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.

To be clear I was replying to StopThePlanet but there are intervening posts.

(This thread is v interesting and v timely as many of the issues raised are actually on the agenda for a seminar (funded by the Institute of Medical Ethics) about 'Defining Abuse in Assisted Reproductive Technology' involving academics from bioethics, medicine, social science, anthropology, history and human rights law. (Disclosure - I'm also one of the speakers at the event, supposedly as a 'patient activist')

Hoping it should be an interesting day, tackling some difficult and controversial issues

I mainly believe in working to create a society where continuing with an unexpected pregnancy carries no stigma whatever your circumstances
The vast majority of abortions aren't because of stigma. If you have been raped you don't think I don't want this baby because her at number 43 will judge me. If you have already 3 kids with debilitating medical conditions you don't abort a forth pregnancy because Aunty Doris might not approve. There are 100s of reasons that women decide to end a pregnancy I doubt the stigma is a factor for most of them.

I mainly believe in working to create a society where continuing with an unexpected pregnancy carries no stigma whatever your circumstances

The vast majority of unexpected pregnancies in what I would loosely describe as the "western world" do not carry a stigma. That is not why women have abortions. In countries where unexpected pregnancies carry a stigma abortion is unlikely to be safely or legally available.

uberbarrensclub

That looks really interesting. Would it be possible, without outing yourself (and giving away copyrighted lecture materials) to post about what was discussed after the event?

I have no religious beliefs at all but IVF has always had a Frankenstein element to it - an "I want, therefore I must have" no matter what ethical or unforeseen consequences might result
This is really offensive to those of us who have been through the difficult process of IVF. It is certainly not undertaken lightly. I have found this whole thread really upsetting tbh.

I can't apologise for how you feel. You used a procedure which is legal in this country. You are entitled to find my views offensive but I am entitled to hold them and express them.

I realise (having RTFT) that the thread has moved on, but as the OP was looking for prolifers: I'm pro-life and yes, I don't believe in IVF, abortion, contraception, euthanasia etc. As pp have said, the IVF issue is not wholly about the destruction of the leftover embryos, so even if this possibility were eliminated I would still not be in favour of it.

I don't do much to impose these views on others or harass people who make different decisions. I rarely bring it up IRL except when specifically asked.

It's important to state that even though I'm against all these things, I do not view them all as morally equally.

To the pp who was asking about stem cell research: most stem cell research is done on adult stem cells, and that is morally good (not just neutral). Yes, many Catholics try to avoid products developed from research on embryonic stem cells, however this is increasingly hard to determine because the information is not available. Most moral theologians suggest that the possibility of embryonic stem cells having been used in R&D is sufficiently remote from the actual medicines/ therapy developed that Catholics can use these in good conscience. It would be different if the pharmaceutical companies were more open about how and where they had used embryos, then a lot more Catholics would boycott particular products.

Embryo drop off is immense and a v stark reminder of how staggeringly inefficient humans are as a species when it comes to reproduction

The quantity of eggs produced depends on the protocol used and the woman's ovarian reserve. Both quantity and quality decline with age

Not all eggs retrieved will be mature - only mature eggs are capable of being fertilised.

There's no way to tell which eggs are good quality (& worth fertilising) and which are poor & unlikely to be able to make a baby. If you have a larger haul than expected and for whatever reason don't want to risk ending up with surplus embryos you can opt to fertilise some eggs & freeze (or discard) the others, but it's pot luck whether you select decent ones or not

Not all mature eggs will fertilise - this is primarily determined by egg quality. Fertilisation rate varies but approx 75% is considered decent. Unless you have sperm issues, doing ICSI (where the embryologist injects a single sperm cell directly into the egg) doesn't increase fertilisation rates vs conventional IVF (put eggs and sperm in a dish together and they self inseminate)

Not all 2PN embryos will make it to cleavage stage (day 3)

The biggest drop off is typically between day 3 and day 5, when the embryo develops rapidly from cleavage stage (4-6 cells) to blastocyst, a much more complex embryo where the cells have started to differentiate - the inner cell mass (the bit that hopefully becomes fetus) and the trophectoderm (the outer bit that hopefully becomes placenta)

Drop off can vary - if ~50% of day 3 embryos make it to blast that's considered decent

Of those embryos that make it to blastocyst the % that have the potential to become a person is primarily driven by age

This image shows how egg quality declines with age meaning fertility declines and likelihood of miscarriage increases

images.app.goo.gl/BYvQpNbNby9gyqj8A

Across 3 egg collections I had 55 eggs retrieved, of which 45 were mature, of which 35 fertilised, of which 14 made it to blast - of which genetic screening showed 7 were chromosomally normal (of which I miscarried 2, due to uterine issues, and have 5 left on ice). I was 34 when we made our embryos.

Prof Robert Winston once remarked that humans are almost - but not quite - as inefficient at reproduction as pandas

@LassOfFyvie with pleasure, will happily share what I can

No worries about outing, this username is the same as my twitter and instagram handles, the URL of my website and the title of the book I'm writing, so I'm easy enough to identify ;)

I've written about my experience of infertility and pregnancy loss for the Guardian, and discussed it on Woman's Hour and 5Live so anything I put out there is v much public

If I can I'll try and tweet highlights on the day, depending on what's allowed. It might be Chatham House rules so may not be able to report back with much - will see what I can do.

