LIFE DIGEST: IVF increasingly ‘a crass consumer activity’
- Jul 13, 2010 -
An Australian mother of three boys plans to travel to Thailand to select the sex of her next child to assure she has a girl.
The Melbourne woman, 36, and her husband, whose identities have not been disclosed, will spend more than $15,000 to make certain female embryos are implanted in her womb at a Bangkok fertility clinic, according to the Herald Sun, a Melbourne newspaper.
Also in this edition: Embryos implanted in wrong woman, then destroyed, German court: Embryos may be tested for defects, Louisiana opts out of abortion coverage, and Right to abortion will remain, Ginsburg says.
The trip to Thailand, she said, is prompted by Australia’s ban on using in vitro fertilization (IVF) and the screening method known as pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) for sex selection. Officials told a friend of hers a review of the policy might take until 2012, she said, the newspaper reported July 9.
The use of PGD will mean only embryos shown to be females will be transferred to the woman’s womb.
“It hasn’t been a decision taken lightly but it is one we feel we have reached and we are happy with,” she said, according to the Herald Sun.
“For me, it is about the desire to have a daughter being such a strong desire in me that I can’t seem to shake it.”
The couple’s three sons are 5, 4 and 1 in age.
American bioethics specialist Wesley Smith said, “Of course, this means the male embryonic brothers of those treasured boys will be tossed out with the other medical waste. So, in this case, a Y chromosome is a deadly defeat.”
Smith wrote on his weblog, “Increasingly, IVF is not about treating infertility, but about reducing reproduction to a crass consumer activity akin to choosing a breed of dog or model of flat screen television. This is objectification pure and simple. When we believe we are entitled not just to a child but to the kind of child we want, it strikes a body blow against unconditional love – because by definition, it isn’t.”
Embryos implanted in wrong woman, then destroyed
A Connecticut fertility center has been fined for implanting the wrong embryos in a woman.
The tiny human beings paid the greatest penalty, however. They were eliminated by the “morning-after” pill.
The Center for Advanced Reproductive Services, which is part of the University of Connecticut Health Center, signed a consent order the week of June 20-26 agreeing to pay a $3,000 fine but did not admit it was at fault in the mix-up, The Hartford (Conn.) Courant reported.
The mistake occurred in April 2009, when a lab technician failed to follow procedure and took the wrong embryos created by in vitro fertilization (IVF) from storage. The embryos were placed in the womb of a woman with the same last name as the woman to whom they belonged, according to The Courant.
The lab technician discovered the mistake the next day. When the woman who received the embryos learned of the error that same day, she chose to take the “morning-after” pill, the newspaper reported. The drug, which is basically a heavier dose of birth control pills, can act after fertilization to block implantation of an embryo in the uterine wall, thereby causing an abortion.
The woman whose embryos were used and destroyed was informed of the error. She had not received fertility treatment at the center since 2006 but had continued to store her embryos there.
German court: Embryos may be tested for defects
Embryos produced by in vitro fertilization (IVF) may be tested for defects before transfer into a mother’s womb, according to the Federal Supreme Court in Leipzig, Germany.
The court ruled July 6 the practice does not violate a law designed to protect human embryos. The decision came in a case involving a Berlin doctor who screened IVF embryos for three couples and did not implant those who carried genes for hereditary defects. The court upheld a Berlin court ruling in favor of the doctor.
Those embryos testing positive for defects and not implanted will be left to die or be destroyed.
Louisiana opts out of abortion coverage
Louisiana has become the fourth state to opt out of a provision in the new federal health-care law that would require coverage for abortion in “insurance exchanges.” Gov. Bobby Jindal, a Republican, signed the legislation into law July 6.
Arizona, Tennessee and Mississippi previously had enacted laws barring the use of federal funds for insurance plans that cover abortions. The Florida legislature passed a similar bill, but Gov. Charlie Crist, an independent, vetoed it June 11.
The health-care reform measure signed into law by President Obama in March requires “insurance exchanges” in each state to offer at least one plan that covers abortion and one plan that does not. The law, however, allows states to opt out and bar insurance plans that cover abortions from participating in their exchanges.
The insurance exchanges are to be implemented in 2014.
Right to abortion will remain, Ginsburg says
The right to abortion found by the Supreme Court in the 1973 Roe v. Wade opinion will not be nullified, Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said recently.
“Over a generation of young women have grown up, understanding they can control their own reproductive capacity, and in fact their life’s destiny,” Ginsburg said in Aspen, Colo., according to Politico.com. “We will never go back to the way it once was.”
Ginsburg, 77, has been a leading liberal on the high court since she was confirmed in 1993.
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