From CNN: Alisyn Camerota: What I learned about the 'baby business' more than 15 years after undergoing IVF
Approximately one in every 50 kids born in the United States today is conceived in a fertility clinic or lab, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
[The fertility field has] also been the source of occasional horror stories and tragic mistakes. Now, as the multi-billion-dollar fertility industry booms, there are people calling for more oversight, regulations and legislation.
In our reporting for the documentary, "CNN Special Report: The Baby Business," we spoke to remarkable people with stunning stories: donor-conceived children searching for siblings, an egg donor with 27 known genetic children, as well as families devastatingly affected by what they claim is a lack of oversight of the industry.One in 50 children in the US conceived via IVF?
One in 50 children in the US born via IVF? That number is incredible and devastating to learn. Leave aside the danger to the women seeking this assistance, the degradation of the men, and the death of the children who don't make it. Leave aside the lucrative side hustle in fetal tissue research. Leave aside the evidence of metaphysical disturbance on the psyche when the knowledge dawns that one's very existence is contingent on manipulation performed in labs.
You must know something, something borne out by this (secular and basically positive towards the practice) article, contra the author's touching faith in rules: Fertility clinics are and will continue to be unregulated. And think about the process -- how *could* they be regulated?
The "horror stories" reported in this article far understate the reality. Stories abound of clinic directors impregnating their clients themselves and children conceived this way discovering siblings in unlikely places, including their own significant others.
And why are we talking about "donors"? People get paid for their gametes -- unless those "biological products" are outright stolen. How would anyone know? Once the vial of sperm leaves the man's hand, how can he trace where it goes? Once a woman's ova are harvested, who is to say where these valuable objects end up? The incentives are high, very high, to deceive.
The monetization of sexuality -- the untethering of the act from its sanctuary in marriage -- has convinced people that it's impossible either to have a baby (if unwanted) or to not have a baby (if wanted).
I'm not minimizing infertility issues. Couples suffer from being unable to conceive and I understand that suffering.
But I am saying that if a couple don't get pregnant right away, that's not abnormal. I know from my own observation that today's couples panic if, after flipping the mental switch from baby avoidance to baby yearning, results are not immediate. They have been taught since earliest youth to consider every step of their lives to be plannable and controllable and that success must be pursued and paid for. As a society we run to experts when our experiences don't live up to some invented statistical average, and guess what! Those experts shore up each other's scams. Very few scams are as scammy, untraceable, undignified, and immoral, as IVF.
I am also saying that the general population having been sold on contraceptives and abortion pretty much guarantees a market for these charlatans.
We've somehow taken the most natural process in the world -- the reproduction of our species -- and turned it into a nightmare. We have forgotten that children are a gift and not a commodity. We need to step away from this dystopian fraud.
*For details on the horrors and injustices of IVF and surrogacy, follow Them Before Us
For Catholic infertility support, follow Springs in the Desert.
I suffered from infertility for over 10 years. I had a health condition but doctors wouldn't help me. I was told to take the pill to regulate my hormones and then I could use ivf to get pregnant. I would never get pregnant on my own. I was told I should have a hysterectomy if I wouldn't take the pill at 25. I kept praying and pushing for answers. I have two beautiful children now, God willing, I may be blessed with more. I think many women feel like they have no choice because that's what is presented to them. IVF was never an option for us. Obviously, the moral issue is why it should not be an option. I always felt if my body was not healthy on its own, I shouldn't force a pregnancy. Why do doctors choose to harm instead of heal?
ReplyDeleteGood question! The answer is ignorance and, sadly, money.
DeleteI'm glad you held firm -- God bless you!
Thank you for discussing this. I am donor conceived. My parents chose to use an anonymous sperm donor after my dad’s vasectomy reversal and 4 years of trying. I discovered the truth via a direct to consumer DNA test. The commodification of people, I’m a person, is dehumanizing. People don’t have a right to have children, but children have a right to know their biological parents. Intentionally creating a person to separate from one or both parents is immoral and unethical. If I could tell my parents not to do it, I would. I’m not against my existence and life but the circumstances of my conception.
ReplyDeleteGod bless you my dear. Your words are truthful. But I want to say --Your existence is precious. Happy fault. And God in all eternity knew you and knew you would exist, and you have a purpose in life, for which He created you -- simply put, to love Him.
DeleteThank you! Each of us is an unrepeatable, unique gift from God. He takes messy circumstances and breathes life into them. We are created in His image. My situation has only strengthened my pro-life position by validating circumstances do not determine our human value nor does how “wanted” a child is. God bless you and thank you for addressing a sensitive topic.
