Comments by "Setta" (@settame1) on "The IVF "Debate" is One the GOP Should Avoid" video.

@andrewcarlton6196 IVF is your genetic kids. Donor sperm and donor eggs can be used by often isn’t because it’s significantly more expensive. Donor sperm in fact is almost never used unless there are compounding female factors. It’s more likely you’d have your own genetic kids that are being carried by a surrogate than not having a kid genetically related to you and your SO. Also IVF is only done when nothing else works because 1) it’s expensive, 2) it’s not significantly higher pregnancy rate for most people, 3) it’s unethical because it’s so invasive.
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Except you don’t have to. You can do one at a time. You can request that when you have eggs fertilized. Even still we’re talking 2 weeks of pregnancy. Before implantation. Before it’s technically a pregnancy. Conception is classically treated as implantation
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This is what people don’t realize in this debate. You lost 5 children through miscarriage, yet they complain about the 2 embryos left over that may be frozen indefinitely.
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Almost all insurance companies pay for IVF already, the degree to which they pay is what is different. Pharmaceutical companies also give very very steep discounts on IVF if you qualify, same with clinics. For instance for us, our insurance paid almost 100% (our lab was out of network) but only after we went through 6 IUI rounds because those are less expensive and less invasive with the same rate of success (different route but all things being equal same level of success).
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The people going through IVF likely have made a dozen embryos naturally but they didn’t implant. So how is this any different?
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You can make only 1 embryo at a time. It’s inefficient but it can be done. Not only that any embryos that are made can be frozen indefinitely (oldest I think was 30 years that successfully implanted). The days of fresh embryo transfer are gone (which is when only one would be transferred and the rest tossed). You realize the people who are having to go through IVF have likely “created” dozens of embryos naturally though, just none of them implanted. So are you going to say “if you don’t get pregnant in the first month you need to stop because you’re potentially destroying life”?
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Both of our children are from IVF and we have 2 more frozen embryos. Complications from PCOS.
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IVF is with blastocysts not fetuses.
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It’s the left saying the right is making it an issue.
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Conception is implantation. Otherwise natural conception would also be considered abortion.
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So for myself when we went through IVF, we had 28 eggs, 25 were mature, 15 eggs fertilized (day 1), 12 made it to day 3, 9 made it to day 6. Out of those 9, 4 tested chromosomal normal, 4 tested abnormal (with multiple abnormalities that wouldn’t allow for implantation or would lead to early miscarriage) and 1 was untested. I was a high egg producer, typically you get <10 eggs, you have 1-2 that make it through the process (even without the genetic testing). Some times people “bank” them where they go through the process several times to ensure they have enough to transfer. Transferring has the same implantation rate as natural conception - about 60%. This is about the same rate as you see naturally, however you don’t see them actually fail at each step naturally. Typically women produce 1 egg, it has a chance to fertilize, it has a chance to make it to day 6, it has a 60% chance of implanting and has a 50% chance of not immediately dying at that point (before you get a positive test). Yes there are freezers full of them, but it’s not like clinics are overrun. Keeping embryos on ice for families to adopt is a very viable option.
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It isn’t.
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Most only have 1-2 embryos to work with after 1 retrieval. We had a very high number and got 9 (4 were genetically viable) and that was very very high. Ours will be given up for adoption if we don’t use them all (we have 2 currently both of which are healthy children).
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The government has given so much in pharmaceutical grant money to fund IVF research, the pharma companies kinda owe us for it.
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It’s what people who don’t deal with infertility don’t realize. My husband and I spent about $800 a month for a year on IUI treatments. I ended up needing my gallbladder removed from complications with my hormones (not just the medication fault but it didn’t help) and needed a D&C because my lining was to thick and wouldn’t shed. We put off many things, like buying a house to pay for our treatment. Luckily we finally qualified for IVF and it was actually cheaper with insurance than our IUI treatment (10k total and that was only because our lab was out of market). It’s still cheaper than adoption which was our next step.
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Our kids were made through IVF and we had genetic testing done to ensure they’re ours. Some states are starting to require it (this also would prove paternity).
