Posted on 06/29/2010 4:02:55 PM PDT by wagglebee
HARTFORD, Connecticut, June 29, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In a disastrous chain of events, a set of “wanted” embryos quickly became “unwanted” after an artificially impregnated women was informed by her fertility clinic that they had accidentally implanted the embryos of another woman by the same name.
The woman’s solution was to take the morning-after pill (which, ironically, pro-abortion forces insist is simply a form of contraception and cannot cause an abortion) and abort the nascent life within her.
The Associated Press reports that the Center for Advanced Reproductive Services at the University of Connecticut Health Center has agreed to pay a $ 3,000 fine over the incident, which took place last April, according to state health records.
Apparently, a lab technician had removed a batch of human embryos from the storage freezer without following proper procedure. She only matched the last name, but forgot to crosscheck with the last four digits of the woman’s social security number and the medical record number.
The lab technician discovered the error a day later – but by then it was too late. The woman had already been implanted with another client’s embryos, which had been on ice for approximately four years.
After being told about the error one hour after having the embryos implanted within her, the woman then decided she did not want to carry someone else’s baby, and took the morning-after pill.
Bioethicist Wesley J. Smith commented on his blog about the event, saying it illustrates not only how children have come to be treated as a commodity through in vitro fertilization, but also how this process can sometimes snare “would-be birth and biological parents … in terrible, heart wrenching circumstances.”
The center has insisted that the mix-up is the first ever in their 24-year history, calling it “important and emotionally difficult for patients and center alike.”
Smith, however, pointed out that mix-ups have happened before at IVF clinics – although in at least one extraordinary case the birth mother made a painful, but life-affirming choice. Sean and Carolyn Savage of Ohio found out last year that their IVF clinic had transferred the wrong embryos. The Savages, however, refused to abort on account of their pro-life religious beliefs, and arranged to hand over the baby to his biological parents shortly after the birth.
“When the mistake was discovered in that case, the birth mother and her husband chose life for someone else’s baby,” remarked Smith. “Which choice reflects unconditional love?”
Carolyn Savage told Meredith Vieira of the TODAY Show back in September that the hardest experience would be the delivery of the child, where she would only have a chance to say “hello” and “goodbye.”
“Of course, we will wonder about this child every day for the rest of our lives,” she added. “We just want to know he’s healthy and happy.”
A follow-up with the TODAY Show in May, revealed that the baby Carolyn Savage carried to term was born Logan Morell, now approximately 8 months old. The Savages and the Morells have become friends through the painful experience. However the Savages declined to appear on the TODAY Show, saying that the months following Logan’s birth have been much more difficult for them to deal with than they expected, but they hope to write about their experiences in a book for 2011.
Right, that’s the third function, so it is designed to end a human life if the first two mechanisms fail.
Yup.
Shameful. I guess “any” baby wouldn’t do.
What a tangled web we weave, when we try to artificially conceive.
Actually, that's not true. For an embryo to be "left by itself" is exactly what nature does -- it's fertilized in the fallopian tube, and then is essentially dumped into the uterus, where it may or may not ever implant. IVF puts it in the same place, just via a different route.
The "relatively low" success rates of most fertility clinics are due to the fact that most of their patients are people who have been trying for a long time, both the natural way, and with non-invasive methods (e.g. just taking pills to promote ovulation), and have not been able to have a baby yet. Most of them have serious and/or complex problems impairing their fertility (sometimes involving a combination of male and female problems), and the science and technology haven't advanced yet to where these problems can be reliably overcome.
If you look at certain subsets of IVF patients/treatments, you'll see that the fertility clinics' success rates are right up there with nature's success rates (which are nowhere near as high as most people imagine). For women not beyond their early 30s, whose only "problem" is that they got their tubes tied (or blocked by a previous infection or tubal pregnancy), the overall success rate is virtually 100% -- usually takes 2-3 rounds of IVF to get a baby, but that's the same with natural conceptions. Most couples don't establish a viable pregnancy in the first month of actively "trying" the natural way, because the majority of naturally fertilized eggs don't progress all the way to the live birth stage -- most of the ones that don't either fail to implant or stop developing before the woman even knows she's pregnant. The IVF success rates are virtually identical for older women (even to age 50 and above) using donor eggs from younger donors. So IVF technology itself has reached a point where it's on a par with nature. But a majority of the patients doing IVF have little to no chance of having a baby the natural way, and thus statistically, IVF (even using their own eggs/sperm) provides a very significant boost in their success rates, despite the success rates being low in comparison to those of young healthy couples using either natural means or IVF.
