[Vision2020] 500,000 Embryos Cry Out to be Born

[Donovan Arnold]

Dr. Gier,

Thanks for the thoughts.

I don't think most people agree with a woman seeking medical intervention to achieve having eight children at once when she already has six children and no means to care for them. 

I am opposed to the notion of the government making medical mandates or of one, two, or five embryos being deposited based on her age range. 

I think instead, we should require people in the health profession to report to the police and mental health experts of a person making unreasonable requests that could be detriment to the health of the babies and herself if they preformed them. We charge the health professionals for not reporting it, and the parents for endangering the lives of minors. 

I also would not be asking God why this or that. It is God that should be questioning our behavior of allowing people that shouldn't be having any babies to give birth to six or eight at a time. Who is really the people and system that is messed up here? God had a good system that has lasted well so far. 

While the Vatican is not perfect, and certainly is flawed in opposing all contraception under all conditions, I don't think their policies are any more laughable than that of the United States that teaches both safe sex and abstinence, and lets the mentally ill pump out litters of children at a time by messing with their plumbing. 

I think to suggest that the Vatican, or any rational thinking people, would uphold the contention that all eggs and all sperm should not be united to a create life. It is clear the way God designed it, only a few sperm, the strongest and best prepared of the million, and an occasional egg, maybe two on occasion, and rarly three, are to be untied at time. And only if everything goes right, does a life come into the world. 

What is nutty, is not that policy, what is nutty, is to take millions of sperm, and millions of eggs of people that never meet each other, fertilize them, and put them into people six or eight at a time. That is what is crazy. These children will have multiple disabilities, economic challenges, and media following them all their lives. Who is it that going to pay the price for this evil act? It's God's fault right? He is the one that let it happen. 

Before you point fingers and say who is sane and not, we need to have our own heads checked. 

Best Regards,

Donovan

--- On Fri, 3/6/09, nickgier at roadrunner.com <nickgier at roadrunner.com> wrote:
From: nickgier at roadrunner.com <nickgier at roadrunner.com>
Subject: [Vision2020] 500,000 Embryos Cry Out to be Born
To: vision2020 at moscow.com
Date: Friday, March 6, 2009, 9:36 AM

Good Morning Visionaries:

I've been really pleased with the debate generated by my columns on drugs
and interrogations.  Thanks to all those who participated and continue to weigh
in.

I've been wanting to do a column on the octuplets mother Nadya Suleman, so
here is the result.  The full version is attached as a PDF file.

Read my other column on embryos "A FROZEN EMBRYO DEMANDS A SUBPOENA"
<www.home.roadrunner.com/~nickgier/embryo.htm>, and there is more on the
Jewish Golem (pretty spooky fellow) in my article on abortion at
<www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/abortion.htm>.

Let's get out and support the rights of those poor embryos!

Nick Gier

500,000 FROZEN EMBRYOS CRY OUT TO BE BORN
by Nick Gier

When octuplets mother Nadya Suleman was asked on NBC's Today show why, in
each of her six pregnancies, she had all her embryos transferred to her womb,
she answered emphatically: "They are my children!" 

Let us ponder the full implications of Suleman's extreme pro-life position.
There are an estimated 500,000 frozen embryos in America's fertility
clinics. They are left over from all the attempts at "in vitro
fertilization" (IVF). 

Most people obviously have not implanted all their embryos; rather, they
evidently have chosen to follow guidelines of the American Society for
Reproductive Medicine (ASRM).  

For women under 35 (Suleman is 33), ASRM recommends that only one embryo be
transferred; for those between 35-37, ASRM sets two as a limit; for those
between 38-40, just three; and for those over 40, five embryos are allowed,
presumably because of increased difficulties of implantation and survival.

The number of embryo transfers per woman reported to Atlanta's Center for
Disease Control and Prevention has actually gone down, but following the
guidelines and the reporting to Atlanta are voluntary.  Obviously Suleman's
doctor, tax cheat Michael Kamrava of Beverly Hills, allowed her to "shoot
the IVF moon" in all six pregnancies. 

Illinois Right to Life, drawing on research published in the New England
Medical Journal, warns "that babies conceived by IVF have a 1 in 10 risk of
birth defects, twice the risk of babies born naturally. The defects included
holes in their hearts, one kidney instead of two, brain abnormalities, and cleft
lips and palettes."

Suleman says that her doctor informed her about these risks, but according to
her logic, people who leave their embryos on ice are guilty of child abuse and
should be reported to authorities. They are someone's children, and they
should be transferred to wombs post haste. 

Although Suleman says that she expects her church to help her, she has, in all
the interviews I've watched, not once mentioned God.  Appearing with Ophra
Winfrey Suleman's father did say that it was God's will that all this
happened. 

It is significant to note that the word "embryo" does appear in one
translation of Psalms 139:16: "Your eyes saw my embryo; and in Your book my
members were written." In most translations of this verse, the Hebrew word
golem is rendered as "unformed substance." In the Jewish tradition a
golem has no soul, and until 1917, the Catholic Church allowed abortions of
"unformed" fetuses, those in the first trimester of pregnancy.

Chuck Colson, the prison evangelist of Watergate fame, agrees with many
Christians who believe that IVF "represents a rejection of the natural
order and the God who instituted that order" (The Christian Post 2/20/09). 

But Suleman's father has Martin Luther on his side, because the great
reformer declared that "since God does all, we must take it that he acts
even in Satan and the godless." The absolute sovereignty of God is a
fundamental doctrine for conservative Christians.  

In Colson's theology God creates an average of 1,000 eggs per female and
over 200 million sperm in each ejaculate.  Does God really intend that all of
these eggs be fertilized and be brought into the world as babies?  

I foolishly thought that I could get everyone to agree that this is absurd
until I remembered that some very powerful bachelors in the Vatican oppose
contraception, because they really believe that this really is God's
intention.

Biologists estimate that as many of 50 percent of all embryos fail to implant
or don't survive implantation. If Luther's God wills all these things,
then 500,000 embryos on ice appear to fit in quite nicely with Colson's
divine "order."

Many fertility clinic clients want to donate their embryos to scientific
research. As we move into the Obama era, let's hope that these people,
whatever their choices, make them without fear or intimidation.

Nick Gier taught religion and philosophy at the University of Idaho for 31
years.  

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