This just makes my head explode. A woman was implanted with the wrong embryos, and rather than honor another woman’s children and let them live, immediately terminated the pregnancy process. From the story:
A woman who sought help from a prominent Connecticut fertility center last year received embryos, but they belonged to another woman with the same last name. The mistake happened in April 2009 at the Center for Advanced Reproductive Services at the University of Connecticut Health Center, which will pay a $3,000 fine. A lab technician only checked the last name on the container with the embryos and pulled the wrong ones from frozen storage, according to the state Department of Public Health. Procedure is to check the medical record number and last four digits of the Social Security number. That patient who received the embryos was informed of the error within an hour and decided to take the “morning after” pill to prevent the pregnancy, according to state records.
IVF has proven to have many casualties, most particularly embryos treated as a mere thing–but also sometimes, as here, would-be birth and biological parents who become embroiled in terrible, heart wrenching circumstances. And that doesn’t even get into the culture of entitlement that IVF has helped foster (hello, Octomom!).
Still, what a contrast from the last time this happened. When the mistake was discovered in that case, the birth mother and her husband chose life for someone else’s baby. Which choice reflects unconditional love?
June 28th, 2010 | 12:48 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Vince Humphreys, Lisa and radishthegreat, Wesley J. Smith. Wesley J. Smith said: Wrong IVF Embryos Implanted Leads to Aborted End of Once Wanted Life » Secondhand Smoke | A First Things Blog http://shar.es/m8BMG [...]
June 28th, 2010 | 4:04 pm
I think that if this woman had chosen to continue with the pregnancy, it would have been a noble thing to do. However, I think it’s a hell of a thing to ask a woman to do based on some lab flunky’s boneheaded error.
Were these the last embryos available to the biological parents? Were they willing to take the resulting babies, like the other case? Are they even planning to use their remaining embryos? Was the pregnancy advanced? No – just one day. No guarantee the embryos would have even gestated.
Wes, until you grow a uterus I don’t think you’re justified in judging how this woman dealt with the situation she was unwillingly subjected to. Women can only get pregnant a finite number of times, and giving birth is no picnic. I don’t have a problem with a woman “selfishly” wanting to bear her own biological child.
June 28th, 2010 | 4:42 pm
A lot of gear-grinding here.
How are embryos “children” or a “baby”?
I thought “children” referred to homo sapiens in the developmental stages between birth and puberty; and a “baby” is the developmental stage between birth and, typically, the time he or she can walk.
Given that embryos, by definition, have not been birthed, how are they “children” or a “baby”?
Are women getting children implanted into their uteri in such clinics/centers? How is that legal? How is that medically possible?
How does the second case “reflect unconditional love”? They cite belief in religious mythology as the reason for not aborting the embryo; they do not cite “love”.
Further evidence:
“We want him to know that it wasn’t that we didn’t want him, but too many people wanted him. We gave him up because it was the right thing to do.”
Sean Savage
http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/09/22/wrong.embryo.family/index.html
June 28th, 2010 | 11:13 pm
David: “Given that embryos, by definition, have not been birthed, how are they ‘children’ or a ‘baby’?”
One could make the case that they are, but to avoid confusion, I just accuately describe human embryos as unborn (or embryonic) human beings.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
June 28th, 2010 at 11:18 pm
I usually use the terms nascent human life, or embryos, fetuses, depending on the circumstances. But this was different. These embryos were made and implanted for the purpose of being born. They were supposed to become children. These offspring, if you will, were another family’s and they were destroyed. Apparently David could care less, but I think it is a tragedy.
June 28th, 2010 | 11:42 pm
David could not care less.
June 28th, 2010 | 11:46 pm
Why are they described as the “wrong embryos”? It seems they got the wrong mother.
June 29th, 2010 | 12:28 am
It is a tragedy all the way around, especially when I read men like Padraig attempt to end discussion with comments like “Wes, until you grow a uterus I don’t think you’re justified in judging how this woman dealt with the situation she was unwillingly subjected to.” I’m pretty sure this woman wasn’t implanted against her will, but that is beside the point. Too many men have been trained to believe they have no place in the discussion of the value of nascent human life because they don’t have a uterus and this has all too often translated, tragically, into a false belief that there is no value to nascent human life.
