Teacher was fired from Catholic School for IF (Invitro Fertilization)treatments

I'm not sure that the eccentric understands why the Catholic church is against IVF. Several fertilized eggs are produced and only a couple of implanted. The rest are destroyed (aborted). So IVF, according to the Catholic church, also constitutes abortion.

I'm not really familiar with IVF procedures.

are these really embryos that are being disposed of rather than sperm? Originally Posted by dilbert firestorm

Ironically*, this is one of those issues I know a ton about. I am not able to have children (thank the lord - I love well behaved, non-sticky kids if I can give them back at the end of the day) and my doctor felt it was her "duty" to tell me all about "what I could do" (with $20,000+ of course). I also have a very close friend who has had 3 surrogate babies and as a doula (in progress, I'm not certified yet) I've around a lot of pregnant surros. Bare in mind, I'm generalising here so if this isn't 100% I apologise. It's from my experience rather than endless googling

Man jacks off in cup. Woman gives herself shots to all hell, and they harvest eggs through the vaginal wall. They usually get anywhere from 8-40 depending on how the fertility of the woman. If it's an egg donor, the number is usually higher. If it's an older, or near infertile woman it's lower.

From 20 eggs, about 12-14 embryos come into being. Depending on the quality of the embryos, they may implant them during the blastocyst stage and in that case they don't really like to implant too many. If the embryos are weak, they'll encourage you to implant more. I've known women who have 1 day 5 embryo implanted and get prengant, I've known women who have 5 day 7 embryos implanted and nada.

So assuming it's an average transfer of 3 embryos and one attaches, then yeah. 2 die. What do they do with the other 10 you may have left over if you get pregnant on the first try? You have options. They can be donated for research, frozen for later (lowers the quality and chance of success), donated to couples who's fertilisation attempts failed (sometimes no eggs fertilise) or destroyed.

A lot of couples don't donate (other than research, which the Church also considers murder) because they feel it's their children. They'd rather destroy them or leave them in a freezer for 20 years instead. So the average couple who does not keep their embryos, probably "aborts" anywhere from 5-10 embryos.

IVF usually takes a few attempts too, I think the average is 2 or 3. Assuming 3 are implanted in 3 transfers, and it becomes a single pregnancy (multiples are very common obviously, especially if you implant more than one blast) then 8 embryos die plus whatever the couple leaves in the eternal freezer, donates, or destroys.

I'm pro-choice and honestly, couldn't care less about IVF or what people do with their genetic material that cannot survive alone - but I can absolutely see where the Church is coming from and I firmly believe in this case they are 100% right.

*It's ironic because the day they told me I could never get pregnant I was so happy I wanted to dance in the streets, not hear about infertility "treatments".

I still have my pope on a rope soap that I bought outside the Vatican 30 years ago.

Ironically*, this is one of those issues I know a ton about. I am not able to have children (thank the lord - I love well behaved, non-sticky kids if I can give them back at the end of the day) and my doctor felt it was her "duty" to tell me all about "what I could do" (with $20,000+ of course). I also have a very close friend who has had 3 surrogate babies and as a doula (in progress, I'm not certified yet) I've around a lot of pregnant surros. Bare in mind, I'm generalising here so if this isn't 100% I apologise. It's from my experience rather than endless googling

Man jacks off in cup. Woman gives herself shots to all hell, and they harvest eggs through the vaginal wall. They usually get anywhere from 8-40 depending on how the fertility of the woman. If it's an egg donor, the number is usually higher. If it's an older, or near infertile woman it's lower.

From 20 eggs, about 12-14 embryos come into being. Depending on the quality of the embryos, they may implant them during the blastocyst stage and in that case they don't really like to implant too many. If the embryos are weak, they'll encourage you to implant more. I've known women who have 1 day 5 embryo implanted and get prengant, I've known women who have 5 day 7 embryos implanted and nada.

So assuming it's an average transfer of 3 embryos and one attaches, then yeah. 2 die. What do they do with the other 10 you may have left over if you get pregnant on the first try? You have options. They can be donated for research, frozen for later (lowers the quality and chance of success), donated to couples who's fertilisation attempts failed (sometimes no eggs fertilise) or destroyed.

A lot of couples don't donate (other than research, which the Church also considers murder) because they feel it's their children. They'd rather destroy them or leave them in a freezer for 20 years instead. So the average couple who does not keep their embryos, probably "aborts" anywhere from 5-10 embryos.

IVF usually takes a few attempts too, I think the average is 2 or 3. Assuming 3 are implanted in 3 transfers, and it becomes a single pregnancy (multiples are very common obviously, especially if you implant more than one blast) then 8 embryos die plus whatever the couple leaves in the eternal freezer, donates, or destroys.

