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91 Comments
- BlackHills2, on 10/06/2008, -1/+13I registered with Digg just to reply to this.
My wife and I have gone through many infertility treatments over the course of the last 4 years. The most recent attempt was using in vitro. There are MANY factors involved in the number of embryos that are not cost related.
The harsh drugs that women have to go through are to stimulate multiple eggs to be produced at the same time. The eggs then have to be surgically removed and that process can harm the egg. Then the eggs have to be fertilized and grown in a solution for a few days to see if they will survive. At this point the embryos that survived can be graded and the good ones can be used.
To put this into perspective:
1) My wife and I are healthy 20 somethings
2) We had 16 eggs that were extracted out of 24 possible follicles
3) 12 eggs actually fertilized
4) After 4 days only 3 of the 12 were viable
5) 2 of the 3 were implanted (subsequently failed with a miscarriage)
So in the end we are left with one embryo that is currently frozen. There is no way with current technology to just make one embryo. - Zippo, on 10/06/2008, -3/+13Here's one perspective - life does not really "start".
A human is created from two cells... both of which are alive. These two live cells become one live cell and form to make thousands of cells. By this logic, "life" is an endless stream.
The real argument, really, is when a human has a "soul" - and whether or not you believe in a soul. Personally, I do not. We're remarkable organisms, for sure, but I don't believe we're inhabited by anything supernatural. - MacBookForMe, on 10/06/2008, -0/+10...from old Romans...***** homini lupus...
- Narrwald, on 10/06/2008, -2/+10A very major problem of your argument is that male masturbation is not by any means conception.
- WhiskeyLemur, on 06/30/2009, -0/+7Not just a cost factor - it's also because of concerns for the health of the mother, which inexplicably tend to take second and third priority in all these discussions: "supply of extras [fertilized embryos] spares a woman another round of harsh drugs to produce eggs." There's also the fact that sometimes a single fertilized egg will split into two embryos - that's how identical twins are formed. I don't have any statistics on hand, but see no reason this wouldn't happen with artificial insemination as well.
- guhpol, on 10/06/2008, -7/+13In my opinion doctors should create only one embryo per time, not 5. So this problem what to do with the rest of embryos will disappear.
- mtb167, on 10/06/2008, -1/+7Hooray! Abortion on the front page! Let the stream of 876 comments that don't change anyone's mind commence!
Also, they're talking about embryos not eggs. Embryos have been fertilized; they have unique DNA. So the beating off jokes don't really apply. It's science. - c0mputar, on 10/06/2008, -1/+7The question "when does life begin?" is a bad place to start, because the definition of life is subjective depending who you ask. A better question to ask is "when does the fetus or baby gain the rights of a human being?", and from there you have to tackle the questions about why children have that right. Once you figure out why children have the right to live, then you can try to draw those conclusions as far back as you can.
For me, long story short, birth. - charm803, on 10/06/2008, -9/+15I would really like to see what Palin & McCain think of this.
Life begins at conception according to them, so I guess it's only fair to throw these embryos away if they aren't used, right?
Well, if NOT, then are we going to define male masturbation as abortion and murder if it's redefined as a "life"?
These are serious issues that will face our future sooner rather than later, especially with women waiting longer to start a family until they have a career. (Me included. I have no children yet and this has crossed my 29 year old mind.) - hodrige, on 10/06/2008, -0/+6First of all, you don't know how many eggs you are going to have before starting the female on the hormones cycle / protocol.
then you will never know how many will fertilize.
They grade fertilized embryos, and depending on their score they decide how many to put back in.
Once they fertilized, you can never tell how many will stick / grow into a child... thats why you have / end up with many.
Of course, there is the dreaded "selective reduction" in case 5 or six embies are stuck.
Ours have been are on ice for 4 years... just in case.
- inactive, on 10/06/2008, -2/+8My wife and I have been trying to conceive for quite some time, recently we did In vitro and I am happy to say we are expecting twins.
We are forever grateful to science for giving us the opportunity to be parents. The remaining embryos we are storing in case we decide to expand our family at a later time. We have already decided to discard the lesser developed embryos without any moral qualms. The general idea is we are promoting life through birth and not death through abundance.
As an analogy, I would consider it as picking fruit. If you come across a bruised fruit many of us would discard the fruit rather than include it into the bunch. Even if there are people starving in the world, it's morally acceptable to do so. - Dumbledorito, on 10/06/2008, -5/+10No, but if you follow a religious dogma strict enough, every sperm cell is a potential life, and you're "wasting" them.
It's why I think a lot of religions are against cloning (beyond the misconceptions about how it works, i.e. a clone of Hitler will not get you the same Hitler that rocked the Rhineland); if one can generate a new human from one cell, then doesn't scratching your arm "kill" thousands of potential lives? - StupotAce, on 10/06/2008, -1/+6I'm sure that if you wanted the doctor to only produce one embryo at a time, he would do it. Granted, it'll cost you tons more, but I'm sure that you could have it done that way.
