Finnish Study finds IVF Increases Risk of Deformity

Life Site News ^ | 12.23.05 | Gudrun Schultz

[Coleus]

FINLAND, December 23, 2005, (LifeSiteNews.com) – 43 babies out of every thousand conceived using in vitro fertilization techniques are born with a serious deformity, according to yet another study indicating the dangers of IVF.

A report by Stakes, Finland’s National Research and Development Centre for Welfare and Health, found a significant increase in the rate of birth deformity among IVF infants. Normal rates would be 29 per thousand. In particular, the study found a higher rate of genital malformation among IVF boy babies.

There have been increasing numbers of studies linking infant health problems with IVF techniques over the past few years. Studies from a variety of sources have indicated significantly higher rates of birth defects, including genetic abnormalities, brain disorders, and developmental delays.

There is no conclusive research yet as to why the two are linked.

In vitro fertilization techniques cause the death of hundreds of thousands of babies in the earliest stages of development, discarded as “unsuitable” for a variety of reasons during the embryo selection process.

See related LifeSiteNews coverage:
IVF Babies up to 40% More Likely to Suffer Severe Birth Defects
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2005/jan/05013107.html

Researchers Admit IVF Carries Higher Birth Defect Risk
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2003/sep/03092206.html

Study Finds Brain Problems in IVF Children
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2002/feb/02020802.html

IVF Babies at Greater Risk for Genetic Disorder
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2004/aug/04081707.html

[Mr. Silverback]

ProLife Ping!

If anyone wants on or off my ProLife Ping List, please notify me here or by freepmail.

[justshutupandtakeit]

That is a 50% higher rate than normal. 14/29= 48%+or-.

[little jeremiah]

Thanks for all these links. FR is a mine of information, thanks to alert and vigilant posters like you.

There are basically two world views.

1. This world is here for me to enjoy, it should be as pleasurable as possible; eat, drink and be merry, grab what I can, my personal/family/extended enjoyment is the goal and purpose of life. My own personal desires are the guilding light by which I direct my life. Of course, due to different levels of human consciousness, this enjoying spirit is manifested in more degraded or more refined and civilized ways.

2. The world is here for me learn - to become purified, rehabilitated, to unite myself with God. This world is but a short way station, I'm only here for a little while, and it is a preparation for the next life. Do I want a life of eternity with God? If I do, I should act not in a spirit of personal "me centered" enjoyment, but in a spirit of service to God. A person with this world view won't consider personal desires mandatory - they will be utilized only when they are consistent with the will of God and His instructions.

[ukwildcats]

You and Coleus form your own mutual admiration society, don't you?

[Coleus]

We follow God's moral and natural law and don't practice moral relativism. There is only one code of morality and it can not be changed by mere humans.

[little jeremiah]

I appreciate anyone who supports and promotes moral absolutes. You don't like that? I should support people who are destroying them instead?

You're a funny person.

[ukwildcats]

Surprise, surprise..........another sermon from Cardinal Coleus' cyberspace mount. I guess it comes down to this: You consider my children to be of a "barbaric" (among other things)procedure. What exactly does that make them, btw? I, however........consider them a gift from God.

Considering you have annointed yourself the moral judge of all things (funny how I only thought God could do that) I am interested in your reply.

[ukwildcats]

"Destroying them", huh? What exactly am I "destroying"? Two lives were brought into this world..........children that will be raised Christian. How in the world can you sit back at your computer and pass judgement on my family? As you can well see, it pisses me off to no end. You and Coleus are the types of pious people that burn me up. Talk all you want about adoption.........place it in your own little box in your mind, and castigate those who choose what my wife and I have.

So, when exactly are you going to pick up your newly adopted child? Oh, that's right........you aren't. That's alright, little Jerry, I won't pass judgement on you.

[Coleus]

And what about the 20 or so other children that were created in the IVF procedure?  Huh? Oh, their not gifts?  Just throw aways? 

 

We need to be clear that the baby is not the problem. Babies are never problems, they are gifts. Rather, it is the procedure used to produce the baby that is the problem. Think of it: your children that were lucky enough to be born and to see the light of day were conceived in a Petri Dish! And in case you are wondering: yes, God did give them a soul in the Petri dish. God's creative love is not limited by human immorality (the immorality of the doctors and couples who create many babies, grow one or two of the good embryos and "discarding" or throwing out the others like they were trash)   God just wishes that we would do it His way. In God's plan no human being should ever be created in a laboratory. He has given us the perfect environment in which to come into being; namely, marriage. The couples' cooperation in God's creative act is called "pro-creation" as if to emphasize that the one Creator has allowed human beings to participate in so sublime an act. The institution of marriage itself was intended by Him to be the perfect matrix of life, and all technological intrusion into this sacred space for reasons other than health is a sin.

