Post-Humous Reproduction Debate: Social Security Commissioner

Things that I am now sure of after this debate: More information and more points of view only make these topics more confusing.
In this simulation, I played the part of a Social Security Commissioner, on the pro-limitations side to post-humous reproduction. From the governmental/economical aspect, post-humous reproduction only poses financial problems when discerning whether or not a woman is getting pregnant with the sperm of a dead man. Does she really feel like he would want her to be using her sperm? If so, does that mean that the child is 'dependant' on the man, thus receiving benefits from his side? How long can one be allowed to wait before the frozen sperm is used?
Being part of the government, I obviously leaned on the side of strict consent and regulations before one would undergo post-humous reproduction. What if the man did not want his sperm to be used? Problems that arise from this type of reproduction can be limited if there is layers and layers of consent, a notion that the couple was trying to have a child before a partner's death (trying for IVF), and a time limit on the usage of the sperm. In my position, I am just trying to make sure that every one's rights are recognized.
In the 'pro-restriction' group, it was difficult to come up with a generalized regulatory standard that we all agreed on since we had a couple religious leaders on our side (Catholic priest and a Presbyterian priest). The legal characters, like myself, could not be influenced by moral or religious sways, because we could only represent justice and humane rights, including autonomy.
This exercise was helpful because I had to delineate the different roles in my head, taking each person as one mindset, focusing on certain issues and completely disregarding others. I will have to be able to turn off some parts of my brain for some parts of analysis, but still keep my personal views intact.

A Recent Podcast

 



I recently was listening to a Catholic podcast "Catholic Underground" and came across one 'Life is Still Worth Living' on 2/2/12 about contraceptives and the religious views on them. I thought that the speaker was incredibly effective in his delivery and evidence against using any form of contraception. I even forwarded this to a few of my Protestant friends to listen to!

Age Limits To Motherhood?

In 2005 a 66 year old Romanian professor Adriana Iliescu chose to have IVF and gave birth to a child via emergency Cesarian section. Ever since this case, age limits to ART have been popular debate, causing individual clinics to differ on the way they regulate and enforce limitations. Arthur Caplan addresses this particular case in his MSNBC article 'How Old is Too Old to Have a Baby?' from 2005. Taking a strong stance against these 'granny-moms', he reports "there was a terrible price to pay for using reproductive technology to make a 66-year-old woman pregnant". Statistically any pregnancy for a woman over 40 is considered 'high risk', and in Adriana's case, caused her to have a premature baby. Caplan brings up the problems that result from these unrestricted age treatments: the mother will not be able to physically take care of the child, as she will need looking after soon; the baby has intensified risks during the pregnancy, and the pregnancy is very stressful on such an old body. He proposes state regulation should enforce an age restriction of  65 years old for single women to have a baby through ART, and if in a relationship the total years should not exceed 130. Anyone near 55 years of age must pass a physical examination. 

 The chapter "From Legalization to legislation: Race and Age as Determining Factors" taken from Jose Van Dyck's book Manufacturing Babies and Public Consent  covers a couple topics relating to social restrictions: post menopausal pregnancies, transracial impregnation, and foetal pregnancies. He gives an interesting statistical approach to age restrictions for ART. Technologies now make it possible for ages to have the capacity to gestate and deliver babies using egg donation and oocyte transplantation, causing increased success rates in older women. So now, clinics which were once holding back from fear of decreasing overall success rate are now more inclined to provide assistance to these older women. Who wouldn't want that extra income from an older, wealthier couple, desperate for a child? Grandmothers have always had a role in childrearing, and provide as much love as any young mother, right? Van Dyck doesn't give an answer to the question of age-regulation, but ends the chapter commenting on the difficulty on clinic enforcement especially since denying access would decrease revenues. 

Our technology is getting so advanced that not even the idea of decreased success rates can scare a clinic into creating an age policy, it now relies on the initiative of a clinic's individual preference to set the standards of regulation. I believe that if a woman has hit menopause, they should not be given any form of ART. because at that point, God is indirectly telling them that they are not naturally meant to reproduce any longer. This should be a federally mandated restriction, as it would be their responsibility to pay for the child and/or mother who may suffer any consequences of such a late pregnancy. 

I believe that I have formed these opinions due to my brother having been born so late in my mom's life. In her situation, there was nothing wrong with her becoming a mother again because it happened naturally. However, when a woman has had menopause for over 15 or 20 years, her biological clock has told her she is not physically able to carry out the pregnancy and become a mother. If under some unusual circumstances an age of menopause is in question, the default should be the average age of 51 years. 


Post-Class Discussion
I found our class discussion on the different topics very held back and reserved. I would love to have an intense debate with one another in an anonymous setting, as I felt like I had to hold back a few things because of what I believed religiously. Especially in my group discussion on age, I could not see how it would be possible to have a non-mandated policy on age if you had any thought that age in fact posed a problem in ART treatment. I briefly touched on my religious beliefs, but when our group tried to combine our views to create a unified decision on regulation, we could not mix. I hope that my religious views will not offend anyone, because I definitely will not be cutting down on what I want to convey about what I think is right and wrong. 
Everyone's various scholarly articles were very helpful when we needed to back up our position with evidence and statistics. I think that having the RefWorks account with the various articles posted on it will be very helpful in the future for our websites. I just hope that people remember to put up the article summary for their source! 

