Ivf
All children inevitably ask where they come from. One potential mother is going to have a harder job than most.
“Well darling, your father committed suicide and I had to get a court order to retrieve his sperm within twenty four hours of his death. Then I had to get another court order to use the sperm. And that’s how you were born.”
Last week one woman’s bid to access her dead husband’s sperm was granted by Supreme Court Justice James Edelman, paving the way to allow West Australian women to access their dead husbands’ sperm without a court order.
Continue reading "What if conception happened after your dad died?" »
Hundreds of Australians die every year because of overcrowded hospitals. Children with disabilities struggle to get the help and equipment they need. Public schools are under-resourced. We don’t have a magic uber-highway to zip us around the country at the speed of sound.
And yet we’re spending taxpayer’s cash on IVF for women in their 50s. Riddle me that.
The news that a 60-year-old gave birth is the sort of thing that sees some people shudder while others are all high-fives and ‘you go girlfriend’ excited.
Continue reading "An age-old question on taxpayer funding for IVF" »
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Phoebe says:
@Ren - I think you’ll find that I did agree that women in their late-40’s or older having kids is a real problem - and that we shouldn’t be encouraging it. The issue I’m concerned about is that once you start making rules, you’ll find all these square pegs that… Read more »
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Tubesteak says:
If you can’t afford to have them then don’t have them. You’re not doing anything for the world by having children you can’t afford. It’s everyone’s responsibility to fund their own existence Read more »
As a disabled feminist, I’m often asked about my views on medical procedures like pre-natal screening and preimplantation genetic diagnosis, or PGD (where IVF embryos are screened for genetic characteristics).
Tests for some conditions, such as Down Syndrome, have become par for the course in recent years, and the list of conditions routinely screened for is growing all the time.
Most people accept that the purpose of such procedures and techniques is to identify and eliminate genetic conditions by terminating foetuses affected by them or, in the case of PGD, select embryos that are unaffected by the conditions for implantation and intended pregnancy.
Continue reading "We are all much more than the sum of our DNA" »
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Beats By Dr.Dre Studio says:
The other day, while I was at work, my sister stole my iphone and tested to see if it can survive a 30 foot drop, just so she can be a youtube sensation. My apple ipad is now destroyed and she has 83 views. I know this is totally off… Read more »
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Sonja Couroupis says:
Agree… I wonder what parents would say if our medical world encouraged parents by describing the joy their child would bring them. What a sad world that aborts 90% of these awesome people… how is that not discrimination?! Stella, I watched Insight and thought you summed it up so well.… Read more »
Overnight news broke Swedish doctors have made a startling breakthrough in fertility treatment, by transplanting the functioning wombs of two women into their own adult daughters.
They’ll now give the new uteruses a year to settle in before trying for pregnancies with IVF. It’s an incredible medical development, that will give some infertile women hope they will one day become biological mothers.
The clinical director of women’s health at Westmead Hospital in Sydney Dr Andrew Pesce told ABC radio this morning: “It’s obviously emotionally a much more powerful and strong bond and experience if the woman carries the baby herself. I think it’s not possible to anticipate yet that such women could give birth naturally.”
Continue reading "When should a doctor say “you just can’t have a baby”?" »
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Miss Nae says:
It’s often “easier”** and cheaper to put yourself through IVF than the adoption process whether local or international. So you can all shut up about those children waiting to be adopted - they don’t exist. A significant number of countries will no longer adopt outside of the country. ** Nothing… Read more »
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Super D says:
If they can transplant a working womb into a woman what’s to stop them transplanting one into a man? Read more »
A couple of years back I met a woman who had had quadruplets through an IVF program 24 years ago. I was delighted to find that all four babies were now healthy young people but amazed to find out that I had actually conducted the embryo transfer and had implanted all four embryos inside her womb.
IVF has certainly changed over the past 30 years in that things that were acceptable then are no longer practiced today – like implanting multiple embryos.
The most significant change over the past 30 years has been the improvement in IVF success rates; the clinic at which I work rarely implants more than one embryo and has a multiple pregnancy rate below 4 per cent, as compared to 40 per cent 25 years ago
Continue reading "There are multiple advances in IVF for a single reason" »
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emotional says:
Phil do you have children? Can you naturally have children? Because I find those negative comments normally come from someone whom can have children with no help. And you have no Idea what people go through to have this child I recently found out that I cant have children as… Read more »
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Mitchell Meek says:
The beauty of this medical technology is that people are able to experience the joy of raising a family even when their own genetic faults or medical conditions complicate or remove naturally occurring processes. It’s truly wonderful that the scientific research and endeavour of so many people can return such… Read more »
When I gave birth to my second gorgeous son six weeks ago, the first question some asked when they heard our happy news was: “So are you going to try again for a girl?”
