The wrong embryo?

[NCSue]

I’m a convert and admit that I still have lots to learn about the Catholic faith. And since I was well past childbearing age before joining the church, I really haven’t focused much attention on the Church’s stance on birth control, infertility, in vitro fertillization, surrogacy, etc. I have so much to learn, and since these issues didn’t affect me directly, I directed my attention elsewhere. But the details of a story found at acts17verse28.blogspot.com/2009/09/case-of-errant-embryo.html have brought home to me in a forceful way the ethical implications of some of these things.

It’s too late to go back and fix the problems that have confronted these families. We can’t “unring the bell”. But I have faith that God can bring something good out of this situation, and can only pray that he will bless and protect these parents and, especially, the children.

 

[ALLGIRLS]

There’s this heartbreaking case, wherein at least the child gets to live. Then there’s another recent case, where the mom aborted the baby when she found out it was the “wrong embryo”. And yet there are still people, many Catholic, who believe IVF is a wonderful thing, and the Church is cruel for not allowing it

“By their fruits you shall know them…”

In Christ,

Ellen

 

[livi]

IVF is unnatural, and can have serious implications for the baby or babies being implanted. They can be aborted if accidentally implanted into the wrong woman (how scary is that scenario) or if the woman carrying them is a surrogate and the family decides they no longer want the child. Also, women who are past the point of being able to get pregnant naturally can use IVF, potentially placing the child in a dangerous situation. And IVF undermines the natural relationship a family has by artificially creating children. It just isn’t a good thing.

 

[Mark77]

**We are all so impatient and demand “i want it now!” like a spoiled 3 year old?.
**
The problem is, just as the Catholic Church has always taught, IVF is another open door to the slippery slope.

If we can try to “play God” and create our own children through IVF and other unnatural means, then we can eventually create clones and use them to harvest organs, etc. We can also destroy “unwanted” clones, and children and others who we determine are “unproductive and inconvenient”, like me!

Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, Ora Pro Nobis Peccatoribus!

mark

 

[Christopher68]

**We are all so impatient and demand “i want it now!” like a spoiled 3 year old?.
**
The problem is, just as the Catholic Church has always taught, IVF is another open door to the slippery slope.

If we can try to “play God” and create our own children through IVF and other unnatural means, then we can eventually create clones and use them to harvest organs, etc. We can also destroy “unwanted” clones, and children and others who we determine are “unproductive and inconvenient”, like me!

Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, Ora Pro Nobis Peccatoribus!

mark

I don’t think there is a slippery slope here. I highly doubt that those who favor IVF would also favor cloning.

 

[ALLGIRLS]

I don’t think there is a slippery slope here. I highly doubt that those who favor IVF would also favor cloning.

Um, yes they do. Here in Missouri in 2006 Proposition 2 was passed, which mandates tax payer funding of cloning for purposes of embryonic stem cell research.

In Christ,

Ellen

 

[Christopher68]

Um, yes they do. Here in Missouri in 2006 Proposition 2 was passed, which mandates tax payer funding of cloning for purposes of embryonic stem cell research.

In Christ,

Ellen

I’m not familiar with the proposition you mention, but I’m assuming the voters believed that the potential medical advances outweighed any ethical concerns, or perhaps they didn’t agree with the concerns.

 

[joandarc2008]

From the experience of someone who is trained in molecular biology - anytime you artificially take DNA matter from one cell and put it into another for the purpose of growing a new type of cell which is the whole process of IVF or you would never have a zygote it is called “shotgun cloning” meaning the cloning is happenning in the cell. The reason the word shotgun is applied is because sometimes works and sometimes it doesn’t just like when you fire a shotgun at a distance target - some of the pellets hit and some of them don’t. Wow I guess anyone favor of IVF is thereofre in favor of cloning as IVF is cloning.

