If Embryos are Human then Fertility Clinics are Death Camps: Pro-abortion Columnist

LifeSiteNews ^ | 7/21/06 | John Jalsevac

[wagglebee]

TORONTO, ON, July 21, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A pro-abortion columnist writing for the National Post has followed the logic of pro-life arguments about the evils of embryonic stem cell research and concluded that, if true, then artificial reproduction techniques must also be considered murderous on the scale of genocide.

“In short, if embryos are human beings with full human rights, fertility clinics are death camps—with a side order of cold-blooded eugenics,” writes Kinsley in an article entitled Where’s the Logic? “No one who truly believes in the humanity of embryos could possibly think otherwise.”

Kinsley explains that in vitro clinics, in their efforts to produce a successful pregnancy, always create numerous embryos, ultimately selecting the best and destroying the rest. Thus not only is murder involved, as thousands of embryonic human beings are destroyed in fertility clinics, but also eugenics, as only the healthiest embryos are selected for implantation.

“In any particular case, fertility clinics try to produce more embryos than they intend to implant. Then…they pick and choose among the candidates, looking for qualities that make for a better human being…If the fertility clinic rejects you, you get flushed away—or maybe frozen until the day you can be discarded without controversy.”

The only logical conclusion, he says, “is that if embryos are human beings, the routine practices of fertility clinics are far worse—both in numbers and in criminal intent—than stem-cell research.”

Kinsley, however, following his display of logical clarity in linking the moral equivalance of the practices of IVF and embryonic stem cell research, continues on to state about the practices of fertility clinics that, “And yet no one objects, or objects very loudly.”  From this alleged silence he infers that pro-life advocates are inconsistent, and thereby calls into question the sincerity of the pro-life belief that the embryo is a human being with all the same human rights as any other human being. If even pro-life advocates—he indicates—don’t believe in the humanity of the embryo in all circumstances, but only selectively, then the embryo must not be human.

Pro-life advocates, however, would strongly disagree with Kinsley's assertion that the pro-life community is silent on the issue of IVF being equally murderous as embryonic stem cell research. "Playing God by creating humans in petri dishes is simply wrong," American Life League president Judie Brown has been quoted as saying, echoing the belief of the pro-life movement the world over. "The pro-life movement needs to address the evils of in vitro fertilization with the same diligence with which we denounce all other forms of abortion."

Many other pro-life and religious groups have strongly condemned IVF for its wanton destruction of human life, and there is a strong effort to inform the public on its true nature, and to overturn legislation allowing the precedure. The Vatican, for one, has consistently and vociferously condemned in vitro fertilization, and Catholic teaching is that those who obtain IVF treatments do so at the pain of serious sin, and possible excommunication.

Since its inception LifeSiteNews.com for its own part has published hundreds of articles revealing the truth about in vitro fertilization—that it results in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of children annually, and opens itself up to eugenic abuses.

See http://www.lifesite.net/features/invitro/ for a partial list of LifeSiteNews.com stories on IVF.

[jwalsh07]

OK, is an embryo human life?

Has human life ever been observed to come from anything but human life?

Biogenesis is as yet an unbroken law, undenaibly a baby is human life correct?

But the baby was once a foetus which also has to be human life because life can only come from life.

Likewise the foetus develops from the embryonic stage and once again life only comes from life. That's the current law of the universe.

So if an embryo is life which developed from a zygote then the zygote must be alive, right? And since we are discussing human zygotes, the zygote that is living is both alive and human, human life.

That's how biology works. Politics and morality work differently but the fact of the matter is that a zygote or an embryo is human life at that stage of human life. It has ever been so.

[ArGee]

I still remember one of the few times I listened to Dr. Laura's radio broadcast a woman was asking about issues raised with her acting as surrogate mother for her sister's child. The caller was wondering what to tell her child since mommy was clearly pregnant, but the child wasn't going to have a brother/sister.

Dr. Laura chastised this woman's sister for being so self-focused that she had to create this kind of moral/ethical problem just so she could have "her own" child. Dr. Laura went on to talk about our entire culture and the lengths we went to so that people could have "their own" children rather than adopting children who were in need of parents.

Obviously this entire fertility clinic issue would go away if people would be satisfied with adoption instead of insisting they have to pass on their own genes.

Shalom.

[Brytani]

Good for your daughter and son-in-law. I would do the exact same thing. In fact, I contacted my state right-to-life office and got a listing of pro-life GYN's in my area to decide who I would use.

The doctor I chose will not perform an abortion for reasons of birth control. He will only perform one in the rare case of an ectopic pregnancy when there is no possibility of moving the baby into the uterus or in the total of two times when the woman began to hemorrhage at the beginning of a pregnancy, surgery was unable to stop the bleeding and both patients ended up losing their uterus along with the child.

In his 23 years of practice he's only had 5 woman total who's lives were literally in danger of being pregnant and all of them were within the 1st trimester of the pregnancy.

I spent a good hour questioning him prior to taking him on as my doctor making sure his ethical standards were fully acceptable to me.

[jwalsh07]

This supports my belief that a zygote is nothing more than complex chemical compound that develops into a human life.

Sadly for you abiogenesis has never been observed and biogenesis remains the law of the land. But if you have any evidence that human embryos develop from rocks I'd be happy to look at it.

[jwalsh07]

Atta girl! :-}

[olivia3boys]

I've read that only 25% of IVF patients have any leftover embryos to freeze.

