Free Republic

Rev. John A. Leies November 1, 2011 (HLIAmerica.org) - We are grateful to the medical researchers and medical practitioners who find new remedies and drugs to ease our pains and restore and enhance our health. Yet with every new development in medical science comes the responsibility of using it wisely and according to God’s will. Many people do not acknowledge this. One example was the subject matter of a New York Times article last month, titled: “One Sperm Donor, 150 Offspring.” The article narrated a woman’s search for her own child’s siblings, all of whom are the offspring of the...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Rep. Jared Polis of Colorado has announced the birth of a new son, making him the only openly gay member of Congress to be a parent. While few details of the birth were made available, the Democratic congressman's press office did release the announcement that Polis and his partner, Marlon Reis, sent to friends and family.

A lawyer who donated sperm to pay his way through college has learned that he has fathered an astonishing 70 children. More than 15 of those have already attempted to contact 33-year-old Ben Seisler. The donor confessed to his fiancée as part of a new reality show, Sperm Donor, that aired on the Style Network on Tuesday. Seisler donated sperm for three years while attending law school at George Mason, Virginia. He earned around $150 per donation.

Note: Jewels Green is a former abortion clinic worker who also had an abortion herself. She recently spoke out about her experiences as an abortion clinic worker for the first time. September 20, 2011 (LiveAction.org) - After supporting abortion my entire life and working in an abortion clinic for years, my Ah-HA moment seemed to come from an unlikely place. I did not have a profound, sudden shift in my worldview. After years of ignoring the little voice inside me questioning the death around me—the nightmares and the regret—the truth snuck up on me. I was involved in an online...

As Jenny lay on the obstetrician's examination table, she was grateful that the ultrasound technician had turned off the overhead screen. She didn't want to see the two shadows floating inside her. Since making her decision, she had tried hard not to think about them, though she could often think of little else. She was 45 and pregnant after six years of fertility bills, ovulation injections, donor eggs and disappointment – and yet here she was, 14 weeks into her pregnancy, choosing to extinguish one of two healthy foetuses, almost as if having half an abortion. As the doctor inserted...

Many years ago, I was assigned to cover a story about a certain sperm donor, a newly graduated doctor in Kansas who had donated on such a frequent and regular basis that he was suspected of being the biological father to 500 children. You read that right, 500 children! My research led me to learn that professors and medical mentors had often urged their male med school residents to donate sperm as a way to: a) Put a little money in their pockets and b) Help propagate future generations of intelligent children. The belief was that if the sperm came...

The same people who say I shouldn't impose my morality on them, are imposing immorality on me and my children to the point that I literally have a hard time even leaving my home anymore to do something as simple as visit the park. And this is freedom? I am a Catholic stay-at-home mother of seven, and I live in the state of Massachusetts where "gay marriage" has been legal for seven years and it's just one aspect of the larger secular agenda. Because we have so many little children, it takes a phenomenal effort to go anywhere. We have...

Everyone is discussing this piece, by Ruth Padawer, that ran in the New York Times, and, since it is infuriating, I figured I would too. Ms. Padawer has written a hard-hitting piece. I think it presents all views as fairly as can be expected and it does not mince words. Full disclosure, it took me three attempts to read it through.....the writer...[reveals] what has been, and continues to be, a somewhat hidden aspect of both abortion practice and artificial fertility treatments... The article discusses women who have had fertility treatment(s) and who found themselves carrying twins (in one case triplets)...

August 17, 2011 (HLIAmerica.org) - The directions on my flower seed packet say, “Sow seeds directly into the soil. When plants are two inches tall, thin to six inches apart.” Sowing more than you need and culling the excess once seeds have germinated is a great approach to gardening. But it is a horrific way to approach pregnancy and childbirth. Yet that is exactly what happens in more and more pregnancies achieved by in vitro fertilization (IVF). The New York Times ran an article recently chronicling the growing trend for women to “reduce” their multiple gestation pregnancies to a single...

A MAN who donated sperm to a lesbian couple will have his name stripped from their child's birth certificate after a successful legal bid by the birth mother's ex-partner. The woman took the NSW Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, and biological father, to court in May to have his name replaced with her name in the document. The female child was born in 2001 and the women split in 2006, although they continued to share parental responsibility. The man also played a role in the child's life. New South Wales District Court Judge Stephen Walmsley today ruled in her...

Artificial insemination costs vary widely across Sweden, forcing some same-sex couples to pay significantly more than heterosexual couples who save thousands of kronor by bringing their own sperm. “We think that it is discriminatory that there are different prices for insemination,” Ulrika Westerlund of the Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights (Riksförbundet för homosexuellas, bisexuellas och transpersoners rättigheter - RFSL) said to the Aftonbladet daily. RFSL would like to see a development of uniform regulations which apply across the country. “But that would be complicated and would require the state to go in and regulate. However, we...

