Here's your IVF update.
Will Saletan explains why seemingly sane Italians passed (and now preserved) their clearly insane IVF laws, and what their nightmare means for the US if the religious right has its way.
The ghoulish ironies don't end there. Last year, President Bush's council on bioethics, well-stocked with conservatives, strongly urged fertility clinics "to reduce the incidence of multiple embryo transfers and resulting multiple births, a known source of high risk and discernible harm to the resulting children." But the Italian law requires such multiple transfers, endangering healthy embryos in the name of protecting unhealthy ones. By limiting the number of embryos in each IVF round to three, the Italian law has doubled the average number of rounds necessary to get a successful pregnancy. This means more hormonally induced egg production and extraction, which, according to Bush's council, "carry significant medical risks to the women."
Oh, and don't forget the increased risk of low birth-weight and infant mortality. Define "pro-life" again, please?
Ellen Goodman calls the Snowflakers' bluff. "When people claim to believe that a frozen embryo is the moral equal of a child, ethicists like to pose this question: If a clinic is on fire and you could save either a 2-year-old or a vial full of embryos, which would you pick?" She also has some advice for people in my position: "Embryos are not human beings. Nor are they hangnails. They carry the potential for human life that deserves moral attention and respect. It's not disrespectful to donate embryos to the search for a curing diseases. Nor is it respectful to keep embryos in a freezer until they're eligible for Social Security." No sweat. Social Security will be bankrupt by then.
Jane Eisner sees the next move on the chessboard: "if the embryo were legally a person, we wouldn't have to worry about low birth rates because contraception would become problematic. Barrier methods such as condoms and diaphragms would, I suppose, be permitted, but certain birth control pills and the IUD would be banned because, as a last resort, they sometimes prevent implantation of a fertilized egg. The protracted argument over the so-called morning-after pill could end, because that, too, occasionally works after fertilization and therefore would be banned."
Well actually (not that I expect the religious right to give a shit about facts), the latest research shows that emergency contraception (aka the morning after pill) "appears to work by interfering with ovulation, thus preventing fertilization, and not by disrupting events that occur after fertilization." (Full disclosure/nachas: my wife Gina wrote this article)
Regular readers of this site won't learn much from Pam Belluck in the Times, but here's the nugget I fished out. Remember when I said that I was willing to compromise with the Flakers? ("Clinics can agree to deal with adoption agencies IF the agencies agree to pursue a political course that will allow donation/adotion to be only one of many legal options, including permanent storage, disposal, or donation for stem-cell research.") Well, what a shock, it's precisely such reasonable moderation that they disapprove of: "Ron Stoddart, the executive director of Nightlight Christian Adoptions, which runs Snowflakes, said he believed more people would donate embryos to other couples if the option was advertised and encouraged. He criticized many fertility-related organizations for telling patients that donation to another couple is just one choice among many, including storing the embryos, discarding them or donating them to research."
Yes, how dare doctors tell their patients the truth! You can see why this war is being waged, can't you?