There's a lot of attrition with IVF; only some eggs fertilize, only some fertilized eggs grow to day 3 embryos, only some of those will implant, and only some of those make it to the second trimester. . .having any leftover to freeze is somewhat rare.

But you know all this--and congratulations on your daughter!

[Irish_Thatcherite]

And how do you know that frozen embryoes are locked up apart from God? In the very least, they wouldn't be locked up forever, something would happen...

[ArGee]

The purpose of embryonic stem-cell research is not to destroy embryos....they could destroy embryos without the research! The purpose is to save and improve lives via the results of the research!

By the same token they can save and improve lives by researcing adult stem cells, which has actually shown some value.

Shalom.

[NeoCaveman]

“In short, if embryos are human beings with full human rights, fertility clinics are death camps—with a side order of cold-blooded eugenics,” writes Kinsley in an article entitled Where’s the Logic? “No one who truly believes in the humanity of embryos could possibly think otherwise.”

Of course. And her point is?

[Yaelle]

Kinsley explains that in vitro clinics, in their efforts to produce a successful pregnancy, always create numerous embryos, ultimately selecting the best and destroying the rest. Thus not only is murder involved, as thousands of embryonic human beings are destroyed in fertility clinics, but also eugenics, as only the healthiest embryos are selected for implantation.

This is not true.

There is no reason to destroy any embryo in in vitro conception. No doctor has the right to legally destroy a couple's embryos without their permission.

Once the eggs are fertilized, the embryos either start to grow or they don't. The doctor might grow them to 3 or 5 days before transfer. Some do not make it. The doctor will then transfer 1-3 embryos back into the uterus and freeze anything remaining for a later transfer.

If the embryo is not visibly viable then it would never have formed a baby. Many of the visibly "excellent" embryos also will never form a baby, because their chromosomes are wrong in number (aneuploidy). This aneuploidy affects 40-60% of all embryos on the planet, including the ones any husband and wife create in the marital bed.

Any couple using artificial reproductive technology has the right to insist that all embryos, even ones that look bad, are transferred to the woman or frozen.

Reproductive technology is a boon and a blessing. Yet it must be used with ethics and responsibility.

[brytlea]

You're correct, this really IS all about money. There is no law banning the embryonic stem cell research. This is simply trying to get the government to open MY pockets to this research. I really believe that if there was much to the wonderous claims, there would be plenty of private and foundation money pouring in.
susie

[olivia3boys]

It's not the clinics per se which kill embryos--the embryos' fates are decided by the parents, except in the case of Louisiana, I believe, which has a law against discarding embryos.

Anyone know what IVF clinics in Louisiana do with all the leftover embryos? Do the parents just agree to donate any leftover embryos to another infertile couple?

[Irish_Thatcherite]

This supports my belief that a zygote is nothing more than complex chemical compound that develops into a human life.

According to that logic, all humans are nothing more than a complex chemical compound, that statement is straight out of a Eugenicist's textbook.

[Lunatic Fringe]

Has human life ever been observed to come from anything but human life?

You yourself admitted in the last thread that sperms and eggs are not human life, but that is where babies come from. So which is it? Does human life only come from human life, or does human life spring from chemicals that can only created by humans?

[afraidfortherepublic]

I totally agree with the headline. What needs explaining?

[Lunatic Fringe]

By the same token they can save and improve lives by researcing adult stem cells, which has actually shown some value.

Embryonic stem cell would as well, if only it had 40 years of federal funding.

[wagglebee]

According to that logic, all humans are nothing more than a complex chemical compound, that statement is straight out of a Eugenicist's textbook.

Kind of like "we're all going to die anyhow, so why not kill the 'nonproductive worthless eaters.'"

[Yaelle]

And God kills off at least one in eight people before their mother even knows she's pregnant! Heaven is loaded with zygotes!

Your figures are wrong. If the woman is under 35, about 50% of pregnancies end before the woman would know. The rate of aneuploid eggs increases from there. If she is 45, about 90% of conceptions will not make it far. If a married couple have relations all through her childbearing years, who knows how many times sperm successfully penetrated egg.

[cvq3842]

Snarky devil's advocate time - you mean each fertilized egg could be not just one person, but several? You just increased the concern!

I have very little formal scientific knowledge. I am trying to be respectful of everyone. I'm just very wary, having been a zygote once myself. The DNA blueprint is established at that point, no?

The hard part, though, is even if we all agree it is a genetically complete (although very, very unformed) human being, there may still be other considerations that, on balance, outweigh the concerns about destroying these humans, whatever stage they are in.

To be blunt, society permits killing, even of "innocent" life, in several circumstances, where we have decided rightly or wrongly that there are other more important considerations. Almost every person reading this would support abortion if it were the only way to save the mother's life, no matter how rare that case is. I would argue the pros and cons in this case, and yes the fact that it's at an early stage of development could be a factor.

I'm not taking a firm stand because I just don't have the answer. Maybe it's my lack of scientific knowledge. But I think we should just face the fact that we make these decisions, God help us, and not get bogged down in exactly what it is. It is human. It's not a dog or a fish. It's not a skin cell - it's a complete human, but in a VERY early stage of development.

I try, with my limited expertise, to get past that and then say "now what?" Ok, off the soapbox. See you all later. :)

[NeoCaveman]

So...if heaven is where we are united with God, and where any Christian should want to be, what is the Christian view of a place that freezes humans indefinitely? Do these embryos have souls locked up apart from God? Isn't it more Christian to release them so they go directly to heaven, rather than sit imprisoned apart from God?

We could get more people to heaven faster by nuking the earth, yet we don't. Nor should we.