In Vitro Fertilization
...sing couples for part or all of it ( Bonnicksen 5 ). The religious issues concerning IVF and egg donation are that there is the act of playing god, that this procedure isn’t natural, and there are times when you have to abort some of the fetuses because five or six become implanted in the uterus. I am all for IVF and egg donation. Even being Catholic, I feel very strongly on this issue. IVF and egg donation gives couple the chance to have children when biologically they are not able to due to some complication of either the wife or husband. IVF is a process in which the doctors give the woman drugs to induce the ovulation of more than one egg; the eggs are then removed and then fertilized by the prepared sperm. If fertilization is successful, the embryo is then placed into the uterus for hopes that it will implant itself in the walls. Usually more than one embryo is placed in the uterus for better chances of becoming pregnant (Institute of Medicine 25). This causes a problem for many people. Egg donation plays a part in IVF because there are times when the woman doesn’t produce enough eggs or produces no eggs at and if that is the case then she must either adopt or find women whom are willing to donate their eggs. The eggs that are retrieved from the donor are fertilized by the husband’s sperm and then placed inside wife (93). Technically she is not the biological mother, but she will be carrying the baby and giving birth to the baby. IVF is associated with the increase in multiple pregnancies. “While assisted births represent only two percent of singleton pregnancies, they represent thirty-five percent of twin and seventy-seven percent of triplet pregnancies (Blank and Merrick 91). The big controversial procedure to reduce multiple births is selective reduction or termination of pregnancy. “ Usually this entails an injection of potassium chloride into the heart of the fetus (or fetuses) to be aborted.” (92) Opponents of abortion and religious communities, such as the Catholic Church, are opposed to this process because they do not believe in abortion. One of the best ways to sum up why people are against IVF and egg donation is that they believe it is “not natural” (Singer 24, original quotes). In the argument against the statement that IVF is not natural, Singer argues that, “since IVF does not occur except by human interventions, it is therefore (on this view) not natural. However, by the same token, neither is any other form of medical treatment. The opponent of IVF would have to reject all forms of medical treatment” (25). Someone could take this view a little further, Singer says, and conclude that, “ IVF is unnatural because it does not happen in the normal course of things” (25). He again points out that this is not an effective criticism not just for IVF but also for anything else that does not happen in the normal course of events. He goes on to say that, “ In the normal course of events, people diagnosed as suffering from an advanced cancer will not recover. But sometimes they do. It would be hard to imagine anyone regretting this departure from the normal course of events, whether or not the recovery resulted from innovative medical treatment” (25). Singer goes on with counter arguments against the statement that IVF is not natural. He even dwells in religious beliefs and counteracts their arguments. An example would be the argument stating IVF is unnatural “because it is not how God intended conception to occur. The decisive question here is the obvious one – how do they know?” Singer goes on to say, “ God’s will cannot be discovered by simply assuming that it is in accordance with the way things have always been done since in that case every innovation in history would have to di...