 

[bextah]

IVF is unnatural, and can have serious implications for the baby or babies being implanted. They can be aborted if accidentally implanted into the wrong woman (how scary is that scenario) or if the woman carrying them is a surrogate and the family decides they no longer want the child. Also, women who are past the point of being able to get pregnant naturally can use IVF, potentially placing the child in a dangerous situation. And IVF undermines the natural relationship a family has by artificially creating children. It just isn’t a good thing.

:clapping:

I totally agree! What about that woman recently who was implanted with the wrong embryo, is carrying the child to term and has to hand the child over to the biological mother right after the birth?!

It turns babies into a commodity, something you can just buy if you decide too late that it is something you ‘must have’

The book ‘Brave New World’ by Aldous Huxley, although fiction is a chilling view of the future where babies are made in a lab and designed as needed

 

[rwoehmke]

From the experience of someone who is trained in molecular biology - anytime you artificially take DNA matter from one cell and put it into another for the purpose of growing a new type of cell which is the whole process of IVF or you would never have a zygote it is called “shotgun cloning” meaning the cloning is happenning in the cell. The reason the word shotgun is applied is because sometimes works and sometimes it doesn’t just like when you fire a shotgun at a distance target - some of the pellets hit and some of them don’t. Wow I guess anyone favor of IVF is thereofre in favor of cloning as IVF is cloning.

When one mixes semen with a petri dish of eggs, how is this cloning? In natural intercourse there is usually only a single egg and millions of sperm cells, but how is this any less “shotgunning” than IVF?

In addition to the church’s reasons for banning IVF, I believe that in addition it creates social problems that weigh against the practice; like getting the wrong embryo or 55 plus year old women trying to have children. It is nuts and makes children into commoditys.

 

[joandarc2008]

It is the very definition of shotgun cloning when it is done in the lab. IVF is a form of cloning. It is a very primitive form. this is why you have sperm banks that charge higher dollar for more desirable sperm. This is the very essence and definition of the shotgun cloning process but hey it’s only four years spent in a lab learning the processes and getting a degree in it - what is your educational experience here?

 

[rwoehmke]

It is the very definition of shotgun cloning when it is done in the lab. IVF is a form of cloning. It is a very primitive form. this is why you have sperm banks that charge higher dollar for more desirable sperm. This is the very essence and definition of the shotgun cloning process but hey it’s only four years spent in a lab learning the processes and getting a degree in it - what is your educational experience here?

Don’t take it personal kid. Getting experience, an education, and a degree is a wonderful accomplishment. I still fail to see how IVF as practiced is anymore shotgunning than natural intercourse. Either way one does not get to pick an individual sperm cell. Maybe you mean that “shotgunning” means for a particular set of eggs one can select the sperm donor from an array of many. You need to explain to us ignoramuses just what you mean by shotgunning.

 

[CLMCatholic]

It is the very definition of shotgun cloning when it is done in the lab. IVF is a form of cloning. It is a very primitive form. this is why you have sperm banks that charge higher dollar for more desirable sperm. This is the very essence and definition of the shotgun cloning process but hey it’s only four years spent in a lab learning the processes and getting a degree in it - what is your educational experience here?

With all due respect Joan, I have my PhD in Molecular Biology. (With many more years after my doctorate, spent running labs.) Although IVF may be loosely referred to as cloning, your use of the term “shotgun cloning” is, at best, inaccurate, and moreover, even somewhat prejudicial.

Brief tutorial time: Shotgun cloning technically refers to taking many pieces of DNA and inserting all of them into other pieces of DNA (vectors) in a haphazard and random, you-take-what-you-can-get, method.
In IVF, the sperm is introduced into the egg. Artificially - yes. But not in a shotgun fashion. Nor is the DNA within the sperm ever broken down. Nor inserted into any other piece of DNA. After the artificial “conception” part of sperm introduced to egg, natural biology takes over - pretty much the same as in natural conception. The DNA of the 2 organisms** does not fuse**. Rather, the 23, intact, sperm-specific chromosomes and the 23, intact, egg-specific chromosomes *remain, just like in normal and natural conception, as 46 separate and intact and distinct chromosomes *in the newly formed diploid cell and mitosis proceeds ad nauseum to lead eventually, to a baby…

(rwoehmke - since, by definition, the specific sperm is “picked” by the scientist and introduced artificially into the egg, it can arguably be considered cloning of sorts, but not shotgun)

However, Joan, incorrect biology terms aside, I do agree with you. IVF is inherently and morally wrong.