 

Why is the fertilization procedure in itself immoral? Doctors "create" multiple embryos at one time in order to increase the chances of success of implantation. Normally dozens of embryos are created and never used. These littlest human beings are then frozen or destroyed. The success rate of the in vitro process is abysmally low: only 4 percent of all the embryos created ever see the light of day as a newborn baby. Human beings, no matter how small, should never be the subject of sloppy high school science projects.

Even when a child often does result from an IVF procedure, the travesty of having to create, freeze or destroy so many of that baby's brothers and sisters, your other children, your family,  is morally reprehensible.

 

One baby created at the expense of dozens of others is a macabre tradeoff. We must stand squarely on the side of the dignity of the human person, and we can be grateful that the many God-fearing Christians and other Church denominations do not hesitate to speak out-oftentimes in the face of fierce criticism, as you are doing in this thread,  in defense of the innocent from unprincipled actions.

The immorality of the IVF procedure consists primarily in the destruction of the multiple extra embryos that are created in a laboratory along with the one or two that successfully come to birth.  The moral principle violated by this procedure is the most fundamental of all moral tenets: one can never do an evil in order that good may come of it. Here, the sacrifice of the 24 babies in order to get one or two to grow into healthy children is so wrong that it overrides the infertile couple's right to have a child.

 

The worst effect of IVF, however, is its power to strip the embryonic child of dignity under the guise of really wanting children. If we do not recognize the intrinsic dignity of that several-cell human being, then we erode the very principle whereby we fight for the dignity of every other human being, born or unborn. This recognition of human dignity is what makes us so firm in our defense of the poor, the enslaved, the handicapped, the elderly, the unborn and the embryo. All are equal in dignity simply because all were created in the image and likeness of God.

The more our culture blindly accepts killing, organ harvesting and treating other human beings as mere property, the further we slide into moral relativism, which I stated in a previous post to you, and it will be very difficult for us as a Christian, civilized nation, some day to make the argument that our own killers should respect our human dignity. IVF manipulates, destroys and dehumanizes the tiniest human beings and should be opposed on principle.

 

Stepping away from God’s law always introduces chaos into our lives. Nowhere is this truer than in the case of in vitro fertilization. The reproductive revolution has had the ability to separate genetic parenting from gestational parenting and from social parenting; and the agent who brings it all about, a biotechnician, will be still another person.

 

Marriage and its indissoluble unity are the only venue worthy of truly responsible procreation. Accordingly, any conception engineered with semen or ova donated by a third party would be opposed to the exclusivity that is demanded of a married couple. Such a procedure would be a violation of the bond of conjugal fidelity. It is also an anomaly for a donor to contribute to the conception of a child with the express intention of having nothing to do with that child’s upbringing.

 

“I formed you in the womb, I knew you and before you were born, I consecrated you” (Jer 1:5).

 

Human life is precious from the moment of conception; but, sadly enough, the biblical respect for human life is being eroded in our contemporary society. Without a deep reverence for the sacredness of human life, humanity places itself on the path of self-destruction.

When science and technology open doors that should not be opened, a Pandora’s box spews forth evils that menace humanity.  Scientists have opened a perilous door: they are manufacturing human life and using their product as an object of experimentation.

Science without the compass of ethical restraints is taking us on a path towards dehumanization in the name of progress. Modern scientific advances have so much to offer, but they must be guided by ethical principles which respect the inherent dignity of every human being. When science embarks on a Promethean quest, fueled by greed and commercialization, our own humanity is placed at risk.

In the IFV procedure,  a woman is given fertility drugs to ensure that she produces several ova which are collected to be fertilized in a petri dish creating several embryos. The healthiest ones are chosen for transfer to the woman’s womb. Many embryos are discarded or frozen. Freezing kills some more. Some embryos are later used for experimentation, which is always lethal.

Recent estimates project that there are 400,000 frozen embryos in the United States laboratories. These embryos are human lives that, given the chance to grow, would develop into a man or a woman. The fate and disposition of these embryos represents a serious moral dilemma which has contributed to a coarsening of the public’s attitude towards the sacredness of human life.

