Ruth Institute Blog

I just saw this headline in the Des Moines Register:

“Judge: Put both moms’ names on
the birth certificate.”

 “Both moms?!?!?!”  Yes, you read it right: “both moms.”

Judges created same sex “marriage” in Iowa in a case called Varnum v Brien. So, now another judge rules that the spouse in a same sex marriage should be listed as the child’s other parent. Listen:

“Pursuant to Varnum v. Brien, where a married woman gives birth to a baby conceived through use of an anonymous sperm donor, the Department of Public Health should place her same-sex spouse’s name on the child’s birth certificate without requiring the spouse to go through an adoption proceeding,”

The State Attorney tried to argue that the state law’s wording in regards to parentage is gender-specific, and not open to interpretation. (Hold it right there: do you mean to tell me that a State Attorney was actually defending the state’s family law?!?!  We aren’t used to that here in CA.  Out here, the Attorney General and the Governor just flatout refused to defend Prop 8.   But I digress!) The State Attorney quite sensibly stated:

“It is a biological impossibility for a woman to ever legally establish paternity of a child.” Read more…

by Rebecca Taylor

I have heard countless times that parents that undergo in vitrofertilization (IVF) must love their children so very much to go through such an expensive and invasive process to have children.  I have no doubt that parents undergoing IVF believe they are doing what is best, but looking at the realities of IVF that many parents are not aware of, one has to wonder if IVF is really about the children at all. Read more…

Alana Stewart, Elizabeth Marquardt, Jennifer Lahl, call your offices! Check out this NPR interview with a representative of the IVF industry and Wendy Kramer, founder of one of the sibling donor registries. Listen to Sean Tipton, director of public affairs for the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, an organization of reproductive medicine practitioners.

We think everyone is entitled to whatever they want and whatever they agree to, so we think the informed consent process is essential. So everyone needs to understand what the restrictions and rules are or are not, agree to it only if all the parties agree, and don’t have any changes to that agreement unless all the parties agree.

When asked about the fact that children haven’t given their consent to these arrangements, here is his flippant answer:

Well, as far as I know, no one has ever consented to the circumstances of their own conception. I happen to have teenage boys who I suspect currently probably would not consent to me being their father. I don’t know too many teenage boys who would consent to whoever their father is. Read more…

According to a  recent study of ovarian cancer ”After 15 years of follow-up, they found that women who had undergone IVF were more than four times as likely those who had not to develop borderline ovarian cancer, a malignancy that is treatable and survivable.”

Now, I would normally think that a four times greater risk of cancer would be cause for concern. Not so.

“This shouldn’t be a cause of concern to women undergoing IVF,” said Flora E. van Leeuwen, the lead author and head of epidemiology at the Netherlands Cancer Institute. “We’re talking about in an increased risk of a very rare tumor that is highly treatable.”

That’s assuming that this particular risk is the only risk associated with IVF.  Is that how all known carcinogens are treated?

By David Picella

For couples that are experiencing infertility, the desire to have a child can be overwhelming. Every month that passes is another missed opportunity. Depression, grief, sadness, and despair eventually set in and at some point most couples become desperate enough to gamble with tens of thousands of dollars on expensive procedures like InVitro Fertilization (IVF) without fully understanding what they are getting themselves into. For the vast majority of couples who try IVF, false hopes turn false, and things that sound too good to be true prove to be so. Read more…

by Margaret Somerville

A Canadian radio station created world-wide controversy recently when it ran a “win a baby” competition.

An Ottawa music station, Hot 89.9, recently launched a “Win a Baby” contest. The prize offered was up to three rounds of fertility treatment worth C$35,000. It’s reported that the station received around 400 applications “from a diverse range of people, including same-sex couples, single women and cancer patients.” Read more…

Tonight Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse will interview Katie Elrod. Elrod has been a humanities teacher and administrator in independent schools for over 15 years, and has taught in the Perspectives program at Boston College. She received her BA and MA in philosophy from Boston College, where she was a Lonergan Fellow. Read more…

by Richard Egan

Human cloning researchers pay women to risk death so they can pursue their doomed experiments.

In an article published in Nature on 6 October 2011, Scott Noggle and his colleagues at the New York Stem Cell Foundation Laboratory report on their experiments in which they have derived stem cells from human embryos created by adding the nucleus of a somatic cell to a human egg. Read more…

Such children struggle with a unique anxiety: What if I fall in love with my half-sibling?

by CHRISTOPHER WHITE

Thirty-two invitro fertilized children gather at the Swedish Medical Center in 2003 in Denver. The Colorado Center for Reproductive Medicine at the Center gathered the children from each of its 16 years of work in the field. Guests included Payton Kline, 4 1/2 months, the 5,000th invitro fertilized baby born at the center. – Kevin Moloney/Getty Images Read more…

by Carolyn Moynihan

Most couples who marry, even today, probably intend to have one or two children at least. Marriage and the baby carriage (as family scholar Brad Wilcox likes to pair them) have always gone together. But this is not what is meant by the new catch-phrase “intentional parenthood”. Read more…

by Karen Clark

Not much unlike Alana’s expereince in the Shark Tank, Jennifer Lahl’s experience was not much different.  These people should be ashamed by their uncivil behavior.  Thankfully, Diane Allen, of the Infertility Network, was a voice of reason and respect. Read more…

by Mary Jo Anderson

The current battles over the fate of thousands of babies conceived via in vitro fertilization would confound even King Solomon.

