Pressure on to limit eggs in IVF process (by lawmakers and couples)

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05212/546513.stm

<snip>

And lately, government pressure has been building on other fronts to limit how many embryos are produced in the first place for infertile couples undergoing IVF, the most common high-tech fertility treatment.

Any serious attempt to impose such limits would equate to "medical malpractice,'' said Sean Tipton, spokesman for the American Society for Reproductive Medicine. "What you're talking about are government policies to restrict a couple's ability to make their own reproductive decisions.''

Doctors often fertilize more eggs than will be implanted to get the most viable embryos. Those not used are either frozen for storage or discarded.

Anti-abortion activists have picketed a fertility clinic in Virginia. Lonnie Napier, a 20-year Republican legislator in Kentucky, is pushing state legislation that would make it a felony to fertilize more than one egg per IVF cycle. And U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback, a Kansas Republican, suggested on a recent TV news program that there be limits to the number of eggs that can be fertilized and that they all be implanted at one time.

That would echo a relatively new law in heavily Catholic Italy that no more than three eggs be fertilized per IVF cycle and that they all be implanted. And many families, like the Washington County couple, are imposing their own limits.

I have had friends who conceived a child through IVF. They explained the process. They said the specialist harvested 10 eggs from their IVF trial. The 9th egg was the one who was successfully fertilized......

These people need to research what the hell they are voting for/against!

What these idiots are missing is that not every in-vitro fertilized egg is suitable for implantation. A pretty high percentage of them are unlikely to be able to implant in the first place. If doctors are limited to fertilizing one egg at a time, couples will waste time, energy, and money on IVF cycles that never result in an implantable embryo.

Tucker

There is something wrong with having to argue medical practice to legislators.

It is not the role of legislators to determine what medicine a medical doctor should or should not practice (provided other obvious laws are not broken).

The fact this is even an issue means something is terribly wrong.

It doesn't matter if there are valid medical reasons for this or not - it shouldn't even be an issue.

I don't think there's anything wrong with discussing the scope and depth of the insanity, but I try to keep people focused on this factor, too. It IS the most important thing to be outraged about.

anyone except the elite from attempting enough times for one to work.

never implant. Do they really believe that every single fertilized egg implants and automatically becomes a baby in 9 months?

If it doesn't happen with a natural conception, why the hell would it with IVF?

As for those Snowflake babies, why aren't they telling the public how many implantations they had to do to get ONE of those babies? Do these idiots really believe, even putting aside the CONSENT factor, that those 400,000 frozen embryos are ever going to result in 400,000 Snowflake babies?

when did we start electing politicians to decide our medical care?....hmmmmm...i know the answer...never mind

IVF has made huge advances, but it is far from perfect. The costs and risks to the mother from each cycle are huge. Each cycle of fertility drugs and harvest cost thousands of dollars and increase the woman's chance of ovarian cancer. The chances of conception are getting better, but to limit the number of eggs is inhuman. When I considered IVF as a healthy 30 yr old, my chances of conception were less than 50% with an implantation of 5-7 eggs. One cycle cost over 10k, if there were extra fertized eggs, it would only cost us an addition 2k to store them and implant them if the first try didn't work. This was many years ago, but I know other women who are facing similar challenges today. The cost has come down a little, the chances are only slightly better. Do these legislators realize that they are denying infertile women the only chance they may have to bear a child in order to save embroyos that have little or no chance of survival even in they are considered "Snow babies".

On our third try, we used 4 fresh embryos from a retrieval that same cycle - of which 3 made it. The dr. implanted 3. One took, but didn't develop long enough to even see a heartbeat. The other 14 were frozen. After recovering from the loss and taking a break, we went back for our last try. We had our embryos thawed, 8 made it thru the thaw process, 5 continued to divide, only 1 made it to the blastocyst stage and was tranferrable.

He is now 5yo and the light of my life. I can see having a limit on how many can be input at one time. Most couples who go thru IVF are going to go thru high-risk pregnancies due to the pumping of hormones, micromanagement of their cycle, extra cautions due to age, physical condition, etc. They don't need to put more on their systems by having more than the possibility of twins or triplets. I had to have heparin shots my whole pregnancy and bleed heavily off/on until 16 wks.

With one embryo to transfer, we were given a less than 5% chance that it would work. Needless to say, when we were going in for the procedure, talk turned to how many we would let the dr. transfer. The decision was taken out of our hands since only 1 was still dividing when we got there. Our dr. would not transfer more than 5 embryos, and at the time, he was talking about bringing that down to 4. He did not like doing selective reduction. His reasoning wasn't due to that it was essentially an abortion, but he felt that the more pokeing around you did in there when the other babies were developing, was just asking for more risk than what it was worth. You could lose your whole pregnancy, so why even risk putting too many in.

