Posted on 07/29/2005 7:11:43 AM PDT by AliVeritas
Sometimes conservatives too quickly resign women’s issues to the liberals without realizing that there can be real common ground.
Recently, I wrote about the effects on women of cloning and embryonic stem cell research. While scientists, ethicists, and activists have all been going back and forth, little attention has been brought to the facts surrounding the extremely painful and risky egg harvesting procedure called ovarian hyperstimulation [OHS] that millions of women will be required to undergo for embryonic stem cell research to be widely used.
As in most cases, it often helps to put a face on the people who will be involved. The process of ovarian hyperstimulation is not one that normally attracts women. OHS is an intense regimen of hormone shots followed by an extremely uncomfortable egg harvesting procedure and poses the risk of impaired future fertility, stroke and even death.
(Excerpt) Read more at humaneventsonline.com ...
Should anything involving "Harvesting" be forbidden with regard to human prospects??
"Required"? More likely they will do it for money, just as those who contribute eggs for in-vitro fertilization do.
Exactly. This article specifically claims "Egg harvesting would be targeted at women with financial difficulties, typically ethnic minorities, students, and the like. ... But women who only need money and will receive no such personal gain as a child are women who aren’t in a position to give informed consent. Their financial need impairs their ability to adequately judge the risks involved."
By the exact same logic, military recruiting should be outlawed because ethnic minorities and poor people in financial need might be enticed to join up by signing bonuses, and their financial need impairs their ability to adequately judge the risks involved. Same with cops and firefighters and any other dangerous activity.
Clearly Dr. Pia de Solenni, the director of life and women’s issues at the Family Research Council who authored this article, has absolutely no respect for human rights or liberty. From her elitist viewpoint, people who make decisions she disagrees with have ipso facto proven that they are incapable of making mature competent decisions.
Outstanding summary.
A person may, in fact, be unintelligent or immature, but the fact that she considers the financial compensation for egg donation to be adequate does not prove or disprove her capacity.
The author is trying to make this a "women's rights" issue, but it's not working. As with many feminists, she tries plugs for women's rights by implying that women aren't capable of handling the right to make decisions for themselves!
There's an ad every week in the newspaper here for $2,500. And it's aimed at tall, white, college girls, not at the poor and minorities. People using donated eggs for in-vitro procedures want healthy, high-IQ, white kids.
There probably would be a drive to get poor women to donate eggs for embryonic stem cell research - costs would be less. However, that is a moral issue, not a "rights" issue. The author apparently doesn't want to say, "This is wrong!" so she's saying, "This exploits poor, minority women!"
Certainly she doesn't make much sense.
later pingout for sure.
Almost every day, an ad runs here in the Rutgers student paper advertising egg donation for IVF. They claim to offer at least $6000, usually $8000 or even $10,000 for eggs. The ads say they want intelligent, healthy, attractive women of all races to donate - though Asian donors are particularly sought after. One of my grad school classmates mentioned she considered this once. She said she wasn't bothered by the idea of having biological children somewhere out there that she'd never meet. But when she investigated the procedure more she realized it is quite a strain on a woman's body and she didn't think the money was worth the risk to her health. I imagine other young women who are desperate for cash are willing to take that risk though. The ads ask for intelligent, healthy women, but I really wonder just how intelligent and healthy (mentally) these donors are, considering that they aren't bothered by becoming mothers to children they'll never meet, and they are willing to greatly risk their health for money. I'm sure there are many women out there like that, but I wouldn't call them healthy or intelligent.
According to the World Health Organization, these deaths are rare and occur about one in 50,000 treatment cycles. But if we return to the lowest number of women required in order to use embryonic stem cell treatments for diabetes in the US, just one disease, 29 million women, that would translate into 580 deaths.
580 hypothetical deaths of egg donors ... 29 million deaths of newly conceived infants ... for a treatment that DOESN'T EVEN EXIST.
They're a product of the culture. Abortion, ESCR, artificial conception ... they're all connected.
The author is reflecting (or maybe just recognizing) this mindset when she assumes that people will care about the possible 580 deaths of egg donors in her diabetes-treatment projection, but that they don't care about the the guaranteed 29 million deaths of embryos.
People do a lot of risky things for money. Though donating eggs may hold some risk, as a "job" it's probably a lot more safe than, say, being a cop or a cab driver.
As for their mental health? I don't find it surprising that a woman wouldn't be too bothered by the fact that her eggs are used to produce a child. I think much of the attachment to a child by a mother comes due to the 9 months of carrying the child to term. Without that, there is very little emotional attachment, especially to just some eggs.
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