Sensational news reports surrounding the $180,000 price tag for Ukrainian black-market babies shocked the determinedly secular segments of society, and few remain unmoved by the story of the FBI’s round-up of “baby-brokers.” Beyond the initial horror of children clinically conceived and sold as a commodity, investigators discovered that these babies have dozens of full and half siblings that were sold elsewhere. This opens the possibility that, in 25 years, a young man might unknowingly marry his sister. Read more…

by Charlie Butts

The Nebraska Supreme Court has granted child custody rights to the former lesbian partner of a biological mother.

Susan Schwerdtfeger broke up with her lesbian partner five years after the birth of her son through in vitro fertilization. She told the court that her former partner did not pay to help support the youngster — while Teri Latham, the former partner, sought visitation rights because she shared in the cost of the IVF procedure and had tried to visit the child since the breakup. Read more…

My first response to this story Betsy posted earlier this week about “Twin Reductions” at IVF clinics was to be appalled. But as I have reflected on it, there is more to the story than the outrageousness of it all.

To be sure, twin reduction is intrinsically appalling. Fertility doctors routinely implant multiple embryos in a woman’s womb, in the hopes that at least one of the babies will survive.  “Selective reduction” is routine in the fertility industry, if “too many” babies survive.

“Twin reductions” is the next step in the process of killing for convenience.  Women abort one of a pair of twins, not for medical or health reasons, but for “social reasons”, that is, for convenience. There is no particularly terrible risk to carrying twins.  These mothers just can’t quite imagine taking care of two babies. They feel like they are too old to handle twins.

And by and large, doctors perform these abortions.  The procedure itself is slightly creepy. Read more…

What’s it like to have a child with someone who’s a friend but not a lover? More and more people are doing just that, to satisfy their broodiness. Helen Croydon investigates.

Wow. Where does it end?

by RUTH PADAWER

As Jenny lay on the obstetrician’s examination table, she was grateful that the ultrasound tech had turned off the overhead screen. She didn’t want to see the two shadows floating inside her. Since making her decision, she had tried hard not to think about them, though she could often think of little else. She was 45 and pregnant after six years of fertility bills, ovulation injections, donor eggs and disappointment — and yet here she was, 14 weeks into her pregnancy, choosing to extinguish one of two healthy fetuses, almost as if having half an abortion. As the doctor inserted the needle into Jenny’s abdomen, aiming at one of the fetuses, Jenny tried not to flinch, caught between intense relief and intense guilt. Read more…

About ten years ago, I set the goal for myself to perform a one-arm pullup.

Working diligently and using a variety of training techniques, I got very close to that goal.  Agonizingly close.  Despite years of effort, the feat eluded me.  Yet I never gave up.

Finally, I got the idea to radically restrict my carbohydrate intake, lose the belly I was developing and thereby increase my strength-to-weight ratio.  I cut out sugar, grain and other starchy foods.  Fifteen pounds came right off, and I was able to get my chin over the bar using one hand.  This makes me very happy.

You might ask, Ari, what the heck does this have to do with anything that the Ruth Institute stands for?  Are you just writing this to brag? Read more…

by Damian Adams

Social acceptance of commercial conception ignores all the hidden costs.

It is often said that we cannot put a price on happiness. However, for those who are medically or socially infertile, happiness has a dollar value. For the first time in history adults can use technology to create their babies, with the only restriction being their ability to pay. Read more…

by Terrence McKeegan Co-authored with Tyler Ament

WASHINGTON, April 27, 2011 (C-FAM) – Costa Rica must legalize in vitro fertilization or face penalties for alleged violations of human rights protected by international law, according to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

In 2000, the Costa Rican Constitutional Court ruled that IVF in the country was unconstitutional because it violated the right to life of the embryo.  Four years later, the Center for Reproductive Rights petitioned the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to accept a case claiming that the human rights of two Costa Rican couples were violated by the ban. Read more…

Yesterday there was a segment on NPR titled Taming The Twin Trend From Fertility Treatments. They talked about how various forms of ART have caused an increase in the incidence of twin pregnancies:

Twins, once a rarity to marvel over, are now a common part of American culture, thanks in large part to increased use of reproductive technology. Twins are conceived naturally just 2 percent of the time; for those who get pregnant with fertility treatments the rate is more than 40 percent.

They also discussed some of the health risks associated with twins: Read more…