Umm, how about you give the epidural time to wear off and let me enjoy my beautiful, healthy baby boy before telling me that somehow my world is not complete because I have only produced babies featuring both an X and Y chromosome.
Admittedly I have only had two children of the same sex, not seven like Tumut couple Andrew and Jodi McMahon who appeared on 60 Minutes on Sunday night documenting their desperate bid for a baby girl.
Continue reading "Choosing your baby’s sex is selfish beyond belief" »
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Estiven says:
@winnie - like you, I am absolutely cceoinvnd it’s a boy. I have felt that way since the day we got the BFP. I’m only 7 weeks now so there is obviously no way we could know, and we want to be surprised at birth, but I am just cceoinvnd… Read more »
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ANON says:
Seems all the negative comments are coming from those with ‘one of each’ all I would say is mind your own business you cannot comment until you have experienced it. I give Jodi and her family a big pat on the back, to go and do what they done. And… Read more »
There is no ‘right’ to have a child. This seems a callous thing to say, but wrapping any conversation about children up in cuddly pink fleece-lined jumpsuits doesn’t help what has to be a serious policy debate.
While it must be devastating for couples who, for whatever reason, are unable to conceive, there are limits to society’s obligations to help them. Like most controversial health decisions, this is a tale of clashing rights and finite resources.
Last year the Federal Government made changes to the Medicare Safety Net, effectively capping the amount they would pay out for assisted reproductive treatments.
Continue reading "I’m sorry, but society doesn’t owe you a child" »
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Grover Bodner says:
Thanks for revealing your ideas here. The other issue is that each time a problem appears with a laptop or computer motherboard, people should not take the risk connected with repairing that themselves because if it is not done right it can lead to irreparable damage to the entire laptop.… Read more »
After nine years of trying to conceive, Manchester couple Lesley and John Brown gave birth to Louise, the world’s first test tube baby, this week in 1978. A newspaper paid £300,000 for the family’s story, which inspired thousands of people. By the time Louise was 21 in 1999, hundreds of thousands of women had concieved using IVF. That same year, Louise’s younger sister Natalie became the first IVF baby to in turn conceive - Louise followed soon after, giving birth to a son in 2004.
Welcome to Tuesday at The Punch. What’s on your mind? Share it here.
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http://flaskflagonflame.com/members/kareneminj/ says:
Good info and straight to the point. I don’t know if this is truly the best place to ask but do you folks have any ideea where to get some professional writers? Thanks Read more »
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Ninety-four year old actress Zsa Zsa Gabor’s ninth husband, Prince Frederik von Anhalt, reportedly wants her to have a baby using his sperm, a donor egg and a surrogate mother. Yes, he does. He visited a Beverley Hills fertility clinic for sperm analysis and blood work.
There have been no reports of him also having his head read; however, Gabor’s daughter, 64-year-old Francesca Hilton (a product of Gabor’s second marriage to hotel magnate, Conrad Hilton) has denounced the story as the latest in a string of wild publicity stunts by her seventh step-father.
And while the Gabor-Anhalts gallivant around celebrity baby clinics (if gallivanting is possible when you are just shy of a century, with a partially-amputated leg), my friend – a single mum of two young children – has announced that she has successfully battled cancer at the age of 38. Facing her own mortality, she had to put in place a plan for the care of her children, which involved her parents and her sisters.
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Katharine says:
Well said. What about cases where the woman in her 40s or 50s is married to a much younger man, eg in his 30s? You don’t see people mentioning that, either. If people react to older mums with disgust, why not the same disgust when older dads procreate? It’s hypocrisy. Read more »
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Jane says:
In reply to Sunny, well, my husband’s mother must have been a terrible, terrible role model for him. His mother had him at 18. My bogan husband and I were 31 and 29 respectively when we had our first child. Read more »
In Victoria alone, almost 500 single women and lesbians have used IVF and other fertility treatments since a law change in January last year made it easier. Some see this rise in fatherless parenting as a violation of children’s rights. Others say kids can cope without dads - although they still need male role models. Susie O’Brien’s story is in the Herald Sun today and she will be blogging live.
Do we really need dads?
Absolutely. In an ideal world all children would grow up with both male and female adults to care for them.
But in the absence of a father, a father figure who might be a close male relative or family friend can do the job just as well. It just takes time, love and commitment.
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Maude says:
I married a man with a low sperm count.After many years we had IVF with donor sperm and had a child.My husband took his own life.I love my child,but I did not sign up for single parenthood.The whole experience has made me rethink our “rights”.No,we don’t have “right” to have… Read more »
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here's for fathers everywhere says:
It would be a little difficult to bring a child into the world if you didn’t have a sperm to fertilise the egg. Yes I agree fathers are required for the human race to continue. I think all children need a father figure some one that mum wakes up beside… Read more »
Should we play God? It’s time we dumped that question. It only shows how deluded we are about where we’ve already got to.