Considering the fact that some of these embryo's do not take in the womb (or whatever medically goes wrong) and do not go on to create a baby, it's a hard fight to claim that they are already a human life. They are chances at human life. Sperm could also be viewed as chances at human life, but a much much smaller chance. That's what links destroying an embryo with male masturbation. You are taking away a chance at human life.
Of course, that is assuming you do not believe a frozen embryo is not already a human life. - divinediva, on 10/06/2008, -2/+6The motivation is abortion
- AmyVernon, on 10/06/2008, -2/+6It looks like that's primarily because of the cost factor. Which is still the wrong reason to create so many embryos.
- kozie, on 10/06/2008, -0/+4I think what is being proposed is full rights or no rights.
All that changes is the 'location' of the person that is being born. If that's the case, then why don't we choose that this location is high school and not "birth". All children can be aborted before high school. - WhiskeyLemur, on 06/30/2009, -3/+7I can also add that nature (or god, if you are a believer and tend to personify these things) is extraordinarily wasteful when it comes to sexual reproduction.
- Think of the millions of (live!) sperm which die unused every day, within every fertile male.
- Think of the thousands of (live!) eggs which die unused within every fertile woman's lifetime.
- Think of all the spontaneous miscarriages - "prospective studies using very sensitive early pregnancy tests have found that 25% of pregnancies are miscarried by the sixth week LMP (since the woman's Last Menstrual Period). Clinical miscarriages (those occurring after the sixth week LMP) occur in 8% of pregnancies." Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miscarriage
- Think of all the infants which do not survive into adulthood for a myriad perfectly natural reasons.
Even if you believe that t there *are* divine beings out there, they clearly don't have an issue with abortion. - pinchduck, on 10/06/2008, -0/+4If they weren't human, do you suppose they were kangaroo embryos, then?
- priegog, on 10/06/2008, -0/+3You don't even get the other side's point right.
PROTIP: pro-lifers do NOT have to be members of PETA, or vegetarians, or whatever. I think even atheists would consider human life worthier than animal life. - keithloughnane, on 10/06/2008, -5/+8They are alive, but so is bacteria. Surly the real question is when is it human or sentiant how many neurons does that take.
- Brutusfly, on 10/06/2008, -3/+6It's estimated that roughly three-quarters of ALL embryos fail to implant. Are all of them human lives as well? If they were human, how many siblings did you have that died unknowingly, and naturally?
- humperdeath, on 10/06/2008, -2/+5I better think carefully, depending on the answer, I could be charged with 100 million counts of murder at least once a week, if you get my meaning.
- leadingzero, on 10/06/2008, -2/+5so at birth - 30 seconds you have a completely inhuman lump of cells that can be disposed of any way possible? Then suddenly at birth you have a complete human being? The only thing that changed is the physical position of the baby. This is the worst possible way of determining who gets rights and who doesn't.
- frsrblch, on 10/06/2008, -0/+3Embryos as people? That's ridiculous. Next they'll be trying to claim that corporations are people too!
- XZanatos, on 10/06/2008, -0/+3Speaking from the experience of having conversed much with my very pro-life cousin. Their stance is that ANY embryo is a "human" life. Person-hood doesn't matter (yet), as soon as its 1-alive and 2-human that is all that matters, no matter if it is one cell or many. Humans are 'special' in god's plans for life the universe and everything so if it is a "human" life then ending it is 'murder'. I am not saying that I agree with that viewpoint, but there it is.
- qaelith2112, on 10/06/2008, -1/+4I need to add another "I've been there" reply. Like BlackHills2, my wife and I also went through IVF. Our process went pretty much like his, except that we were fortunate enough to have ended up with a couple more good embryos frozen in the end. To supplement his explanation of the reason why you don't just do one embryo at a time, the odds of a pregnancy even with two embryos implanted is only about 30%. With one, it's obviously substantially lower. The whole process of getting those embryos and implanting, including all of the daily injections (which I had to administer) and daily pelvic examinations (to try to keep from damaging the ovaries), is very rough on a woman, both physically and emotionally.
We went through the required psychological screening to see that we would be able to endure, and even having passed that, my wife still was a nervous wreck through much of it and was devastated even knowing the odds in advance when it didn't happen the first time. The second time, both implanted but one died at 8 weeks or so, leaving yet another emotional devastation. - VictoriaMaria, on 10/06/2008, -0/+3But at the very end labor could kill her?
A] You do know that an abortion at that time will consist of labor and deliver, only of a dead baby not a live one. That and partial term abortions consist of leaving the head inside while scissors are jammed into the child's head. Legally not alive, as only the arms and legs are out.
