According to a a new study more than one-third of babies born in the US today were conceived through some form of assisted reproductive technology.
Reproductive freedom really isn't just a euphemism for abortion. Where will you be April 25th?
Update: Ugarte's alarm bells went off where mine should have (see comments). I mean, when a story makes you say, "That can't be true!" your next thought should always be, "Wait, that can't be true."
Part of the problem is that on first reading, I thought the stat in the Reuters article came from the survey that is the subject of the piece, and that was published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Looking at it again, I see two things: first, the stat has been changed. It now refers not to infants born but to pregnancies. Also, the stat does not come from the NEJM, and is not attributed to any source.
Spurred by Ugarte (and if you're not a regular at Rick's, you should be, though I'm shocked, shocked, to find they still haven't made it easier on the eyes) I did some of the fact-checking Reuters should have and quickly found neither statistic is accurate. In 2000, there were 99,629 ART procedures resulting in 35,025 babies. It's unclear whether that 99,629 figure counts only procedures leading to pregnancy, but even if so, it's nowhere near one-third of 4,019,280, the actual number of babies born, much less the number of pregnancies.
Gina points out that what is possible is that ART accounts for one-third of all multiple births (40,542 in 1999). My best guess: the Reuters reporter simply misread this stat.
I stand corrected. Please disregard any premature calls to a test-tube baby revolution. Those already against the wall can go back to their normal routines.