It opens up a can of worms for oh so many reasons, many of which have been pointed out by other posters. Besides the moral wrongness of IVF, there are scientific problems inherent as well - in nature, inadequate or incompetent sperm are out-competed in natural conception. They cannot compete against a billion other little swimmers, so usually, one of the “more desirable” or “more fit” sperm reaches the egg. Under an IVF scenario, the less fit sperm could be inadvertently used for conception since there is no good way to tell which sperm are “better”. The scientist just picks one that “looks good” and injects it. Perhaps not shotgun. But definitely russian roulette

In any event - biological basis of exactly what is going on and what it should be called is far less relevant than the simple fact that on a moral basis, IVF is inherently wrong. Period.

Peace to all and God Bless,
CLM
<><

 

[joandarc2008]

OK, let me give you the lab example from undergrad biochem. We take v. fischeri which is the bacteria that lives on shellfish and make them luminesce. We do a bunch of RFLP (which is a complicated drawn out process which breaks DNA). We then put the DNA fragments into a test tube with bateria cells that are in an active multiplying state. We then platee our bacteria and look for that glow in the dark. This means that these bacteria got the strand of DNA that causes the luminescence. Now, you then throw out all the other bacteria and just grow the ones that glow as you want to make the enzyme that causes them to glow in the dark. The same is done with making laboratory grade insulin. It is called shotgunning because not every DNA fragment that causes them to glow will enter a cell and not every cell will glow. Kind of like hitting a target with buckshot.

Now over to the human cloning. Let’s say I am a selfish woman in my 40’s who is single and wants child at any cost. I want to have an intelligent child with no birth defects. I go to a sperm bank, purchase sperm, and have my eggs fertilized and implanted in me through IVF. What I am hoping for is that the zygotes that are implanted in me have the characteristics and lack of birth defects that I as a woman past my prime would inherently have I am hoping for the same “shotgun” effect as the the student looking for the bacteria that glow in the dark or the scientist making insulin producing bacteria.

The scientist making the insulin is doing God’s work and helping to save diabetics while those participating in IVF… That is where intent differs.

 

[joandarc2008]

With all due respect Joan, I have my PhD in Molecular Biology. (With many more years after my doctorate, spent running labs.) Although IVF may be loosely referred to as cloning, your use of the term “shotgun cloning” is, at best, inaccurate, and moreover, even somewhat prejudicial.

Brief tutorial time: Shotgun cloning technically refers to taking many pieces of DNA and inserting all of them into other pieces of DNA (vectors) in a haphazard and random, you-take-what-you-can-get, method.
In IVF, the sperm is introduced into the egg. Artificially - yes. But not in a shotgun fashion. Nor is the DNA within the sperm ever broken down. Nor inserted into any other piece of DNA. After the artificial “conception” part of sperm introduced to egg, natural biology takes over - pretty much the same as in natural conception. The DNA of the 2 organisms** does not fuse**. Rather, the 23, intact, sperm-specific chromosomes and the 23, intact, egg-specific chromosomes remain, just like in normal and natural conception, as 46 separate and intact and distinct chromosomes in the newly formed diploid cell and mitosis proceeds ad nauseum to lead eventually, to a baby…

(rwoehmke - since, by definition, the specific sperm is “picked” by the scientist and introduced artificially into the egg, it can arguably be considered cloning of sorts, but not shotgun)

However, Joan, incorrect biology terms aside, I do agree with you. IVF is inherently and morally wrong.