Would I do it again if I could? Would I do it for someone else to use the harvested eggs? YES! In a heartbeat!

IVF is costly and why in the hell can't people adopt a child. I wouldn't legislate on it.

ALSO, having frozen cycles allows better management of the cycle for supporting the implanted embryo. They are giving you drugs to make you produce the eggs, which may or may not be the right combination for building the best lining and uterine environment for implantation. I did better with my hormone numbers on the frozen cycles because my body could be prepared a different way.

Government has GOT to stay out of our uterus'!

unfuckingbelievable!
\

Unfuckingbelievable is right!

:grr:

:evilgrin:

:cry:

as heavy-handed government regulation

I see a valid reason for right-to-lifers wanting to limit wasted embryos, but it should be framed as individual responsibility. Just like they like for industrial plants to voluntarily limit the amount of pollutants.

Couples wanting IVF should be encouraged to make sure that the labs are not creating unneccessary amounts of embryos, but the amount that they choose should not be regulated.

We can fund them with another round of tax cuts.

Insanity. Is there another word to describe this?

of the fundamentalist extremist overboard - already sunk to the bottom - and came up w/brain damage party.

They are lost souls and lost causes and to be (almost) pitied.

They are oblivious to reality.

They want theocracy the law of the land.

but they are lacking those who are not worth over 5 million. The French revolution came about w/ few murmers (of the end game).

Electorally - We will shave off millions due to the REAL issues (of course, Diebold and ES&S will enact FRAUD). It is only a matter of time.

MANY ppl I know have given up on the MSM media in general. They are disillusioned and in search of answers.... who will give them what they seek?



'May you live in interesting times'.... ancient Chinese curse.

and probably sperm also. I can hardly wait till they join the 14th century and make masturbation a felony for wasting life.

I am telling you thats where this bull shit is headed.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory?id=868014

Pray to Jesus and all your medical problems will go away.:sarcasm:

If they think women are angry about being refused birth control pills, wait until they refuse mood stabilizers to a bipolar patient (my daughter is). Oh, oh. This could get DANGEROUS.

my head is pallative care for the terminally ill, as I've heard arguments against it in some of most recent dealings in home hospice. Had a relative of my dying F-i-L say I was killing him with that pain medication and I should stop giving it to him.

It was like, no you dumb-f*, he IS dying, with or without the meds. You'd rather he suffer? His answer - yes, it may give him more time. :eyes:

Oh yes, by all means let's prolong his suffering. :sarcasm:

We must all go to Benny Hinn for our ailments and STOP having sex for anything other than pro-creation.

So, any pharmacists denying Viagra yet?

She's a hemophiliac she needs this medicine to regulate the blood flow of her period once she gets older. These barbarians arent about culture of life and I wish people would stop stop refering them to as christians.

The birth control pill is also used to treat severe amenorrhea. I had horrible cramping and severe bleeding as a teenager. I became anemic because of it. It runs in my family. Same thing happened to my daughter. She was put on the pill when she was 16 for this reason.

There are other reasons doctors prescribe birth control pills other than to prevent pregnancy.

So now these right to life pharmacists are licensed to practice medicine and overrule doctors?

I thought all these coat hanger enthusiast needed a degree in medicine before they can say abortion was wrong? You know I got a degree in biology so I can legislate stem cell effect. LOL did I tell you one of these priest for life said that I god was punishinig me with parkinsons because I wanted to be an "embryo farmer"
Lol. Stay away from that kool aid.

It's pretty obvious these people have no clue at all about the science. Fertility clinics are full of people who pay lots of money to CHOOSE LIFE. About 63% of all human embryos self abort in nature. The extracted embryos that die at a center have an equal or greater chance of dying if fertilized naturally threw sex. Fertility clinic's make babies for people who cannot have them otherwise. They create life, not abortions.

That's what they'll do when THEY aren't able to get pregnant.

And It's exactly what WILL happen when these death wing freaks kill, Yes So called Christian Conservatives... KILL your babies by continuing to add Thermasol (Mercury)to your infants immunization shots and by hopelessly polluting one's ability to conceive.

over the line.

now that they no what it feels like to have their reproductive choices fucked with.

option?

What this kind of panto calls to mind for me is the emphasis among the wealthy on getting an 'heir of the body' -- can't have control of all that wealth falling into the hands of someone without the 'right' blood.