Still, what strikes me as the ultimate discord is the fact that so many people are willing to allow the value of an embryo, of a life, be determined solely by the feelings of other individuals. Can you imagine anything more unstable or selfish than that? I cannot.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
June 29th, 2010 at 12:32 am
Erin: Thanks. I think we all have a right to discuss this issue. The post modernism of the thing is odd. If it is wanted, the child is a baby, then it isn’t, it’s an embryo or a fetus. Oh! It’s wanted again, a baby. Also, so much went into bringing these nascent beings into being, and then, to literally be flushed away.
I haven’t personally condemned anybody. I just cast a light on what IVF is doing to us.
June 29th, 2010 | 7:07 am
[...] Down the IVF Slope: Reaching a New Low By nohiddenmagenta Wesley Smith has a fascinating and heartbreaking story over at Secondhand Smoke about a couple who was seeking to have a baby via IVF. Something then [...]
June 29th, 2010 | 8:12 am
Erin Kelly writes: “Still, what strikes me as the ultimate discord is the fact that so many people are willing to allow the value of an embryo, of a life, be determined solely by the feelings of other individuals. Can you imagine anything more unstable or selfish than that? I cannot.”
Would you say that a rape victim who decides not to bear the rapist’s child is also “unstable and selfish” because her decision is based solely on her feelings?
June 29th, 2010 | 9:27 am
HW,
It would be more convenient, but not the right thing to do. Think about this: If you were living in a hut in the mountains, and a poor hiker got lost through no fault of his own and showed up at your door, what would you do? Sacrifice your time, effort and food to keep him alive? Or turn him out to die of exposure? If you knew you could just shoot him and nobody would ever find out or penalize you, would you? What would a just society or a person with a ton of “empathy” do?
I’ve met “products of rape” and their mothers, some that have been adopted and some that kept their babies. None of them regret their decision. I challenge you to look into the eyes of someone who’s mother was raped, and tell them to their face they shouldn’t be here. I too once thought a rape exception is fine and dandy – no big deal – but reality has a way of interfering with our cushy politically correct arguments or selfish desires.
It’s a terrible situation for a woman, perhaps one of the toughest in life, but in life we’re supposed to overcome difficult circumstances and help others to do the same. Either we all have value as human beings independent of how we got here, or our value is merely the subjective decision of other people based on their own desires and open for debate across the board. Let’s hope if it is open for debate you and I are the ones getting to decide who’s valuable and who’s expendable.
June 29th, 2010 | 9:32 am
Erin: “I’m pretty sure this woman wasn’t implanted against her will, but that is beside the point”
Yes she was, and it’s not. Certainly she wanted to be implanted with her own embryos, but not somebody else’s.
And I most certainly do feel that men have, and should have, a voice in the reproductive process. However, women bear the brunt of this burden, including risking their lives, and they should have the last word.
I mean, feel free to discuss all you want, as long as you don’t try to impose your will on other people’s reproductive choices. The point of Roe v Wade was not just to legalize abortion; it was to establish that the US government does not have authority to regulate reproduction. They can’t tell you to have a baby, they can’t tell you not to have a baby. Simple as that. If we don’t have that protection, we might as well be China.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
June 29th, 2010 at 11:06 am
padraig: That was NOT the point of Roe, nor was it argued in Roe. It is being used that way to create a fundamental right to procreate, the idea being that if a woman can kill her fetus, she also has the right to have a baby, and not only that, but the baby she wants, the sex she wants, the characteristics she wants, and in the manner she wants, at any age she wants, regardless of the potential harm to future children and greater society. That would be the only right without any limits–and it isn’t even in the Constitution. Granting that unlimited license is not necessary to avoid being China.
