Free Republic

California Company: We'll Turn Your Child's Sibling Embryos Into Extra Body Parts No evidence to support claims that stem cells from these embryos can offer any treatment By Hilary White A California-based biotechnology company, StemLifeLine, is making a special offer to parents of children conceived through in vitro fertilisation techniques: "We'll turn your spare embryos into embryonic stem cell lines tailored to your child's potential future medical needs." StemCellLifeLine's website calls it "a novel service for individuals who have undergone in vitro fertilization, fulfilled their childbearing needs and now have to decide what to do with their remaining stored embryos....

LONDON — Louise Brown, who was the world's first "test-tube" baby, has given birth to her first child. Cameron John Mullinder was born Dec. 20 in the western English city of Bristol, reports said. "He's tiny, just under 6 pounds, but he's perfect," the Mail on Sunday newspaper quoted her as saying. The baby was naturally conceived. The 28-year-old married Wesley Mullinder, 37, three years ago. Her sister, Natalie, who also was conceived through in-vitro fertilization, in 1999 became the first "test-tube" baby to give birth.

THE LAW of UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES You've probably heard of the Law of Unintended Consequences. It refers to the unanticipated later results of earlier decisions or actions. We saw a television report of an unintended consequence of "sperm banks"--organizations which sell male sperm to lesbians or other single women who want pregnancy "without a father," and couples who want to have children despite male infertility of the husband. You will be shocked, as we were, to discover an estimated 40,000 children are born each year using this repulsively modern means. Apparently, anonymous "profiles" of the sperm donor are used to market...

WASHINGTON — When the U.S. Senate debates stem cell laws this summer, they should learn a lesson from Mary Schneider.   When she saw her 2-year-old son’s fists balling up and his arms getting spastic, she knew she had to do something drastic.   Ryan Schneider was diagnosed with a mild form of cerebral palsy before his third birthday. Fortunately, Mary and her husband, Steve, had stored the boy’s cord blood with the Cord Blood Registry when he was born.   The blood is stored as a source of adult stem cells, which doctors have found effective. A bill sponsored...

Alfonso Cardinal Lopez Trujillo, the outspoken president of the Pontifical Council on the Family, has asserted that "destroying human embryos is equivalent to abortion"; therefore, he says, those directly involved in such deeds are liable to the canonical penalty established for abortion, namely, excommunication (1983 CIC 1398). That the cardinal stands on solid biological and moral grounds in equating deliberate embryo destruction with procured abortion is beyond serious question. What I want to ask is whether he stands on solid canonical grounds as well. Consider: until the last few decades, all canonical discussions of abortion were concerned with actions...

The Vatican today published a sweeping condemnation of contraception, abortion, in-vitro fertilisation and same-sex marriage, declaring that the traditional family has never been so threatened. The document was issued by the Pontifical Council for the Family, whose head, Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, is a strong opponent of the use of condoms under any circumstances. Gay activists in Italy condemned the report as a grotesque attack against modern life, freedom and social redemption.The 57-page document does not break any new ground but summarised traditional Vatican positions."Man of modern times has radicalised the tendency to take the place of God and substitute him," it...

May 11, 2006 — - After five years trying to conceive, Kelly and Eric Romenesko decided to try in vitro fertilization. Their twins, Alexandria and Allison, were born last year. It was a joyous event in the couple's life. "They're miracles. They're precious," Kelly Romenesko said. The couple were not prepared for what came next. When Kelly, a teacher at two Catholic schools in Wisconsin, told her bosses she had gotten pregnant through in vitro, they handed her a pink slip. "I was in tears," she said. "I remember asking, 'Is this the only reason why I'm being fired?' They...

VATICAN CITY - Scientists told a Vatican conference Tuesday that screening embryos for disease before implanting them in in-vitro fertilization posed grave ethical problems that could ultimately result in parents choosing the type of children they want. The warning, however, was rejected as unfounded by outside scientists. The Vatican conference, which ended Tuesday, focused on the ethics surrounding the handling of embryos before they are implanted in in-vitro fertilization procedures when they are just a few days old and a few cells in size. On Monday, Pope Benedict XVI told the conference that even such young embryos deserve the same...