DeleteSuch a great post, and thank you for the information on Them Before Us. I went to their website, too (off a link from the Facebook account they have)-- what a tremendous amount of courage to fight against a huge establishment/industry! What is so striking is how my own understanding of this topic has been really shaped by my conversion to Catholicism, since as a very serious protestant for many years, I knew people who approved of so many things that are actually gravely sinful, including IVF. Now on the other side of that vision, I have a dear friend who has adopted many children but who lives in a neighborhood populated by many IVF people. Some of these women actually take their frozen embryos and turn them into pieces of jewelry to wear around their neck. Since they're "done" having children, you know, they feel the need to do something with the children who are frozen.
ReplyDeleteI really do think we are living in a dystopian nightmare when it comes to all the perversions our society engages in with regard to the simplest right of a child to be conceived naturally, to be loved by his biological parents (or, if not possible, adoptive) who are committed to STAYING MARRIED (see Leila Miller's book on that topic of the damage done to children by welll-meaning adults seeking their own relief at the expense of their children), and for those parents to consist of a mother and a father. It's amazing how abnormal this is now in our culture. St. Joseph, pray for us!
"Some of these women actually take their frozen embryos and turn them into pieces of jewelry to wear around their neck."
DeleteOh my.
I think this has a lot to do with the tattoos women get as well.
There's a lot going on under the surface in our society...
Could you make that link explicit, I mean with the tattoos? What do you think? I do wonder all the time why people - and especially women - do that to themselves, I do not understand it! Many even do it in a lighthearted manner, as if it wasn't a big deal, I find this very disturbing. It is also interesting that the Romans were horrified when they started meeting barbarians who painted their bodies, it was considered a mark of their lack of civilization. But at this point, in our society, I am more interested in what it says about the spiritual "health" of so many people...
DeleteI think it's trickle-down. Up at the top are people who are seriously hurting from their experiences. I think some women get tattoos for different reasons having to do with trauma, and I have read many accounts of women memorializing their abortions this way. There is something deep within a woman that does NOT want to forget.
DeleteIt's always the case that edgy trends make their way down and some people just do them because they are into edgy trends... then it becomes normalized -- literally, something once unthinkable becomes normal and even desirable.
People also have money they just want to spend. It's recreational spending that happens to leave permanent marks on your body!
But I think that underneath it all (or up at the top of the trend hill), it's about trauma.
Great article.
ReplyDeleteSo needed, to talk about this, to reveal the whole truth! I have no experience of any of this. But I have a vignette. Getting ready to marry, I was all excited to learn about Natural Family Planning, and I told my Dad all about it. He just looked at me, deeply puzzled. He could not wrap his mind around it. "Planning... planning...we were so happy when the babies came." This from a naval engineer (a 1950s father and a WWII combat veteran) for whom precision was paramount. (My mother concurred--after the war, she said, everyone was so glad to be alive, to be doing healthy, healing things, to thrive in families. --despite having to live for a few years sharing the same apartment with other families, and washing diapers in the bathtub.)
ReplyDeleteThat's a really beautiful reaction on the part of your dad! Thank you for sharing it!
DeleteOf your charity, please pray for a delivery woman, from whom my husband received the awkward knowledge that she is preparing for IVF. If she’s going to divulge intimate things like that to a perfect stranger I’ll presume she’s looking for support: Many graces to stop the madness!
ReplyDeleteWhat are your thoughts on embryo adoption? Some Catholics are proposing this as an ethical and "pro life" alternative, as it "rescues" frozen embryos. But if this too is not permitted, what is the Church's proposed solution for all the embryos out there being stored in clinics?
ReplyDeleteMy thoughts are that it is not up to us to save these babies in that way. The implantation of the embryos requires participation in the process that is unacceptable -- the woman would have to go to and pay the clinic and doctor who are the perpetrators of the evil. She would be presented with unacceptable decisions if things went awry -- we can't blithely assume that everyone would resist immoral suasion dressed up as clinical options. We can't purposely encourage people to put themselves in such situations.
DeleteThen there is the "unintended consquence" of incentivizing the very thing we are deploring. It's already the case with adoption that the line between rescuing orphans and purchasing children who are purposely abandoned is a fine one. Let's be realistic and prudent. Is it a way to get Catholics to participate in IVF under the guise of doing good?
The womb is a sanctuary and just as we can't let people use the altar for purposes other than what it is intended for (such as displaying dead babies a la Fr. Pavone or letting a refugee sit on it), we can't violate the womb's precinct.
We can't solve every problem. Let's do what is right and ask for grace to understand what we CAN do.