does ivf work first time. If it does in my case and I have 2 spare embryos they will be used to "hopefully" have more children.

I suspect the numbers of healthy blasts discarded to be very very low

How on earth is miscarriage a moral issue?

Praying, so you don’t actually know the numbers.

Breathlessness, because many miscarriages are a consequence of poor maternity care, lack of research, stress on the mother and bad working conditions.

No I don't have the numbers but I do have first hand experience and have actually been through the process

That isn’t what is being asked Praying.

I've never actually thought about this. As a student nurse I was there when a woman was implanted with an embryo and I saw several in the storage area. It was a long time ago now and I can't remember my thoughts about it. It mustn't have made much of an impact. On the same placement I was in theatre for a surgical abortion. I'll never forget that.
I've never settled on a side of the fence with abortion but I'm probably pro-life. However I know that things are rarely simple and there are many factors so I find it impossible to settle on an opinion. I'm catholic and maybe that flavours my thoughts. I don't know. The whole subject upsets me tbh as I feel so conflicted from both sides of the debate.

In the UK? And how is that linked to morality?

Yes in the U.K.

Treating pregnant women so poorly that they miscarry is a moral issue.

What do you think constitutes a moral issue?!

In the UK, with free healthcare, who is doing that?

Honestly @Endofthedays your responses are puzzling

Published numbers clearly just don't exist. You are concerned of the moral implications of high numbers of embryos being destroyed

People come on here and explain how the process works (which is also clearly written online if you researched it) so quell your concerns as it clearly is not the case and you just dismiss it.

🤷‍♀️

violent partners, poor quality services, underfunded services, unethical services.

MN actually has a campaign on miscarriage care.

Most fertilized eggs do not implant after sex.

Frozen embryos from ivf are at the same early stage. They would still be floating around in the womb after sex. At that stage a woman would not be pregnant yet, her period wouldn't even be due.

The latest stage they are frozen / put back in womb is a blastocyst. 5 days of growth after egg retrieval. Equivalent to day 20-24 of the menstrual cycle.

And most frozen embryos are at an earlier stage still. Day 2 transfer after egg retrieval - 2 cells. Day 3 transfer after egg retrieval - 6-8 cells.

‘Unethical services’

How are they puzzling?

Other posters have claimed such numbers do exist. You now claim they don’t.

All of you claim to have personally gone through IVF.

Anecdote is not an effective way of allaying fears.

Miscarriage is the commonest complication of pregnancy. The estimated UK miscarriage rate is 250,000 each year. Doctors believe that roughly 50% of all conceptions never make it to a pregnancy test, and once there is a positive test 15-20% of those miscarry before 12 weeks. Most of them will be classed “sporadic” or “one-off”, caused by chromosomal or genetic abnormalities in the embryo, and will have no bearing on a woman’s future chances of delivering a healthy child.

The Guardian 22/08/210

Breathlessness, because many miscarriages are a consequence of poor maternity care, lack of research, stress on the mother and bad working conditions.

There has been some horseshit on this thread, but this has to take the biscuit

www.miscarriageassociation.org.uk/information/miscarriage/

Where as some actual people who know what they are talking about list zero of those as causes of miscarriages