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@daemonsilver3304 why? Eggs can be federalized one at a time, they don’t even has to discard fertilized eggs. Natural conception and IVF have the same implantation rates so if you’re against it at that stage you’re also against natural implantation. The drugs used for IVF were developed with governmental funding so we’ve already paid for them, so saying that it’s a cost on the tax payer it really isn’t, not to mention it’s already typically completely covered for medically necessary IVF. To get to IVF (that’s covered) you have to exhaust all other possibilities for conception because it is an invasive procedure. Personally we tried IUI 12 times, each time we had a high likelihood of 5+ which would have caused a medically necessary selective reduction in embryos (aka abortion) because it would have risked the health and wellbeing of the other embryos. It’s done the vast majority of the time with the parent’s eggs and sperm, if not it’s from willing donors (trust me, people don’t go through with it unless they believe in it cause even with $10k in compensation it’s a very medically intense journey). Any good clinic with high success rate only implants one blastocyst at a time because it’s to risky with 2 considering there is already a 5% chance for identical twins via IVF. There may be an argument made for genetic testing (at day 6 cells are tested for chromosomal anomalies) but this is typically not covered by insurance and parents have the right to choose to keep or destroy those embryos. Now how correct that testing is is an issue, it typically is a small sample (because at day 6 there aren’t many cells) so it probably catches more anomalies than normal, but it also is weeding out eggs that have a high likelihood of failure to implant or early miscarriage, if you’ve been trying for 4 years or longer you don’t really want to take that risk. All the other BS is made up outrage that doesn’t exist. The Alabama case was regarding gross negligence by the clinic and had nothing to do with the actual IVF procedure. It was a clinic that didn’t want to pay.
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If you actually need it (have gone through the IUI and testing needed for it) it typically is. If not clinics, pharmacies and pharmaceutical companies often have steep discounts for the procedure.
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Why would you think the most pro of pro life people would want to kill embryos? It makes zero sense. The Alabama case is so misunderstood. An escaped mental patient managed to get into a supposedly locked embryologist lab, into their supposedly locked freezer and pull out 3 embryos and drop them. The hospital and clinic were both sued and only 1 of the families actually won their civil case. It wasn’t criminal. The clinic didn’t want to pay so they said “we’re taking our toys and going home” despite being 100% at fault (they didn’t lock their doors or monitor it so they’re at fault for not protecting the embryos people were paying them to). Because the clinic didn’t want to pay for the civil suit they made everyone believe it was a criminal case and that it wasn’t gross negligence that was the cause.
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You can adopt embryos too and it lacks many of the issues people have with adopting kids who are already born (eg mother can breast feed, additional bonding during pregnancy, certain of the health of the mother, can raise child as own rather than having the standard open adoption). Many of the kids who are “up for adoption” aren’t really. They basically want split custody, or the parent isn’t voluntarily giving the child up, abuse and drug use is often a factor that adoptive parents don’t have the ability to cope with (I know a family who adopted a baby at birth and the mom shows up every few months high as a kite trying to kidnap them). Plus adoption is very very very expensive compared to embryo adoption.
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@sooperd00p because government grants paid for the research for it. People don’t realize how much the cost typically comes down these days though. Insurance companies, clinics, pharmaceutical companies all have steep discounts depending on your economic situation. People often don’t realize IVF is the last resort though, you typically have to go through at least a few treatments before getting to it.
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The number of republicans pushing for this is less than the number of democrats pushing for post birth abortion
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⁠ @abad-enoughdude._.3919 I’ve been through the IVF process more than once, at different clinics, in different states. That has been an option at every clinic I’ve talked to while shopping around, you just have to ask.
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Except you don’t need to create more than one embryo at a time. It doesn’t mean that an embryo will be destroyed with IVF. You can do one at a time, it just takes much longer.
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1) freezing and being given up for adoption is a possibility. But you can opt to only make one embryo at a time if you have strong moral convictions about it (just as you can opt to “harvest” the sperm via intercourse with condom). 2) no reputable clinic does multi embryo transfers anymore. It’s to dangerous and doesn’t have any better outcomes than single embryo transfer. At most they would do 2 (after octamom no clinic has done that). The selective reduction happens with IUI not IVF, where drugs are given. I’m an over responder to the drugs and produced at least 4 eggs every month. They don’t carry out the procedure if there more than 4 typically unless you are always over responding and we had to go through paperwork and everything saying we understood the risks. The selective reduction takes place at above 4 because the risk of miscarriage of more than 1 is more likely than all of them making it (eg loose 1 to save the other 3) but is only done at the parents behest. Ethically most will not perform selective reduction on triplets.
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Yes. Embryos are given up for adoption most of the time.
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Except many can conceive but not carry the baby to term. So you’re experiencing a miscarriage every month.
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@wigletron2846 this is dependent on your clinic. Almost nowhere stores for two years for “free”. If you are really stream lined in your use of the embryos you might be able to use 2, but that’s back to back usage with the cooldown needed for the medication. Our clinic you have to pay for storage from the beginning ($695/year no matter how many are stored). If you don’t pay the embryos are destroyed but you’re contacted first. You can donate and they can remain frozen essentially indefinitely. There are plenty of people who want to adopt an embryo because they have a closer connection to them than an adopted or surrogate child (carrying the baby themselves, ability to breast feed, ability to have them “as their own” rather than explaining to family as an adoption).
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