B] 7 months is viable, C-sections are easy enough to schedule
As for how gradual- no, it doesn't make sense to allow it here and disallow it a month, or a day, or an hour later. So obviously it starts from the beginning.
And with the masturbation... that's seen as wrong, for Catholics at least, because sex is supposed to be with one's spouse as a means of procreation and unity. With masturbation you've neither. [Yes, before it's asked- we don't believe in contraceptives either] - kozie, on 10/06/2008, -0/+3Arrowette, I don't think you can prove that the quoted scripture has anything to do with "murder" or "killing" or "taking a life".
If you can, by all means. - VictoriaMaria, on 10/07/2008, -0/+2I was born at 24 weeks...
Yes, both count as people. I certainly hope I count as a human... oh dear, born at a stage where abortion is still permitted. Perhaps I'm not a person?
... abortion is fine if her poor modeling career is on the line? A model has a pretty face, if she has a stomach-scar, it won't completely ruin it. I'm sure she could find other work if needed.
Why sooner than later? If it's permitted at all times, why does the trimester matter? - 00barbarella00, on 10/06/2008, -1/+3Are you ***** serious?
:face palm: - apr35, on 10/06/2008, -0/+2Screw in vitro, did you see that one woman's baby? it looks like a cat!
- xander, on 10/06/2008, -0/+2you can't be this retarded
- VictoriaMaria, on 10/07/2008, -0/+2Yeah, I am quite lucky. But a child is viable at that point, medical costs aside- it proves there's a life at least at 24 weeks. It's going to get earlier and earlier from here with tech and science working on things.
I still think we're so fuzzy on when it's murder and when it isn't... putting aside the "from conception" belief, if we didn't know- why risk it? If you're out hunting and can't spot your friend, but think there's a deer up ahead-- do you shoot and hope it's a deer and not your mate?
I suppose some limits are better than none, but to me that sounds similar to "you can kill a newborn, but a toddler you can't." It's still murder to me. If you assume it's murder, abortion is horrid and a mass slaughter- these frozen embryos are children.
I wouldn't want them thrown out, and I would like abortions to never take place. Again- if you factor in that I see them as children, it's horrific what happens. I know people aren't going to agree, but I can't not say anything. - YawehsDead, on 10/06/2008, -1/+3I don't understand why people think that "life" has to have a clear beginning.
- Narrwald, on 10/06/2008, -1/+3I've never heard the scratching your arm thing, but I understand where the "masturbation is wrong" aspect could come from, in that mindset. All the same, I think it's ridiculous to consider a life having begun BEFORE conception. Any time from that point on is arguable, but before that just makes no sense...
- Suricou, on 10/07/2008, -0/+2It's not about the eggs, it's the extra embryos. IVF is a hit-and-miss process, so the technicians always create several embryos in the expectation that a proportion of them will be duds. They pick the one or two that look healthiest to implant, and the rest get either discarded, frozen, or used for research.
- HonestAbe, on 10/06/2008, -0/+2There's the issue of ensoulment, and there's also the issue of human rights. If you believe in ensoulment, it's natural to assume that human rights start at the same point. If you don't believe in souls, when do human rights begin?
- VictoriaMaria, on 10/07/2008, -0/+1Of course I would carry to term. Under no circumstance would I ever have an abortion. And doctors are occasionally wrong, many people have healthy children who were told they'd die at birth or be ill for their whole life. I wrote somewhere else here I was born at 24 weeks- and this is 18 years ago. So I could of had quite a deal wrong with me. But at most I have glasses which are pretty, and asthma. Plus a handful of scars from surgeries.
My own health? It's dodgy, my health, I wouldn't be overly surprised if something like a complication came up. But I wouldn't have an abortion... Let's see. I'd pray, I'd find good doctors... I suppose if it was the worst case scenario imaginable, I would die. The point though isn't to pick mother or child, one of them must die so the other lives. It's to try your best and your hardest to save both lives.
- In the case of an ectopic pregnancy where the child is growing in the fallopian tube and that will certainly kill them both, there is a protocol for Catholics in which The Principle of Double-Effect comes into play... we cannot take a pill to cause an abortion chemically, but we can take out the section of fallopian tube that the child is in. The point is that one takes out the tube, it's not a direct abortion. Yes, it ends in a dead child, but that isn't the intention. In theory I suppose it'll one day be possible to transplant into the womb, so such cases can then end in birth. It's similar to how a pregnant mother with cancer can have chemo even if it would kill or harm the child- the point is not to kill the child, but to stop the cancer. One's direct goal can never be abortion.
... can one actually divide the 4 cells and end up with 4 children? But assuming so... well, yes. A child from conception means from the first cell. It would be murder in the definition of taking an innocent life. Now you wouldn't go to jail for it, as you can see it's a fuzzy topic and not everyone agrees. But a good deal of Pro-Lifers will say that it's murder. - geogeer, on 10/07/2008, -0/+1Maybe, life does have a clear beginning at conception... It is a scientific fact.
