Eggs, Babs! Eggs!

Via Wired News

Recently, the Family Research Council, a powerful conservative Christian organization, was invited by Leon Kass, the former chairman of the President’s Council on Bioethics, to submit suggestions for new IVF rules.

What a thoughtful thing to do. Anything to further the national dialogue, eh?

The Christian group demanded that “the practice of creating more embryos than can be safely implanted and brought to birth, the practice of freezing spare embryos and the practice of ‘selective reduction’ or selective abortion of ‘defective’ fetuses or of fetuses in excess of those that can be safely delivered, should all be condemned.”

Did they really demand? Or did they ask nicely?

Further: “All biotechnologies which aid in the treatment of infertility should be restricted to use by married couples.”

Huh. Maybe they did demand. I hope they didn’t use up all their wish juice, wishing for this stuff. Cause frankly, I don’t think they’ve got a snowball’s chance.

In effect, the Family Research Council was advocating something like a law that took effect in Italy last year.

There, all embryos created during fertility treatments must be implanted, not stored (even when there’s a good chance one of them carries a fatal genetic disease); IVF is limited to heterosexual couples in “stable relationships;” and donor eggs and sperm are outlawed. As a result, success rates have declined, women have had to undergo more procedures because they cannot skip steps and use their own stored embryos, and many patients have gone to other countries.
An attempt to overturn the Italian law failed this year after the Catholic Church mounted a campaign to urge people to avoid the polls and the vote failed to garner enough turnout.
The bioethics council didn’t go quite so far. In December of last year, it issued a report calling for an entirely new federal agency to regulate assisted reproduction.

Because we desperately need one. Because if you don’t watch those science guys like hawks, they’ll try and clone somebody. Because the world…needs…order…

The council’s model seems to have been the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority of the United Kingdom, which strictly regulates the industry, tracks embryos and issues research licenses.
American IVF practitioners and researchers are almost unanimous in their opposition to such laws, but they don’t seem too worried that discussions about creating them in the United States will amount to much.

You can read the whole thing here.


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2 responses to “Eggs, Babs! Eggs!”

  1. Classical Values Avatar

    Right to Life? Sometimes!

    I’m really confused today. Justin’s post about “assisted” reproduction has me all in a dither, both morally and intellectually, because I want to follow the natural law wherever I can find it, but first I have to find it, then…

  2. Raging Bee Avatar

    Wow, where do I even start?
    There, all embryos created during fertility treatments must be implanted, not stored (even when there’s a good chance one of them carries a fatal genetic disease)…
    So…what if they can’t find a woman who would consent to have a surplus embryo implanted? Should they yank one off the street and force her to accept it? And wouldn’t such involuntary penetration of her genital area classify as “rape?”
    …IVF is limited to heterosexual couples in “stable relationships;”
    And what if a lesbian gets IVF? What would the authorities do about it? Strap her down and yank it out of her? We didn’t approve of that when the Chinese did it, but maybe that was because they’re commies. And then what would be done with the illegally-implanted, now legally-if-forcibly-extracted embryo? Find an unwilling straight married woman and force it into her instead?