June 29th, 2010 | 11:32 am
You’re exaggerating, Wes. Roe v Wade doesn’t enable or encourage all the things you cite. It’s more like the constitutional clause separating church from state. The government cannot support or suppress religion, and it cannot support or suppress reproduction. What happens after that is up to the resources of the individual and society.
An occasional aberration like this case or the Octomom is the price we pay for everyone else’s freedom.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
June 29th, 2010 at 11:37 am
padraig: YOU are the one who said Roe was about a right to procreate. You are the one who exaggerated. It isn’t separating church from state, either. It stated that the law can’t determine when a fetus joined the moral community. It thus stated that women have an absolute right to terminate a pregnancy in the first trimester. Thereafter, as time passed, the state had a greater interest in protecting unborn life, seeming to permit strong regulation in the third trimester. This has been changed over time, particularly with Casey. IVF should be regulated to prevent Octomom–a fertile woman. And that would not prevent the infertile from receiving treatment.
June 29th, 2010 | 12:17 pm
As I recall the decisive issue in Roe v. Wade was one of privacy, and the case became an enlargement of privacy rights articulated in Griswold v. Connecticut a few years earlier. In Griswold, for those readers who aren’t familiar with the case, the Supreme Court held that the State of Connecticut couldn’t make the dispensing of contraceptives, or their use (even by married people) illegal. There seems little point in stating the obvious with respect to people’s marital relations, but those who oppose Griswold because a “right to marital privacy” isn’t specifically stated in the Constitution are, in effect, saying that it’s OK for the authorities to police your homes and tell you what you and your spouse can or can’t do in bed. The anti-choice camp seems to forget that the Court in Roe v. Wade also recognized that the interest of a state in preserving fetal life increases as the fetus develops, and so the decision does not preclude reasonable restrictions on abortion — including those that become progressively more restrictive as a pregnancy progresses.
It seems obvious that there is a right to procreate (even if that isn’t specifically stated in the Constitution either), and thus a concomitant right NOT to procreate, just as the right to freedom of speech includes the right to be silent.
Wesley, you wrote: “… if a woman can kill her fetus, she also has the right to have a baby, and not only that, but the baby she wants, the sex she wants, the characteristics she wants, and in the manner she wants, at any age she wants, regardless of the potential harm to future children and greater society.”
All of the actions you enumerate are independent of a woman’s ability to “kill her fetus.” She can choose whether or not to become pregnant via contraceptive use or tubal ligation. There are therapies available that will increase or decrease the male’s X and Y chromosomes, boosting the probability of the desired gender of offspring. If she’s looking to breed a little genius she can be artificially inseminated with sperm from Harvard grad students (although as we know from our experience with George W. Bush there are no guarantees). These practices have nothing at all to do with whether she has a legal right to abort. People were taking their chances with artificial insemination long before Roe v. Wade.
As for the “potential harm to future children and greater society,” you fail to name a single demonstrable “harm.” But assuming arguendo that such “potential harm” is actually serious enough to be the basis for regulating reproduction, shouldn’t the “potential harm” of birthing a Jeffrey Dahmer or a Ted Bundy necessitate genetic pre-screening and/or state licensure? I mean, where would you draw the line?
June 29th, 2010 | 1:22 pm
Wes: “YOU are the one who said Roe was about a right to procreate.”
No, I didn’t.
” You are the one who exaggerated.”
Nope.
” It isn’t separating church from state, either.”
I didn’t say it was, I said it was similar, and it is.
There is no “right” to procreate in our Constitution, and there is no “right” to practice religion. What is there is a specification that the government is limited to only those specific powers listed in the Constitution. Although encouraging or interfering with religion is explicitly banned, by not mentioning reproduction they had the same effect. The U.S. Government has no authority to regulate reproduction, and that’s why abortion laws were ruled unconstitutional.
June 29th, 2010 | 3:17 pm
[...] Wesley J. Smith commented on his blog about the event, saying it illustrates not only how children have come to be treated [...]
June 29th, 2010 | 4:50 pm
She didn’t terminate the pregnancy, she wasn’t yet pregnant (which you’d expect just hours after the procedure).