Infertility and Ethnicity

The notion of 'access' implies that there is a certain need, demand and supply of a product or service. A more appropriate term when discussing ART's is an 'equitable service'(Culley). This is defined as a service that provides equal access for an equal need. When looking at the 'needs' of individuals seeking reproductive technology services, a discerning factor is the race of the individual. Data from a national survey found that 10.5% of Blacks, 13.6% of Hispanics, and 6.4% of Caucasians reported infertility out of 10,847 women (Jain, 2006). But does this match the social stereotypes of family sizes? In the media, black and hispanic families consist of multiple generations with multiple children, which most definitely play a part in the common notion that black and hispanic females may be more fertile than whites. Because of this stereotype of fertility, many would argue that blacks and hispanics have this limited cultural access to ART due to the stigma of being infertile. 

I don't think that this is something that we can deliberately change, but it is interesting to see how jokes, pictures, tv shows and the news can portray one set of racial ideals that may be making it taboo for women of some races feel comfortable to use ART. 

Minutes in the mind of a Fertility Doctor

I have recently been studying the various barriers that can block the way for women and men in our society to receive assistance on becoming pregnant. Throughout the US and the world, people are being denied fertility treatment based on marital status, sexual orientation, ability to pay, and other discriminatory factors. In late 2005 and early 2006, legislation in Indiana and Virginia prohibited providers from offering any conception procedure to an unmarried woman (Schneider, Assisted Reproduction Bill Dropped, Indianapolis Star, Oct. 6, 2005). The politically correct knee jerk reaction is to be offended by these realities: how is this happening in our society-- we are all supposed to be treated equally! Even though I know I should be whole-heartedly behind that train of thought, I am not. Truthfully, I am slightly against the thought of an unmarried couple wanting to have fertility treatment. If I were the fertility doctor posed with the case, you bet that in the back of my mind I would be saying, "Most likely, this relationship is not going to last. Especially after the emotionally trying times of fertility treatment. If this woman gets pregnant with my help, I will aided bringing a child into a most likely single-parent home."THAT would be the first knee jerk reaction for me; the 'equal rights for all'/'don't judge' notion would follow.
But then it dawned on me to compare this to natural conception. There are children born every second to homes that many would not approve of, or think that it is an 'optimal' setting. Yet, no one has the right to tell them that they cannot procreate, or dare to think that they shouldn't have been born. Heck, we can believe all we want that it's not great that kids are born to families of criminals, prostitutes, drug dealers, or even to 16-year-olds-- yet it happens and the public doesn't think its morally wrong not to have any say. Why in the situation of fertility treatments I would mentally determine the couple's 'eligibility' to have children? Talk about double standards.

Dr. McIntosh 1/26/12

The science behind reproductive technologies continues to astound me. Recently I have been focusing on the more social and ethical aspects of reproductive medicine, without fully understanding the science techniques that are making it all possible. Though some of it was still a little above my head, I understood how many different variations there could be on a procedure to become pregnant. Clomiphene citrate, Gonadotropins, GnRH Pumps, Interuterine Insemination IUI, and many more-- all give a viable way for reproduction.  

One technique started making me think of the ethical aspects that I have been researching. The ICSI (Intra Cytoplasmic Sperm Injection) technique literally forces the sperm into the egg via a needle. Is this crossing an ethical line? Instead of allowing the most able sperm to "win" entrance into the egg for fertilization, a possible sign of sperm strength, there is a deliberate join. Would a couple trying for pregnancy even think of what the procedure actually is, or would they just see it as a successful option for becoming pregnant? I would hope that many couples would think of the ethical implications each option gives, but then again, if I was in their place I would probably view the prospect of a successful pregnancy much higher in importance than chancing it on other less successful reproductive techniques. 

Anticipating Dr. McIntosh's Talk

I believe that I have heard Dr. Robert McIntosh talk once before in an event held last semester. It was actually a discussion hosted by the pre-medical society of Davidson, interestingly named almost exactly after this class. He brought of a multitude of questions that I am continuing to delve into concerning reproductive medicine. His knowledge of the laws and practices of these technologies astound me, and encouraged me to learn as much as I can on this subject that is very touchy, yet pivotal to our existence as human beings.
In his past talk, he mentioned facts about surrogate motherhood, the laws behind IVF, stories of abortions and treatments, unbelievable ethical situations, and much more talk that had me questioning what I believed. I guess that is why I have already probably been the only one to have a few posts on subjects that I have found interesting. Why am I so interested in this? The only connections I can clearly draw are a) my brother was basically a miracle child, and b) my mom works at Birthchoice as an ultrasound technician.

Now about the class in general-- I am so thrilled that I can't even explain myself. This is the first time BY FAR that I have gone out of my way to do (quite intense) research outside of class, have hour-long conversations with my friends about the articles and books that I have read, and been reading online journals about reproductive medicine while eating my oatmeal in the morning. It's really awesome how I can email and call my mom to discuss the topics I find astounding and ridiculous, and hear her perspective on them, religiously and medically.

I'm excited to find out what semester holds!!