PS I was interviewed by Jane Garvey on WH and I reckon she is deffo GC! I thanked her on behalf of MN for how she handled the trans debates 👍🏻

Also may be interested to note that the Dr leading the Abuse in ART project is Prof Susan Bewley, who was the co author of some recent contributions to the Lancet, BMJ and BJGP expressing concerns about GIDS and lack of evidence for puberty blockers long term safety etc. She is ACE.

Not RTFT but I am against IVF because of the industrial creation and destruction of embryos. In average for every baby born, 30 embryos will be destroyed.

There is also the entire “Frankenstein” element to it, I don’t believe enough is known about the potential effects on future generations. This is still a new technology.

That said to anyone upset by this thread. I cannot imagine the pain of infertility.

It seems as though IVF is a very inefficient sticking plaster which doesn’t cure the underlying causes of infertility but seeks to circumvent them.

I would like to see stacks more research into infertility and a lot more education of young girls/women in terms of identifying their own natural cycles. Very often problems can be flagged early and solutions like hormone treatment sought.

I also would like to see a radical shift in society whereby women are encouraged to think about their fertility sooner, to maybe partner up and have families while they are younger with still all the opportunities of university & a fulfilling career available to them. At the moment women are shoved through a sausage factory designed around men, who can procreate at any time!

@Carowiththegoodhair you may be interested in the Fertility Education Initiative, a programme of work dedicated to improving knowledge of fertility and reproductive health in the UK

Menstrual health and understanding your cycles is also going to be part of the national curriculum from 2020

I get that the debate has been going on for time indeterminate whether conception is at the point of fertilization or implantation.

I won't quote your whole post because it's long, and you know what it says anyway. I couldn't quite follow what you were getting at in parts, like a period being an abortion. I don't think that's a common viewpoint.

In any case as far as I know there is no controversy here. Fertilisation is conception. Pregnancy begins at implantation. The reason Catholics believe that personhood begins at conception rather than implantation is because that is when you have a separate, complete human organism, albeit at a very early stage of development. It's not part of the mother, in the way that a leg or a tooth is.

One thing I noticed both during our ivf process and afterwards was the automatic assumption that a fertility issue would be female based. I wonder if this is literally an idea left over from medieval times.
I often wanted to say that the only fertility issue I had could be solved by having sex with another guy, but I didn't.
The idea of 30 viable embryos being discarded pp sounds completely unrealistic to me I don't know a single person who got anywhere near that level.
Non viable ones just don't develop.

@dreichuplands partly - and there's also a female human rights perspective: reproductive medicine is the only area of medicine where a person is given medical treatment to address someone else's medical issue

A woman can have zero fertility issues but if her partner has a male factor diagnosis, she is the one who will go through invasive treatment

Sperm counts are declining at an astronomical rate, but over the last 25 years research into the causes of male infertility has dwindled, as ICSI is the default solution to bypass any sperm issues

Some scientists have even argued that this infringes upon the ‘basic human rights and dignity’ of women

(I wrote an article on this last year which touches on the historical context of our understanding & perceptions of male infertility in case of any interest - Why treatment for male infertility is failing both men and women)

Threads like these make me wonder whether people who are morally opposed to IVF have ever been in a position where they were told it was their only hope for procreating: very much the same way that it's easy to be against abortion until you find yourself/your teenage daughter finds herself unexpectedly pregnant.

Lass IVF didn't start surrogacy, it's been around since the Babylonians, it was written into their laws and customs.

it's been around since the Babylonians, it was written into their laws and customs

I doubt very much that the Babylonians harvested an egg from woman A, fertilised it, implanted into women B and then gave the baby to women C.

Of course it is easier to make moral decisions when self interest does not apply.

That doesn’t make self interest a good basis for morality.

Surrogacy is in the Old Testament

Ruth was a surrogate mother for Naomi in a sense, because Ruth gave birth to Obed (fathered by Ruth’s husband Boaz) who was called ‘a son born to Naomi’

In pre-Mosaic times, there was also a custom of using a slave girl as a surrogate mother, e.g. Sarai/Sarah suggesting that Abram/Abraham use Hagar to bear children on her behalf (Genesis 166^), and Jacob bearing children with Leah’s maid Zilpah on Leah’s behalf (Genesis 30:99^ ff.) and with Rachel’s maid Bilhah on behalf of Rachel (Genesis 30:33^ ff.).

Not offering any POV on the rights or wrongs, just to say that this practice wasn't uncommon at the time, due to the enormous stigma of being a childless woman

You’re not offering a POV on whether or not it is right or wrong to get a baby from your pregnant slave?

These biblical passages are literally those used in Gilead.

I have no religious beliefs at all but IVF has always had a Frankenstein element to it - an "I want, therefore I must have" no matter what ethical or unforeseen consequences might result this is such an odd way of thinking. My sister is diabetic, she needs insulin to maintain the sugar levels that let her live. I have loads of potential eggs that can’t ripen or get to my womb without ivf. Neither of us is Frankenstein.

(Obvs in biblical times it was 'traditional surrogacy' where the baby is conceived naturally and the surrogate was the biological mother in every way - which is still not uncommon practice in the UK - rather than 'gestational' surrogacy involving IVF where the surrogate is the biological mother but not genetically related to the baby, which quite evidently has only been around for a very short time.)

I'm not suggesting it was right! I'm pointing out that the practice of surrogacy has been around for a very long time. Not defending it.

Yes, you made it clear that you are not saying that making an enslaved pregnant woman give you her baby is right or wrong.