REDDING – A 62-year-old woman gave birth Friday to a healthy 6-pound, 9-ounce baby boy, becoming one of the oldest women in the world to successfully bear a child. The newborn is the 12th child of Janise Wulf, who's also a grandmother of 20 and great-grandmother of three. Wulf and her third husband, Scott, 48, named the red-haired boy, Adam Charles Wulf. He follows just 3½ years behind his older brother, Ian. “I hate to raise one alone, without a sibling,” said Wulf, who was impregnated both times through in vitro fertilization. Wulf has given birth to a total of...

The world just learned that "Catholic" actress Brooke Shields is the proud mother of a new baby girl. For a long time infertility problems made it impossible for her and her husband to conceive, and after many failed attempts to conceive naturally she resorted to the technological solution: in vitro fertilization (IVF). Now she is pictured on the covers of glamorous magazines with a smiling beautiful baby girl, but some have questioned her decision to use IVF. I am one of them. Was this star wrong to have a "test tube" baby? Yes. Dead wrong. While recognizing the pain of...

All signs point to yes. During the past several months, the image has flickered into our homes with increasing regularity: Following the end of a campaign-trail speech, little Emma Claire Edwards, 6, and Jack Edwards, 4—both blond and cherubic—joyfully run up to the stage where their dad, Sen. John Edwards, 51, scoops them into his arms. Standing nearby beaming, always, is Elizabeth Edwards, 55. Do the math, and it's not hard to figure out that Edwards gave birth to Emma Claire at age 48 and Jack at 50. And yet if Edwards used her own eggs, this is all but...

Trial Opens Over Unauthorized Pregnancy By JAY LINDSAY, Associated Press Writer CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - Trial began Wednesday to hear a man's claims that his wife was impregnated without his permission at a clinic that used an embryo fertilized with his sperm. Richard Gladu testified that the birth shattered his family and sent him into a spiral of depression. He's seeking $3 million in the breach of contract and negligence suit against two doctors and the fertility clinic Boston IVF. In their opening statements, lawyers for the clinic and doctors said Gladu gave consent for his embryos to be used, and...

Gay dads welcome new baby By Valarie Honeycutt Spears HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER The two Lexington gay men who made worldwide news by parenting quadruplets had a fifth child yesterday with the help of the same biological mother. The baby, named Brandon Lane Dysarz, was born shortly after 8 a.m. at Lexington's Central Baptist Hospital by a planned Caesarean section, according to Lexington hair stylist Thomas Dysarz, the baby's biological father. "He looks just like me," said Dysarz, who said the healthy boy weighed in at 8 pounds, 9 ounces. The birth, like the July 26, 2002, birth of the quadruplets,...

Don’t you just love it when someone with whom you're arguing says, “Well, we will just have to agree to disagree”, as a spin of the phrase ‘Reasonable people can agree to disagree’, or as the shortened version, ‘Reasonable people can disagree’? Can reasonable people disagree over cannibalism in order to permit cannibalism, without doing violence to civilization? As a pro-life advocate who gets into lots of discussions, I hear this ‘agree to disagree’ more and more. It tells me my points are getting to the irrational heart of defense for the abortion slaughter. When an advocate for abortion of...

<p>Jane Doe planned her single parenthood carefully, wanting to avoid the potential custody battles of an adoption turned sour.</p> <p>She selected anonymous egg and sperm donors to create an embryo that would be hers alone.</p> <p>But what should have been a joyous and private event turned nightmarish when an embryo mix-up at a respected San Francisco fertility clinic caused her to bear another couple's child.</p>

LONDON (Reuters) - A mix-up at a British clinic that left a white couple with black twins has sparked fears about the reliability of fertility treatment and left the law scrambling to catch up with science. While there are strict injunctions on identifying the twins and their sets of vying "parents," the case has thrown a spotlight on how medicine can mess with nature, leaving courts to pick up the pieces. "Embryos all look the same," Sonya Jerkovic, in charge of the London Fertility Center's laboratory, told Reuters after the latest blunder at an unnamed clinic. "It's our worst...

<p>You'll hear the debate on Crossfire or NewsHour or perhaps The 700 Club. There'll be coverage in your newspaper, probably accompanied by thundering editorials - ripe with clichés like "slippery slope" and "brave new world." It will sound, in fact, a lot like last year's dustup over stem cells and cloning. But this summer's biotech grudge match will be over designer babies.</p>