August 15, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Unlike aborting a child conceived naturally, ending the life of an unborn child conceived by in-vitro fertilization (IVF) feels like “just another choice” in an already “consumerish” process, one IVF mom confessed in an article for the New York Times. “If I had conceived these twins naturally, I wouldn’t have reduced this pregnancy, because you feel like if there’s a natural order, then you don’t want to disturb it,” the mom, “Jenny,” told author Ruth Padawer. “But we created this child in such an artificial manner — in a test tube, choosing an egg donor,...

As if the new York Times couldn’t sink any further down the hole of warped and twisted pro-abortion activism, the Gray Lady is out with yet another “news” piece that moves the newspaper further beyond the pale.Ruth Pawder is out today with a new story titled “The Two-Minus-One Pregnancy,” that focuses on “selective reduction” – the euphemistic phrase given to name the destruction of one or more unborn children in a multiple pregnancy situation where a mother has more than one baby resulting from an IVF pregnancy involving the implantation of multiple human embryos.The Times never makes it past the...

Editor’s Note: In this commentary Msgr Barreiro responds to the statements of Dr. Janet Smith quoted in the August 2nd LifeSiteNews report “Top Catholic ethicists duel over frozen embryo adoption”. Msgr. Barreiro presents his understanding of the correct Catholic moral teaching on this issue. Msgr. Ignacio Barreiro Carámbula, J.D., S.T.D., HLI Interim President FRONT ROYAL, Virginia, August 3, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - At a recent debate http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/top-catholic-ethicists-duel-over-frozen-embryo-adoption at Christendom College Prof. Dr. Janet Smith upheld the view that the adoption of embryos could be morally appropriate, in particular if it is undertaken outside the context of in-vitro fertilization. To be realistic,...

LONDON, U.K., July 27, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Over one and a half million embryonic children have been killed in Britain through IVF procedures since 1991, according to new data from the country’s Department of Health. The figures, revealed by Britain’s Health Minister Lord Howe in response to a request from Lord Alton, show that over 30 embryos are created for every live birth through IVF. Doctors have created more than 3.1 million human embryos since Britain passed its Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act in 1991, resulting in only 94,090 successful births. Of the remainder, 1,455,832 embryos have been discarded, 101,605...

BERLIN, Germany, July 11, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A controversial form of “pre-implantation” embryonic testing for genetic disorders was approved by German parliament last Thursday. Members of Parliament voted 326-260 in favor of the bill, with eight MPs abstaining. Pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) extracts up to two cells from a human embryo obtained through in vitro fertilization for testing for severe genetic disorders that could result in stillbirth or miscarriage. Such testing is a highly sensitive subject in Germany, where the memory of the atrocities committed in the name of eugenics under the Nazis remains fresh in the national consciousness. The...

Moms give birth to sons or daughters - pretty straightforward stuff. But when one English toddler grows up and starts a family, her child will be her own half-sibling. At least that's the plan. The toddler, two-year-old Mackenzie Stephens, was born without ovaries, so her 25-year-old mother, Penny Jarvis, intends to freeze her own eggs so that Mackenzie can use them someday to start her own family, the Daily Mail reported. Jarvis, of Sheffield, England, told the paper she was devastated when she learned that Mackenzie would be infertile - the result of Turner Syndrome, a female-only genetic disorder that...

When I do presentations on in vitro fertilization, audience members sometimes ask whether test tube babies experience psychological problems as they grow up. Although they clearly face elevated health risks for a number of diseases and physical disorders, the psychological effects on these children have not been thoroughly studied. Nevertheless, children born from other, closely related technologies, like anonymous sperm donation, are starting to be tracked, and researchers are finding that these children face significant difficulties in dealing with their feelings and emotions as they grow older. They oftentimes struggle with their own sense of dignity and identity, with their...

h, boy! Do I have a story to tell you!! But first...two disclaimers: I totally have Krystal's permission to share this story with you. This post will likely anger you. Either you will be enraged by my point of view (sorry 'bout that!) or you will join me in my own outrage. Nobody leaves this place without singing the blues! :-) If we've been together for a while, you already know all about my journey through the desert of infertility. You know what? No one really takes you very seriously when you look back on that struggle while, at the...

Australian ethicist working at the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics claims that humanity has a “moral obligation” to use in vitro fertilization (IVF) to select the most intelligent embryos for the good of society, with the obvious implication that the less intelligent “surplus” embryos should simply be destroyed. Professor Julian Savulescu of Melbourne made the statement while commenting on an economic modeling research paper by Oxford University ethicists Andres Sandberg and Nick Bostrom, who claim that a rise in humanity’s IQ would result in a reduction in poverty, welfare dependency, crowding of jails, school dropout rates, out-of-wedlock births, and...