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Petri Dish Babies, 25 Years Later
bl8n8r writes ""You can't buy a baby in the United States," said Caplan. "... But you can buy the sperm, you can buy the egg and you can rent the uterus." So, what I want to know is if it's cheaper than my current apartment, and if utilities are included :D" See also a good story about IVF in the Mercury News.
Agreed, After me neither of my parents were able to have kids but wanted to have more of their own. My sister (now 16) was a GIFT (Gamete Intrafallopian Transfer) baby and my brother (now 11) was In Vitro and actually frozen for a year before he was implanted. Both are now doing great. I know that there are many children out there waiting to be adopted which is another great option for parents that want children, but I do believe that modern infertility are amazing and worth looking into if you really want to have a child of your own and are unable to. Be warned however, the process is not cheap.
My guess is that people shouldn't be ignoring nature. If you were born without fallopian tubes or something else that prevents creating a baby naturally, maybe that's nature's way of saying you shouldn't be perpetuating your genes.
I hope you're not pretending to be evil while secretly being good. That would be dishonest.
as multiple birth are a lot more frequent with IVF, doesn't that skew the statistics?
Was it the number of births (including multiple) or the number of born children ?(considering that twins are 2 childrens, but 1 birth)
In other news, hundreds of thousands/millions of orphans and unwanted children continue to populate the Earth.
Money spent on IVF could be used to help them.
Egomaniacal yuppies continue to satisfy their own selfish desires. It's all about them. Never about the kids.
Meanwhile, anti-abortion activists continue to have the lowest adoption rates in the world.
Call me a troll, but I bring up some valid points worth discussing. These are the issues I never see discussed but would like to see an open and frank discussion about.
"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." - Epictetus
Heh. Reminds me of the cows they have at the University of Idaho that have "windows" installed to see their stomachs (article here or google for more info)
They are quite a sight.
If you had nuts on your chin, would they be chin nuts?
It's fairly obvious, by now, that humanity is no longer at a point where natural selection, in the genetic sense of the term, applies.
People who possess survival advantages don't tend to breed more. Almost any survival-limiting problem (problems controlling weight, respiratory problems, bad joints, whatever) are corrected or otherwise overcome via modern medicine, at least to the extent that you can still generally find someone to bear children with you, if you're so inclined.
Also, the majority of evolution for humans, now, is social rather than genetic in nature. That is to say, much more of our adult skillset is learned rather than genetically hard-wired. So, lack of genetically-driven selection isn't really a problem except where learning disabilities become a factor.
Xentax
You shouldn't verb words.
Well, if you videotape it and put it on the Internet, then it becomes legal... (really, the only different between prostitution and porn is that in porn, you publicize the sex-for-money -- and guess which one is legal?)
"Meanwhile, anti-abortion activists continue to have the lowest adoption rates in the world."
Really? I looked for some statistics about this but couldn't find any. Can you post a source? I am anti-abortion/pro-life (or whatever the PC term is these days). My wife and I are currently looking into adoption. From what I understand, it's costly and not as easy as it looks, we'll probably end up adopting from outside the US.
I think that's an attitude that's changing over time. Due to the publicity around many super-multiple births due to assisted fertility treatments, when it comes to IVF, the standard practice in the US is to implant no more than 3 embryos.
Interestingly, though, there was a lady in Indianapolis last year who had 3 embryos implanted, and ended up having quads - one embryo split into identical twins!
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
In countries where this kind of technology gets used most often there is no over-population problem. Most industrialized nations have declining populations, and the world as a whole may well have a declining population quite soon.
I think it's great that some people are willing to take on the difficult task of raising other people's children, but I also think it is sad when the natural desire to raise one's own children is denigrated as stupid, selfish, or perverse.
I agree with your points entirely -- I'm extremely frustrated by the resources devoted to fertility treatments vs. those devoted to the children we already have. (Multi-thousand-$ international adoptions also get my goat, BTW.) But one of your points needs clarification:
It may not be a popular point of view, but there is no rule out there that says everyone has to or should be able to have a baby if they want to, even though they can't naturally.
In some cultures, there are rules that make it harder to adopt than to undertake extreme measures. In March, 2002, a Saudi Arabian woman underwent a uterus transplant rather than adopt or look into "hiring" a surrogate mother, because of religious and cultural reasons.
Again, I agree with you that this is a waste of resources, and quite likely counterproductive. Not only did the woman not conceive, but her new uterus lost its blood supply after about three months and was removed (again). Even if she had been able to conceive, the effects of powerful anti-rejection drugs on her baby would be hard to predict.
Meanwhile, if I may make a rash generalization, her Filipino maid probably could have put the woman in touch with an orphanage with plenty of healthy babies needing homes.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
doing something good for someone who NEEDS it rather than contributing to the overpopulation problem?
I can see a couple of good reasons that people should have their own children rather than adopting. When you have your own children you are in fact passing on your own genes, and if you are a successful person with lots of money etc, the traits that made you successful may be heredetary. Having your own baby consequently makes sense. Also, supporting the industry that makes money on this with the relevant research sponsored by rich parent-wannabes, you are supporting research that can find solutions to other problems. Same way that the vain people who get plastical surgery has sponsored, and wonderfully so, research into the topic of restoring features to (for example) burn victims and breast cancer victims.
Point number two: We do not have an over population problem. It is a myth, and it has always been a myth. According to the latest numbers some time before the middle of this century the worlds population will sabilize around 10-11 billion people, and that is quite sustaninable. Oh, and the population will stabilize, not because of problems but because of economic growth. The same growth that has reduced the number of people who starve to death every day substantially.
of whether diabetes is hereditary is yes (and no).
Type 1 (or juvenile) diabetes may or may not be genetic in all cases. It was thought for years that type 1 diabetes was sporadic... until some familial clusters were identified, and some related genes located.
Type 2 (or adult) diabetes is almost certainly genetic in a large number of cases, particularly as it relates to "syndrome X," a constellation of high blood pressure, high cholesterol/lipids, diabetes, and insulin resistance. If you want a cocktail that increases your risk for coronary artery disease, cigarette smoking aside, you couldn't ask for a worse mix than the above. It does seem, however, that people with these genes express the syndrome more acutely when they become overweight (weight loss often ameliorates these conditions).
Darwin has been largely supplanted these days, but to be fair, our environment is radically different, with different selection pressures. Everyone has genetic defects, but they may still contribute in a valuable way to society and the human race. Alcoholism may be linked to genetics in some cases, but we would certainly be poorer without the Hemingways, Fitzgeralds, etc.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
There are many factors that contribute to a woman wanting to go through fertility treatment besides wanting "their own DNA." Such as the experience of pregnancy and giving birth. Also, there's more control over the prenatal process than through adoption. You can control how much alcohol you drink, how much you smoke, how much crack you do, etc. With adoption, you are at the whim of the birth mother.
My wife and I are currently proceeding with adopting a child after unsuccessful infertility treatments (we didn't do IVF) and the adoption process introduces a great number of factors such as doing public, private or international adoptions with each having numerous pros and cons. Adoption can be an extremely complex and emotional process and is not as easy as picking up a baby at the local hospital.
I think that people who go through fertility treatments are no less selfish than those that go through adoption. People have different comfort levels with different things and they have to do what feels natural to them.