Playing God is taking over responsibility for the things that once could only be committed to prayer, ritual and trust in the Almighty – the things that couldn’t be controlled, including most things to do with the health of you and those you loved.
You become responsible for what was just “in God’s hands”. A hazard of life becomes a risk you accept. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the matter of starting a family.
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SB says:
So the world exists for you and how dare people have children because it means you have less resources. As a mother, you contributed to over population just as mouch as any other mother. Anyone who believes anything other than you must be stupid. What a naive comment. Read more »
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Lisa H. says:
Hasn’t the one child policy been relaxed over the past years? isn’t this partly because the gender imbalance was becoming obvious to the central planners? I cannot believe that the gender imbalance in China is simply a bizarre myth propagated by ‘anti-chinese’ forces. I can understand why a poor Chinese… Read more »
My attempts to write something in response to news that a Victorian couple - desperate for a daughter - had aborted twin boys conceived through IVF, met repeatedly with failure. I had a dental abscess when the story broke and I couldn’t think about the scenario without gnashing my teeth.
In the end, I had to stop writing, take two Nurofen Plus, lie on the couch and watch inane TV to calm down.
Toddlers and Tiaras would do the trick, I thought, wrongly.
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Xl6luS rpbuxfxuyvub, algmmiodipti, [link=http://hpbnkrvczbpz.com/]hpbnkrvczbpz[/link], http://ticyuwyjzutl.com/ Read more »
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daniel says:
@Mr GG: Never accept any medical care, medicine, technology, burn youir house, and go live in nature and “just accept what life gave you” then. Read more »
A Melbourne couple’s decision to abort twin boys conceived through IVF – the weekend’s flashpoint news story – is a can of worms, a hornets’ nest and a Mandelbrot set of ethical complexity all in one.
The couple, after the death of their first baby girl, wasn’t happy with the twins’ gender and is now in the midst of legal action to pre-determine the sex of their next IVF baby.
Which, you might be surprised to learn, we can do nowadays. Some medical industry smart arse has even rebranded it ‘family balancing’.
Continue reading "Playing with nature - the ethics of sex selection" »
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Nay says:
Im a mother of two amazing gorgeous boys. My husband and I would love a 3rd child but he is recovering from cancer and we are unable to conceive naturally again. IVF will be our only option for conception if we try again. If it were put to me ‘do… Read more »
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Terrin says:
I do believe you are referring to a state law (can’t remember which state), in which a man was charged with manslaughter after causing an accident which resulted in the miscarriage of a baby at 8 months. As the baby, if delivered in a hospital, and not from severe stress/trauma… Read more »
Call me a bit of an idealistic Charlotte from Sex & The City, but if I have experienced something amazing, I want the world to experience it too.
So now I am a mum, I’d love the whole world to experience the joy of motherhood, particularly the women who are having difficulty falling pregnant. That’s why I am so supportive of IVF. Strangers (even friends who have dared not ask for fear it’s too private) assume I had my twins via IVF. I did not. And I would be willing to shout it from the rooftops if I had.
I have seen people close to me finally get their wish to be a parent thanks to this miraculous medical procedure. A few of the beautiful mums in my twin prenatal class had their multiples thanks to IVF and I know just how eternally grateful they are that the procedure exists.
Continue reading "Choosing a baby’s sex: the next great leap for parents" »
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Clare says:
i totally agree with Jazz. If you don’t believe in the gender selection, thats your opinion, but it doesn’t mean that you should restrict others of the right to choose the much wanted sex of their child. its inevitable that some parents want a certain gender when they are having… Read more »
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jazz says:
Funny how the people who try and say this is an unethical procedure try to bring up sex-ratios. If you were to use evidence from ‘extreme cases’ such as china, maybe you should consider the fact that the chinese sex ratio has been out of balance for a while now.… Read more »
One in six people in this country will encounter problems conceiving and need medical assistance to have a child.
It’s a startling figure and it probably explains why most of us know someone who has struggled to start or add to a family.
In the past there was little that could be done for these couples, but thankfully science has provided options that many only dreamed of previously. Sadly it seems the Government is about to take those options away from many Australians.
Continue reading "IVF for the rich and infertility for the rest" »
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Sarah says:
It’s crazy to compare the cost of IVF to other things. Many of the people going through this are under enormous stress. They are young people under huge financial pressure. It IS as bad as cancer. I had early stage endometrial cancer which caused infertility. Nothing in this world is… Read more »
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kat says:
i am 29 and been trying to get pregnant for 4 years. i could not afford ivf 3 years ago… i could have a 2 year old child right now…instead i am just starting my 1st cycle with a 5k credit card. it is SAD. all i ever wanted was… Read more »
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