murdering "extrauternine children"

 Today is the 4th day of the 8th week, the 21st day of 2nd month, the 52nd day of 2024 [with only 307 shopping days until Christmas], and:

• Card Reading Day
• Hockey Stick Salute Day
• International Mother Language Day
• National Grain-Free Day
• National Sticky Bun Day
• Single Tasking Day
• World Kombucha Day
• The first day of the Birth Anniversary of Fifth Druk Gyalpo, celebrated until February 23
• The first day of the Musikahan Festival, celebrated until February 27
• and Voyager 1 is 22h 34m 11s of light travel time from Earth 

Quote of the day:

"Everybody knows how to raise children, except the people who have them."

~ PJ O'Rourke  - American political satirist and journalist 

Ain't it the truth -  there isn't a parent in the world who at some point when faced with a crying baby or toddler didn't shake their heads in bewilderment and mutter something along the lines that there should've been an instruction manual.  Raising kids means that you are embarking on an experiment and you don't know for about twenty years or so if your mixture worked - and then it is far too late to correct what you are doing.  You just kinda bumble along, trying not to make the same mistakes you feel your parents made with you, and making a whole host of new ones....

But some of us want to have kids.  And after years of carefully guarding against conception, it can be a real shock to find out that you and your partner cannot conceive, and you need help.  And so, you start trying to find out what the problem is and eventually [if you can afford it and/or if your insurance covers it], you end up in an IVF clinic.  

In vitro fertilisation is not a simple process.  The woman has to take drugs [usually shots], carefully timed to her menstrual cycle, to force her ovaries to produce multiple eggs [ovulation induction].  The eggs are then taken from her [follicular aspiration] placed in a special container [for crying out loud, do not call it a petri dish] and examined to make sure they are healthy, then the sperm that has been collected is added.   When fertilization takes place, the fertilized eggs start to divide and they are then classified as embryos.  They are monitored closely to see they are developing normally.  Then, within 3 - 5 days, the healthiest embryo is placed in the mother's uterus.  She has to take daily shots of progesterone for 8 - 10 weeks to assist her body to accept the implantation,  and the risk of miscarriage is high.  The process is grueling for the prospective parents and very emotional, but they feel it is worth it to have children together.  

The remaining embryos?  Those who are not implanted survive for about two weeks, but can be frozen for possible future use [although cryopreservation doesn't always work] or donated to others during that time.  Otherwise, they die.   

And at this point the theologians and moralists enter the process.  The crux of the issue is the question of when a human zygote becomes a person.  At the moment of conception?  At the moment of birth?  At the moment of being baptised?  At the moment of being named?  Different cultures, different beliefs, different answers.  Science doesn't help here because it is a question involving souls and spirits and consciousness.   

I don't have the answer.  I didn't have to use IVF to have either my son or my daughter, and so I didn't have to face this particular moral dilemma.    I do wonder occasionally about my twin - supposed my mother was originally thought to be carrying two children [this was long before ultrasound that would've confirmed that], but suffered an episode the old family doctor [the same man who had delivered my mother] described as a partial miscarriage, then carried me to term.    And I treasure my two granddaughters, who could not have been born without IVF, as priceless.   I have never asked what happened to those sibling embryos that were not implanted, and I never will.   

But I really resent courts getting involved under the sanctimonious umbrella of "right to life".  Like abortions, these decisions should be left to the woman, her partner, her doctor, and her God.  

And the right to life would mean a lot more if it those who used it meant investing in prenatal care and making sure no child went hungry, or homeless, or uneducated.