June 29th, 2010 | 10:11 pm
This makes me sick. No, not just what the woman did, but this type of biased, generalizing, bashing reporting of it.
You think all people who chose to do IVF must be heartless baby killers and just treat embryos as “things?” You use rare sensational stories like this, or the irresponsibility of “Octomom” and her doctor to say “look what IVF is doing to us.”
There are thousands of pro-life couples in this world who have to deal with the possibility of never having their own biological child, a perfectly normal and natural desire that nearly every couple has. And if you want to get religious about it, read Proverbs 30: we’re created to desire to bear children, and when we can’t due to medical circumstances, the grief is unfathomable. And until you’ve been in their shoes, you can’t point your condemning finger at those who are putting their faith in God to work through the doctors to allow them to have a child. Nobody would choose to reproduce through IVF if the fun&free method worked for them. It’s no walk in the park. And just because someone is doing IVF does not automatically mean they are selectively aborting embryos. There are still responsible decisions that can be made by the patients and doctors to ensure minimal to no casualties as you call it.
The sad thing is these people have virtually no support to reach out to in the real world because of insensitive people. They are told to “just adopt” (as if grieving the loss of their biological child is not important) by the woman holding a little spitting image of herself. When something is medically wrong with their reproductive systems, they are told they aren’t meant to be parents, while they watch a world of drug-using child abusers continue to get knocked up just like that.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
June 29th, 2010 at 10:23 pm
Infertility: Bunk. I am sorry you seem to have experienced such pain, but that is not all there is to this issue. Minimal casualties, if one is pro life, are still casualties.
The fact is that IVF has led to the very things I mentioned. 400,000 excess embryos, now looked upon as research resources. Eugenic embryo selection, women dying or becoming seriously ill or injured to donate eggs for money, etc. etc. People’s personal pain is not all there is. And frankly, if that is all that matters than there are no limits that can ever be agreed upon.
Besides, I did not call for outlawing it. But I would like to see it regulated. Example: Italy only permits 3 embryos to be made at once and all made must be implanted. I support that kind of IVF legislation.
June 30th, 2010 | 12:07 am
[...] Wesley J. Smith commented on his blog about the event, saying it illustrates not only how children have come to be treated [...]
June 30th, 2010 | 2:33 am
“it cannot support or suppress reproduction” What does this have to do with anything. The reproduction has already occurred. A new unique life already exists at this point. We have now moved beyond the realm of reproduction, to the realm of what to do with the unique living human life. Do we murder him/her for selfish reasons including bigotry against specific genetics (he/she doesn’t meet my standards of genetics, therefore he/she is an inferior human and does not deserve to continue living), or do we nurture it while recognizing his or her inherent dignity regardless of pedigree?
Of course, then we get into discrimination of age. He or she ‘has yet to reach the age of maturity’. ‘So it is okay to kill him or her.’ Why don’t you just go ahead and legalize abortion up to the age of puberty then. Many here talk about the right to reproduction, the act of which unless I’m mistaken is all Roe v. Wade was concerned about as far as privacy. A statement was made in that ruling that it would collapse if it is ever determined that a new life has already been created (in the mean time more and more restrictions being allowed over the course of the pregnancy as it becomes more and more probabilistic that a new life exists).
Science has proven for a long while now that this happens almost immediately after the sperm and the egg meet to become something different than sperm and egg. Not 3 or 6 months after the act of reproduction has occurred. All that remains now is educating the public about the science and removing ignorance concerning the topic that most still have today. The knowledge is getting out there.
Recently a pro-abortion activist lamented the fact that it is most likely RvW will be overturned in the next decade or two based on the ruling’s own failed arguments. No, I do not remember the name, so people will rightfully take this with a grain of salt. But someone else might know of the person that I’m talking about and post the name for others if they care.