- Suricou, on 10/07/2008, -0/+1Kick the bucket!
- VictoriaMaria, on 10/07/2008, -0/+1Ah, and if I may add- the C-section scar is rather low. It can easily be covered up by wearing even minimal clothing.
- Suricou, on 10/07/2008, -1/+2It's sexual. It's fun. Therefore, it must be evil.
- geogeer, on 10/07/2008, -0/+1So just remember when you see your children that their siblings are waiting to be born or for some will never be born.
- kozie, on 10/06/2008, -1/+2As I've mentioned before the scripture used "against" masturbation is not about masturbation and in fact that is the only scripture that can be quoted against the practice.
Why you masturbate, your motivation, is what is the sin IMO. And then I don't see how you can see masturbation as sex. I'd like to see that proven in scripture, feel free to do that.
Is it then a sin to ejaculate when you're sleeping? Because all men (who don't masturbate) do. - YawehsDead, on 10/07/2008, -0/+1What does that even mean?
- VictoriaMaria, on 10/07/2008, -1/+2It's that masturbation is gaining sexual pleasure without the act of sex taking place, therefore using it for selfish reasons unlike the sex-act which should in theory be selfless giving.
No, one cannot sin in their sleep- that's a biological effect and not a sin. A woman who miscarries hasn't had an abortion, to put it in another, though darker, perspective.
---
A] You mentioned labor, I assumed you meant specifically the strain that would put on her body. An abortion at that stage would be similar in strain, and therefore not a valid choice if we're trying to keep her [and the baby] alive.
B] A woman who will die in childbirth and is 7 or 8 months pregnant while unwilling to have an abortion will not make a fuss over a C-section. It's either the scar or she dies.
The situation in which a woman can't give birth, have a C-section or an abortion due to the lateness of term-- that's about impossible and something that is given as a hypothetical to put pro-lifers into awkward situations. Most women can have C-sections if they can't give birth naturally, and again- having an abortion at that stage will end up with a dead child and possibly mother.
But why gain the rights? Why makes the last day of the 3rd month different than the first day of the 4th? Why can you kill them for whatever reason you so please, and then move it up to handicaps? ... for that matter, why is a handicapped child deserving of death? Do all widows have to kill their small children because their husbands are dead? You're putting requirements on life. You're telling me that the only people who deserve to be born are healthy, in 2 parent families and not poor.
There is this thing called adoption too...
And according to my faith withholding sex from a spouse for petty reasons is sinful. And yes, something like oral sex that doesn't finish in proper intercourse would be sinful as well. I meant what I said, procreative and unitive. - Narrwald, on 10/06/2008, -1/+2No. They are on no certain course of action that leads to an independent life until they've fused with an egg.
- VictoriaMaria, on 10/06/2008, -0/+1Again, why do people always compare unborn children to bacteria or insects? Size?
Yes, you can kill a mosquito. Very few people would fault you for swatting at one. But why because you can do this do you believe you can also kill an unborn child? Would you stab a puppy, or a toddler? - geogeer, on 10/07/2008, -0/+1It means that when sperm and egg mix there is a unique new life. Scientifically life begins at the moment of conception. If the sperm and egg never combine they will never be anything more. After they combine a new life unique of either of the two parents grows.
I thought it was pretty obvious. - VictoriaMaria, on 10/07/2008, -0/+1I'm against the death penalty as well- the circumstances that someone is so dangerous that they must be killed as opposed to locked up is minimum. In some countries with less advances it might have to be permitted, but in places like the States or Europe it shouldn't be.
There isn't such thing as too many children... the world isn't as overpopulated as some people think, and again- you're deciding that possible sick children aren't worth as much as healthy children. That way of thinking is what leads to prejudice and hate. A black man isn't worth as much as a white man, a daughter is worse than a son... a sick child is worse than a healthy child. But no mother, no self-respecting mother who would give herself that title, would swap out her sick child for a healthy one. Oh, she'll wish her child was healthy and take him to doctors and look for cures, but to trade children entirely is something she'd never do.
Yes, it is cold. The world is cold. And it doesn't have to be. Everyday I come onto Digg or Reddit and see stories of murder or prejudice. I see comments that are cheap shots at another's pain for a laugh and a few diggs or upvotes. What terrible thing would happen if there were no abortions for one year? If we took the money that we spent on abortions and used it to help mothers, to support children. If we took the doctors that are performing abortions and now have free time, and got them to search for better cures or treatments for the illnesses that children are being aborted for having... surely the world would be a warmer place, then?
They'll sit in freezers, yes... children frozen, small children who to some are people and to some are just things. -
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