I'm pro-choice and honestly, couldn't care less about IVF or what people do with their genetic material that cannot survive alone - but I can absolutely see where the Church is coming from and I firmly believe in this case they are 100% right.

*It's ironic because the day they told me I could never get pregnant I was so happy I wanted to dance in the streets, not hear about infertility "treatments". Originally Posted by Missy Mariposa

how big are these embryos? are they micro-small? are they embryonic cells?

OP's homepage tells all.

how big are these embryos? are they micro-small? are they embryonic cells? Originally Posted by dilbert firestorm

Yes sir. They rarely let them get past 5 days before they implant them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blastocyst

There's a few photos of blasts on there. Blasts are what you aim for when you do IVF. They're top shelf in comparison to other embryos. You generally only implant 1 or 2, lest you want triplets or more. Octomom had a ton of embryos put in but google isn't telling me if they're 3 day or 5. I did find this though

Q. Some fertility clinics do embryo transfers 3 days post egg retrieval and others do 5 day blastocyst transfers. Can you please explain the difference between the two, which you prefer, and why?

A. When we stimulate a woman’s ovaries to produce lots of eggs we know that they aren’t all going to grow into viable embryos. Our job is to choose the best ones for transfer that give the highest chance of a pregnancy. One good way to do this is to grow the embryos in the lab for 5 days. In doing so, we can see which embryos stop growing at earlier stages and which embryos are strong enough to make it to the blastocyst stage. These blastocyst embryos have a higher chance of implanting and therefore give us a higher pregnancy rate than embryos transferred on day 3. We prefer to do all our transfers on day 5. Most people still have an embryo transfer even with only a few embryos to start with and it also allows us to put back fewer embryos than we would if we did a day 3 transfer.
Q. Nadya Suleman and her Octoplets are a hot topic these days. How do you help families decide how many embryos to put back on the day of IVF embryo transfer? Have you seen a change over the years of people choosing to put in 1-2 embryos as opposed to 3 or more? What kind of changes do you predict for the future?

A. The decision of how many embryos to transfer is a joint decision between the patient and the doctor. We understand the desire to maximize the chances of success by increasing the number of embryos transferred, but we have to balance this with minimizing the chances of a triplet pregnancy or more. The biggest factor in deciding the number to transfer is the age of the woman. As we get older, our eggs age too and in patients who are in their late thirties and early forties we compensate for this “genetic” aging by increasing the number of embryos we transfer.
In a woman 35 or younger we generally transfer only 2 embryos. On a case by case basis we increase this number according to the age of the woman. There are exceptional cases where we increase the number of embryos transferred above the recommended amount, always with the fully informed consent of the patient, of course. Examples of this could be following a number of previous failed IVF cycles or poor embryo quality on the day of transfer.
In the last few years we are seeing a trend towards reducing the number of embryos transferred. Fertility clinics in the US are not bound by law to operate within certain restrictions like they are in some European countries. While we enjoy this freedom of choice, we have a responsibility to our patients to make the right healthcare decisions by not transferring more embryos than necessary.

http://www.blossomclinic.net/2011/06...our-questions/

But regardless of where it's 8 cells or a blast, the Catholic church considers it the same thing as a born person and when you pop 5 of them in there like you're a gumball machine, they consider you just as bad (if not worse) than someone who chooses an abortion.

In this case, reading your contract (before signing it) and common sense could have prevailed. Unfortunately now this woman has lost her job, I don't even think she got pregnant, and she could have spent that 20k+ and the time adopting and actually have a baby and a job.

While I do absolutely respect her freedom of choice to do what she wants with her body whether it's shove 20 embryos in (no she didn't do that, I'm exaggerating to make my point) you have to remember that every action has repercussions. And if you're working in a Catholic school, something they are loudly, publicly against is probably not something you should do while working there if you want to continue to do so. Even artificial insemination isn't okay. I have no idea what this woman was thinking and I really hope her "I'm not a Catholic and I had no idea" excuse doesn't work - it's in your contract that you signed.

My mom hammered into me young that there's always fine print, and that before you put your signature on something you have to read all of it no matter how boring. To this day, I'll even read those 20 page credit card agreements before I apply. Better that then get hit with some hidden annual fee or see my APR double or something they have every right to do since I signed it.

thanx mariposa.

that is what I thought the IVF embryos were, a bunch of cells.

The Church's policy is idiotic, but it is in keeping with their policy that life begins at conception. one can agree to disagree with this and leave it at that.

The government has no business telling the Church what it can preach, or practice. The Catholic Church has been around much longer than the government of the United States. One upset employee should not be able to upset centuries of Church teaching.

I'm not Catholic, and I don't agree with the Catholics. But I do believe in the free exercise of religion.