regulation of reproductive technology
Regulation of Reproductive Technology
Within the past couple decades, Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) has become a booming industry, especially with the success of In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) procedure. Millions of infertile couples have looked into ART as a way to have children. Since 1980, there have been over 140,000 babies born in the United States using IVF procedure. Just recently, the world has been amazed by the case of Nadya Suleman’s octuplets. Is this a message to all women that multiple pregnancies are perfectly safe with today’s medical advances? I do agree that some highly skilled professionals can perform such miracles, but what are the consequences of post-IVF procedures? IVF and fertility drugs come with so many risks, such as the mother’s health problems, multiple births, premature babies, birth defects, and an enormous financial burden. As a fertility patient myself, I wasn’t well informed about any of those risks, and I doubt every woman knows all those risks before she enters the treatment; or perhaps she knows, but the strong desire for children cannot deter it. In the US, the IVF industry is almost completely unregulated; the decision is based on a doctor’s ethics and an agreement between patient and physician. As the rate of multiple births continues to rise, the government should lay more restricted policy on IVF procedure to reduce such health risks. When Louis Brown was born in 1978, she became the world’s first baby to be born using IVF procedure. As a result, women increasingly turn to IVF to achieve pregnancy. It’s a process in which the eggs are fertilized with sperms in a Petri-dish, and the embryos are then implanted into the mother’s uterus. If the procedure is successful, a healthy infant will be born nine months later. It doesn’t sound very complicated, but in fact, it is far from that simple. Undergoing IVF, the patients are administered with many fertility drugs to aid in the development of eggs and the ovulation of
Within the past couple decades, Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) has become a booming industry, especially with the success of In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) procedure. Millions of infertile couples have looked into ART as a way to have children. Since 1980, there have been over 140,000 babies born in the United States using IVF procedure. Just recently, the world has been amazed by the case of Nadya Suleman’s octuplets. Is this a message to all women that multiple pregnancies are perfectly safe with today’s medical advances? I do agree that some highly skilled professionals can perform such miracles, but what are the consequences of post-IVF procedures? IVF and fertility drugs come with so many risks, such as the mother’s health problems, multiple births, premature babies, birth defects, and an enormous financial burden. As a fertility patient myself, I wasn’t well informed about any of those risks, and I doubt every woman knows all those risks before she enters the treatment; or perhaps she knows, but the strong desire for children cannot deter it. In the US, the IVF industry is almost completely unregulated; the decision is based on a doctor’s ethics and an agreement between patient and physician. As the rate of multiple births continues to rise, the government should lay more restricted policy on IVF procedure to reduce such health risks. When Louis Brown was born in 1978, she became the world’s first baby to be born using IVF procedure. As a result, women increasingly turn to IVF to achieve pregnancy. It’s a process in which the eggs are fertilized with sperms in a Petri-dish, and the embryos are then implanted into the mother’s uterus. If the procedure is successful, a healthy infant will be born nine months later. It doesn’t sound very complicated, but in fact, it is far from that simple. Undergoing IVF, the patients are administered with many fertility drugs to aid in the development of eggs and the ovulation of