It's positively mediaeval.

couples would consider adoption and fostering the extant children in need of homes before deciding they must do IVF and only IVF to create their families, especially considering the health risks and expense involved. There are a myriad of reasons people choose IVF when faced with difficulties in trying to conceive, those reasons can be complex and personal. What I don't understand when I encounter it is that attitude many couples have ingrained in themselves which is "I could simply never love an adopted child as well as one of my own flesh and blood." Yes, I know there are ten thousand other reasons parents don't--or can't--adopt or foster (depending on the state they live in, GLBT perspective parents face prohibitive obstacles to those options). I just wish the people who have just decided they must have a child of their own, a baby of their own, would at least seriously consider adoption, too. I was a mentor to an older child for a long time, and I really grew to care for the kid. True, our situation was NOT anything like the relationship parents have with their kids, adopted or not, but it really broadened my perspective about that subject, and made me think I would not love a child I brought into my life via adoption in a different or lesser way than one "my own flesh and blood."

But, I hear what your saying about disliking some of the attitudes too many people I've met who Must. Have. Their. Own. Baby. have embraced and feel shamelessly entitled to. And being of a certain bent about these things, I don't understand how putting your life and essential aspects of your health or your partner's health at risk in the way IVF can is an acceptable sacrifice--why does anyone need to have kids that way THAT bad? If it's reached that point, how much of what you are doing is about the child you're going to be raising? That perspective confounds, baffles, and somewhat disgusts me.

to 'Little people' as eggs. It sounds so bird like.

Sarcasm.

180

In Norway, they only implant 2 embryoes at a time, because any more increases the risk of prematurely born babies. They've found that it isn't worth the risk to implant more than two at a time.

However, they don't limit how many eggs they harvest from the mother, nor how many embryoes they make. In fact, while the Norwegian government fund three tries for each couple suffering from infertility, if there are more viable embryoes than 2 made from a 'harvesting', any implantations of excess embryoes don't count towards the three tries.

The problem with these fundies is that they just don't see that even if they define life from an early stage of gestation, gestation starts when the embryo is implanted into the uterine wall. As the article states, 70-75% of all naturally conceived embryoes don't get to that stage. So if a woman produces 9 eggs in an induced cycle, all of them are made into embryoes, and 2 are implanted, she's still within that "Godly" margin.

"...government policies to restrict a couple's ability to make their own
reproductive choices."

Yes, that's what it's all about, from restricting access to abortion and
birth-control to this nonsense. These people are trying to return us
to the 19th Century, and the only good thing is that they are shooting
themselves in the foot. Lots of Republican and Conservative women
are going to be affected by these policies too.

How does that work anyway? Couples sign away their rights so these embryos can be adopted? I don't get it. I saw Scotty mentioned this in the press briefing last week in the discussion on Frist's "flip-flop" on stem cell research.

Bizarre.

http://adopting.adoption.com/child/embryo-adoption.html

snip>

Existing embryos: During IVF treatments, couples may produce many embryos in their attempt to conceive. These embryos are cryopreserved (placed in cold storage) for use as needed. If the couple conceives without using all the stored embryos, they may choose to have the remaining embryos destroyed, to donate them for research or implantation, or to make them available for adoption.

Made-to-order embryos: Embryos can alternatively be created using the sperm and eggs of selected donors. Donors may be selected on the basis of adopting parents' criteria.

Medical requirements: Adopting mothers must be physically able to carry a child to term.

Making it legal: As the law stands now, many state laws determine that a woman who gives birth to a child is his/her parent, and few states have any statutes covering embryo adoption. All reputable specialists in this field recommend that contractual documents be drawn up between the genetic and adopting parents that clearly define the agreement.

for embryo adoption? :wtf:

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05212/545902.stm

The Johnsons, who live outside of Reading, are the beneficiaries of an emerging industry that is making embryos left from infertility treatments available to other couples seeking children. It's a practice heavily backed by the Bush administration, which is distributing federal grants to promote these options.

snip>

The Johnsons were among several families in the Snowflakes program who met President Bush in May. Bush has pushed embryo adoption as an alternative to using extra embryos for stem-cell research.

While the option makes sense on paper, Sean Tipton, spokesman for the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, is concerned that the government might go too far.

"We are all for embryo donation being offered," Tipton said. "We think it's a great option. So far, it's been an option very few patients are choosing. We feel strongly that these decisions stay in the hands of patients, and not be mandated by government."

Sooo compassionate. Gah.

I admit I don't know too much about IVF, but A woman who worked for me went through that process 3 times.

She did explain some of it to me. They always implant at least 4, because most won't attach to the uterine wall. In her case, she has triplets the first time, twons the second time and the last time..... they finally got their boy.

She sure is a better person than I am. In her last letter enclosed in the Christmas card, she said "Most people think I'm crazy having 5 kids under the age of 5!"

As far as I know, they tried implants 4 times before ANY of them attached to the utirine wall. It was a very long and expensive process.

I really wish the Congress would stay OUT of the technical aspects of medical science. They don't know enough about it, they don't understand it, and they're NOT smart enough to learn!!!!