During recent debates before Congress, a couple gave compelling testimony against embryonic stem cell research. The main arguments that they presented were their two young sons who had been frozen embryos that the husband and his wife adopted. We cannot pretend that these embryos are tadpoles. They are human beings with their unique genetic code, full complement of chromosomes, and individual characteristics already in place. Every person alive today started out as an embryo.  These early-stage abortions are not morally acceptable.  Unfortunately, many people of good will have no notion of what is at stake and simply focus on the baby that results from in vitro fertilization, not adverting to the fact that the procedure involves creating many embryos, most of which will never be born because they will be frozen or discarded.

We do not have a “right to have a child.” Such a right would be “contrary to the child’s dignity and nature. The child is not an object to which one has a right, nor can he be considered an object of ownership; rather, a child is a gift, ‘the supreme gift,’ and the most gratuitous gift of marriage, and is a living testimony of the mutual giving of his parents. For this reason the child has the right to be the fruit of the specific act of conjugal love of his parents; and the child also has the right to be respected as a person from the moment of his conception”

For us, marriage and motherhood and fatherhood is a vocation, and children are a gift. However, even when procreation is not possible, married life does not for that reason lose its value. 

And, in many cases, after a couple adopts a child, many wives find themselves pregnant after a period of time. 

[ukwildcats]

Well, then.........in certain religions it is a "sin" to use a Doctor and all his abilities to treat a sick child, done under the pretext of "God's will". Are they wrong to let a child die? Yes, I am well aware my babies were conceived in a petri dish.......with my sperm and my wifes eggs, you think I am an idiot? What about the wonderful drugs that are created in a laboratory? Is that wrong? In case you have missed me pointing this out, my wife and I pro-created successfully 5 times.........leading to miscarriages every one. Was that God's will? Or, was it a medical condition? Either way, they were aborted.

There were 4 embryos placed into my wife.....two which never developed heartbeats and my sons. There were NO EMBRYOS THROWN AWAY OR FROZEN. I am not saying that is the case with everyone, but with us it was.

Obviously you are set in your thinking, as am I. When I meet my maker it will be with the knowledge that I raised my children in His image, children which you degrade with all your writings, even though you call them gifts.

I did enjoy the "many wives find themselves pregnant" line.

[Coleus]

two which never developed heartbeats and my sons. >>

Many believe that life begins at conception and not when the first beating heart is heard. Everything about a person, all characteristics, their DNA is determined at conception.

It seeems you misunderstood or rather did NOT want to understand everything I wrote.

[KC_Conspirator]

This is BAD news if true. People are actually trying to concieve here, but you are going to get a bunch of reactionary fools here. I am glad about your boys.

[KC_Conspirator]

I would say that you are not very free, very dumb, and stuck in 2003.

[RunningWolf]

I did not know that about IVF. There are so many things about these procedures that seems to be left out of the MSM.

But they are real quick to reveal our intelligence source's to al quaida.

Wolf

[freedumb2003]

Why wake up an old thread?

And ad hominum attacks on my name don't really carry mucgh weight.

[RinaseaofDs]

Since I have an adopted girl, an IVF (donor) boy, and a natural boy, what does that make me?

By the way, the girl was the result of our third attempt at adoption (two fall throughs). We had one miscarriage, and one failed IVF attempt too.

I'd say most of the posters to this thread are simply ignorant, and should probably lurk.

[little jeremiah]

I have not personally attacked you. Why are you taking this to a personal attack level? I already stated that if your IVF killed no embryos, great. Unfortunately, it seems that most do.

I am merely stating that to kill embryos as either "extra" waste, or to use in research (aka "cannibalism") or to deep freeze indefinitely, is cruel, inhumane and basically murder. If your procedure did not do that, great.

I am not passing judgement on you personally, merely calling slaughter wrong. Why are you so upset and angry?

Not everyone can adopt. Why are YOU passing judgement on me? You don't know my age, income level, or health status. I'm not making personal attacks against you or anyone. I'm making general statements.

[little jeremiah]

The MSM is as trustworthy as a - hmm, a poisonous snake? A meth addict? A yellow jacket? A used car salesman?

The regular media is just ads, that's all. It is not worth watching, it rots the mind, only worth watching in the "know thine enemy" department.

[ukwildcats]

No, you idiot..........just the opposite........heartbeats aren't detectable until well along in a pregnancy via sonogram. My wife was originally pregnant with 4 children.......but by the time heartbeats were detected it was just in two of them.

Save me the "life begins at conception" routine (which I believe, btw) and quit putting words in my mouth I didn't say.

But, I can now call you Doctor Cardinal Coleus.........any other titles you wish to add? I'm sure you'll let me know in your next cyberspace sermon.

[Coleus]

it was just in two of them. >>

"just" you say? are you talking about a commodity, a mere piece of property or a human life?