One popular complaint that is usually made from the mob to justify the legality of abortion, is that the mother now feels like a ‘slave’ by having to continue being attached to the new human life. I ask; is it or should it be legal for you to kill someone you are attached to by your own doing by handcuffs (or a third party attached you to forcibly), that has no existing key for it but will disintegrate after either 9 months or the death of the other, if you decide at anytime that you feel like a ‘slave’ (or emotionally troubled by the simple presence of the other because the other may remind you of a really terrible memory) even if the other who is being killed did not choose to be attached in either situation? Some may say it is not the same thing; that they should wait and will have to wait until an outside party has the means (which most likely will not be discovered before 9 months) to remove the link of the cuffs so that both may live. What objective standard determines how long you should wait before you are allowed to legally kill or allow someone else to kill the other (who happens to be forcibly attached in either case) before the nine months are up? Whereas you may be the victim in the one case (with the other case being result of your own freely chosen action), the other is always a victim in both cases and does not have a choice in the matter of what happens to him or her. What about ignorance of the possible consequences of your freely chosen action of cuffing the two of you together (or even ‘accidental’ closure while goofing off with cuffs you knew to have serious consequences) in the one case? Does ignorance (or even lack of mental maturity and wisdom) justify the murder of the other who had no choice in the matter to begin with? In essence you would be saying: “I’m sorry, I didn’t know (or didn’t think) this would happen. You have to die now so I can get out of this. My 9 nine months (or less) of not having to be attached to you is worth more than you living the rest of your entire life.” Doesn’t seem fair for the other, does it?
When RvW falls, there will have to be many changes made regarding IVF to keep in line with new legal recognition of the life that it involves. Just because one is not able to speak up for herself/himself does not mean that he or she does not have rights.
June 30th, 2010 | 9:57 am
What I am saying is that people can still make those decisions such as you say is in Italy’s legislation. Many people ARE willing to only freeze the egg and sperm rather than creating additional embryos to freeze. And even those who do freeze embryos, there are many who decide to give them for adoption, because their hearts DO want to give the embryos a chance at life. But it’s the way you say “look what IVF is doing to us” as if all couples doing IVF are just choosing to waste away unborn life. Actually when you go through infertility, it makes you value the unborn life more.
And if you talk about regulation, I’m really interested to see what “health care reform” is going to do for the infertile couples in this country. Right now a lot of insurance companies will cover abortions, and I’ve seen some that will even cover up to $25,000 for a sex change operation. But with most insurance companies, people who want children but need a little help are not allowed. They’re not even allowed to find out WHY they are unable to get pregnant without paying everything out of pocket. It’s stupid because there are a lot of times when something wrong with the reproductive system can indicate other serious health risks, but you’d never know if you didn’t look there first.
July 1st, 2010 | 12:15 pm
Until all of the children held in orphanages or foster care are adopted, fertility treatments such as IVF should be illegal. Seven billion “miracles” are enough; let’s encourage infertile couples to adopt what we have instead of pursuing a childish quest of spending vast medical resources to create yet another Mini-Me while abandoned and abused children languish elsewhere.
No one is going to die or face harm from failing to propagate their obviously defective DNA (if they are infertile), and sterility should be viewed as a broad hint that one shouldn’t try to reproduce. Many of the children born through IVF have serious lifelong health problems anyway; this is one of the little-commented side effects of the procedure. Infertility above won’t like this, but I still say the infertile should be told to get over themselves and adopt.
Infertility does have a point about drug abusers and others. If we licensed parents as we license everything else and imposed mimimum ages, incomes, and drug-free and law-abiding statuses, and took away children permanently from those who don’t comply, this would make more children available for adoption to the infertile. This would be a more humane solution to Infertility’s complaints than expansion of fertility treatments for those who obviously have some genetic or physical issue precluding breeding.
August 18th, 2010 | 1:21 am
Until all of the children held in orphanages or foster care are adopted, shouldn’t EVERYONE adopt? Why is this responsibility foisted on those who can’t reproduce on their own? Where is the responsibility of the rest of society, who are just selfishly creating yet more Mini-Mes?
Also, the vast majority of infertility problems have nothing to do with defective DNA. If one’s DNA is truly defective, IVF isn’t going to help. IVF doesn’t prevent miscarriage of children with severe abnormalities.
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