It opens up a can of worms for oh so many reasons, many of which have been pointed out by other posters. Besides the moral wrongness of IVF, there are scientific problems inherent as well - in nature, inadequate or incompetent sperm are out-competed in natural conception. They cannot compete against a billion other little swimmers, so usually, one of the “more desirable” or “more fit” sperm reaches the egg. Under an IVF scenario, the less fit sperm could be inadvertently used for conception since there is no good way to tell which sperm are “better”. The scientist just picks one that “looks good” and injects it. Perhaps not shotgun. But definitely russian roulette

In any event - biological basis of exactly what is going on and what it should be called is far less relevant than the simple fact that on a moral basis, IVF is inherently wrong. Period.

Peace to all and God Bless,
CLM
<><

I do see the difference by what you have said - being that the DNA is not broken down but you are still looking for the most desirable vectors. After all don’t we have fertility researchers now trying to decipher codes so we can have children with the “right” genders, hair colors, etc. Wouldn’t that inherently become the EXACT definition of the shotgun cloning as opposed to a loose one.

 

[CLMCatholic]

Hi Joan

We’d better stop commandeering the thread with biology lessons so this will be my last post on the subject. We don’t want to get asked to leave, do we?

Trying to have children with the best eye colour, IQ, physique, etc…yes, we are sinking abysmally into a bioengineering quagmire. Much of your concern is well-placed. The terminology error you continue to make is in your use of the adjective, “shotgunning”.

Shotgunning refers to the technique to find, isolate, grow or clone the trait to begin with. But once you have it, once you are dealing with transferring just the “wanted” one, you are past the shotgun part and it no longer comes into it.

With the shotgun technique, you take absolutely everything, try to get everything inside a vector and subsequently, into a host cell. That is where the shotgun part ends. It is semantics, but it is true, nonetheless. Once you have achieved getting everything or anything that you possibly can into vectors, and then you look specifically for the one trait you want and selectively grow it, then you are no longer shotgun cloning. You are growing something that you developed using a shotgun cloning technique.

• In which case natural conception is sort of like God’s version of shotgun cloning. Billions of sperm are released into the “experimental milieu”. Whatever gets into the vector (the egg), gets there. But the sperm that gets inside is determined partly, like in the lab case, by virtue of sheer numbers and luck. It is certainly not selected for nor given a preferential advantage by the participants (the experimenters, if you will). So natural conception is shotgun cloning, in vivo. IVF is more targeted or specific cloning, in vitro.

In any event, specific traits that are “desirable” by the morally corrupt - these may eventually be found by shotgun cloning techniques - blasting vectors with genes then selecting which ones carry the genes/traits that are most desirable. But once something desirable is selected, and is specifically being grown, amplified and transferred, it is not referred to as shotgun cloning anymore. It might have been found as the product of a shotgun cloning technique, but now that something specific has been selected versus all the other less-preferred ones, then it is just that - targeted and specific.

The original point of the OP - IVF has caused much pain and distress in the lives of many. Ironically - these same originally came to the IVF table because they were hoping to get rid of pain and distress that lack of fertility had caused. It is so sad, so unfortunate that there has been pain and confusion. So predictable though, when we start trying to “play God”.

I can sympathize with those who really, really, really want to have a child. But I pray, instead of succumbing to the lures of IVF, surrogacy and other unnatural and artificial modes of reproduction, that these individuals will either adopt, or come to a peaceful and prayerful acceptance of where God has put them in life. Easy for me to say, I know. But it is my prayer, nonetheless,

In Peace,
CLM
<><

 

[joandarc2008]

And the sad thing is - is that there are so many things in the world that can help with fertiltiy unless a couple is TRULY infertile. Yet, so many just go straight to IVF and playing God in a test tube without thinking of the repercussions. Probably because they don’t understand the science behind it.

Also, for those that are TRULY infertile look at all those kids out there that need loving homes. They may not be your gene pool but they are still gifts from God that are shoved away foster homes and orphanages.