Another interesting aspect is that some women have cycle irregularities that cause the implantation-receptive stage of the uterus to never coincide with the time when a naturally ovulated/fertilized egg will reach the uterus. This type of problem can be corrected by IUI or IVF (and sometimes by even less invasive methods). A narrower category of patients have what is known in Orthodox Jewish circles as "halachic infertility" -- i.e. they're only infertile due to following Orthodox Jewish law about the required delay between the end of the menstrual period and the resumption of sexual relations. If they'd have sex sooner after their period ends, they'd get pregnant the natural way, but they won't. There are some large Orthodox Jewish families out there whose children are entirely the result of IUI or IVF intervention to get around this problem (usually only IUI is needed). http://www.jewishwomenshealth.org/article.php?article=9 If you read through the gory details of the relevant Jewish law ( http://www.jewishwomenshealth.org/article.php?article=12 ), you'll marvel that Orthodox Judaism hasn't completely died out (and in fact, I strongly suspect that many individual lines DID die out on account of this, leaving few women in these communities who are naturally prone to cycle parameters that leave no intersection between following the mind-boggling law and capacity to reproduce).
Then obviously you don't read any of my posts about RKBA, or public schools, or prosecution/punishment of criminals, or federal income taxes, or "welfare", or private property rights, . . .
It's not that "they" have defined pregnancy as beginning at implantation. That's simply the biological reality. Pregnancy is a condition of a woman, not of a fertilized egg or embryo.
As demonstrated by IVF, conception can occur outside the body, and in fact the embryo can develop outside the body to as far as the blastocyst stage without any ill effects, because it is inherently an independent entity through that stage. Nobody is pregnant when an embryo is in a petri dish dividing up to the blastocyst stage. At that stage (with or without an interruption of decade or more, while it sits in a freezing nitrogen tank), you could still randomly transfer it into any one of a group of women whose uterine linings are at the right stage, and have an equal chance of any one of those *women* becoming pregnant. But until it forms a functioning connection to a uterine lining, none of the women are pregnant.
While I don't share the views of most here, that early embryos should be regarded as full-fledged human beings, I respect intelligent arguments in support of that position. What I don't respect is people throwing around baseless accusations in an attempt to promote that position. Defining pregnancy as beginning at implantation is not some conspiracy by people who don't think embryos should be considered as being on a par with fully developed humans who have been born and no longer have or require a physical connection to their birth mother. It's a biological fact that is fully understood, accepted, and taught by all well-informed biologists and physicians, including those who *do* believe that a just-fertilized egg has the ethical status of, and should have the legal status of a young child.
Beginning of pregnancy controversy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beginning_of_pregnancy_controversy
More:
However, as often is the case in contentious issues, such as abortion and contra-ception, what is clear is made ambiguous. The dirty little word game is that when Family Planning advocates use the word “conception,” they mean the entire process from when the egg and ovum combine (fertilization) through the point at which the fertilized ovum attaches to the wall of the mother’s uterus (implantation). Under this definition, a “contraceptive” cannot only prevent sperm and ovum from meeting (as a condom clearly would) but also prevent a fertilized ovum from attaching to the uterine wall.
The word game here is that as long as the fertilized ovum has not attached to the uterus, the mother technically is not yet pregnant. Thus defined, some, hormonal contraceptives (including Barr Pharmaceutical’s “Plan B”) and Inter Uterine Devices (IUDs) simply “prevent pregnancy.” At least Barr Pharmaceutical’s web site is forthright in stating “Plan B may also work by preventing it [the fertilized ovum] from attaching to the uterus (womb).”
http://www.pewsitter.com/view_news_id_10196.php
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And he is right. What a horrible thing has happened here.
Why do you even care what causes abortion?
You don’t have any problems with abortion.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/669213/posts?page=15#15
We understand PERFECTLY.
You are a pro-abortion libertarian. You happen to share some beliefs with conservatives, but you also share some very destructive beliefs with the left.
You have been all over this thread saying that this isn't really an abortion because, in your opinion, the embryo had not implanted. But the reality is that you don't care one way or another. You have a long history of trying to convert conservatives to your pro-abortion position and this thread is just another example of that.
Exactly right.
Ah! So GovernmentShrinker is a liberaltarian.
Well, isn't that special! One assumes you also believe Dubya never read a book and the Tea Partiers are mouth-breathing ignoramuses, as well.
And let’s be really clear, it WAS NOT LifeSiteNews or Wesley J. Smith (who is the main source of the LifeSiteNews story), that said it was the morning after pill. The story originated with an NBC affiliate in Connecticut:
If someone wants to make the case that an NBC affiliate in Connecticut has some sort of pro-life bias, please feel free to do so because I would love to read it!
I read that. Not my ally. My allies don’t kill the innocent for fun and profit.
We’ve got quite a few leftists on here who think they belong because they don’t like taxes and own a gun.
I have noticed that. Liberaltarians need to start their own site as they disagree with conservatives on moral issues.
The libertarians did start their own site, it was basically nothing more than an anti-FReeper forum. I think it became inactive due to lack of interest.
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