I read an article that scientists have successfully removed a blastocyst, cryogenically frozen it, thawed it, implanted it into a surrogate and successfully brought it to term. The blastocyst was frozen for 20 years! How come I haven't heard about this in the mainstream abortion debate? It's like a perfect solution to make both sides of the issue happy. Women can have the right to their body and deny an embryo life support, doctors can remove the blastocyst without damaging it, which is following their oath to do no harm, cryogenically freeze it and then one day, some Christian can adopt the blastocyst and implant it. I read that if the blastocyst is removed at the 200 cell point, the success rate can be as high as 90%. With this procedure, both philosophical positions are achieved simultaneously. I am not that familiar with the procedure do I don't know the limitations, such as a small window of opportunity, etc.
Just questions/thoughts off the top of my head: How much does this cost? How many blastocysts are waiting to be implanted now? I would think at the blastocyst stage women wouldn't even know they're pregnant. Women wouldn't have the right to their own body if they have to have the blastocyst removed. Would the subsequent child have a right to know it's biological parents? IF a woman agreed to this how much should she be paid ?
The blastocyst stage is before implantation in the uterus. The woman does not know she's pregnant until after implantation. What has been done is eggs being fertilized and grown in an incubator to the blastocyst stage to be implanted into the uterus: http://www.hfea.gov.uk/blastocyst-transfer.html Even if your scenario were possible, it would only be another option for the woman, not a solution to abortion. For myself, I would not place a born child for adoption as I do not believe in it, so I certainly wouldn't do it for a blastocyst.
Okay, so it might not be practical because you can't detect the pregnancy soon enough to remove a blastocyst when it's around 200 cells. I read that a blood test can detect an increase in hCG earlier than a urine test can, as soon as 8-10 days so it may be BARELY possible. Otherwise, I guess a new procedure would have to be developed to remove an implanted blastocyst, assuming that can be done with current technology. I was thinking about it from a logical consistency standpoint. The mother has the right to her body but does she have the right to the unborn child's body? Technically, the blastocyst and fetus is not her DNA, it's new DNA, a new person. So, if you are Pro-Choice, you believe the mother has the right to her body and can choose to deny "life support" to the unwanted guest (going along with the violinist metaphor). If doctors can remove it without destroying it, shouldn't they? A patient usually doesn't say, I want my cancer removed using this method or that method. Usually they lean on the doctor's experience and allow him or her to make the choice of methods, which is safest and has the best chance of success. If the medical community did develop a procedure where a blastocyst or even an embryo could be removed without harming the unborn citizen, wouldn't they be obligated by their oath to attempt to preserve life? What about artificial incubation? That technology doesn't exist now but we are making great strides and it will eventually be possible. When it does become available and a doctor can remove embryos safely, without any increased risk to the mother, and even bring it to term in an artificial incubator, doesn't that change the debate? The mother can still choose to give up the baby, to abort it from her body, without having to bring it to term or care for it after it is born, yet she chooses a method that kills it instead. The argument I hear most often is that women have the right to their body but I just don't consider the unborn citizen part of a women's body. If they want to evict it, that's okay but if there is another option, to evict it without destroying it, I think it should be the only option. We may have huge warehouses filled with viable aborted embryos, that never get implanted or adopted. I can live with that. Maybe one day there will be a religious movement that only adopts embryos from cryogenic storage or maybe one day, a virus will infect the entire human population and destroy all the women's eggs and nearly make us go extinct. If a slight change in procedure makes Pro-Life movement happy and adds additional security for our species, what's wrong with that?
This process has been used in farming for a very long time. The valuable female is bred, then about 7 days later (before implantation) the embryo is flushed from her body and implanted into the surrogate which has been treated with hormones. Then the valuable animal can immediately be bred again, enabling farmers/ranchers/horse racers, etc. to make a lot more money from the one animal. It is not a solution for abortion since the embryo must be flushed before implantation. That is before a woman realizes she is pregnant, well actually, she is not pregnant before implantation, so it would be more accurate to say before the woman expects pregnancy, in which case the MAP or emergency contraception would be a better choice.
I suspect in the future we will be seeing more wealthy women hiring out their pregnancies to poor surrogate women. Some wealthy women already hire "wet nurses" to take care of their baby's needs.
Yes...… the very wealthy will certainly be able to afford this procedure which I have to admit is certainly an interesting alternative to a traditional abortion! A well to do woman could have a blastocyst frozen, later on have issues of conscience regarding what she did and perhaps even hire a poor person to have her child for her?????
Ok let's break this down piece by piece. Most standard pregnancy tests will only work around 2 weeks after conception which is after implantation. Implantation usually occurs between 7 to 10 days after ovulation (2-3 days after conception). There are two types of blood test that can be done to detect pregnancy, a quantitative blood test measures the exact amount of hCG in the blood, and a qualitative hCG blood test gives a simple yes or no answer to whether you are pregnant or not. A blood test can detect a pregnancy earlier than a urine test at about 9-12 days from possible conception .. however it is more prone to incorrect results and still only detects after implantation. There is no test that can reliably detect a pregnancy before implantation. Removing a blastocyst from the uterine wall would be fraught with difficulty, implantation itself takes 10-12 days to complete. It really depends on how you approach the issue, if you are of the thought that the unborn are 'persons' from conception then no the female cannot claim ownership over the unborn as one person cannot own another .. however, what one person can do is to deny consent to another person to use their body towards their goal ie a woman may deny the unborn consent to use her body to sustain its life, under that scenario the woman would have every right to an abortion at any time, for any reason and for the state to pay for it as she would be defending herself from non-consented injuries imposed by a mentally incompetent person and the state has a duty of care under the equal protection clause to help her achieve this just as it does for all other citizens. The process of removing that unborn person should be down to the medical community, not the state .. Abortion is purely a medical procedure and as such should be left to the medical community to set guide lines and rules concerning it. I suppose the real question would be who actually foots the bill, I cannot see Republicans supporting the state using tax money to support and sustain this .. can you? When or if this technology becomes reality then I see no reason why a fetus etc could not be removed and "grown" in such a chamber, but again the issue will come down to funding. Nothing wrong in it at all .. however what you do have to realise that for a lot of pro-life people it really isn't all about "saving babies" it is also about what they would term responsibility and consequences, and what I would term force and punishment. I once did a calculation on what the cost would be to the care system if all elective abortion were banned .. I cannot remember the actual cost, but I do remember it would mean an extra 114,000 children entering care EVERY year.
