Surrogate Pregnancy

waltky

Wise ol' monkey
Feb 6, 2011
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Okolona, KY
Solomon's solution: Let the father have two of the babies and let her keep the third...

Birth Father Demands Surrogate Undergo Abortion After He Learns She’s Carrying Triplets
November 25, 2015 – Surrogate mom Melissa Cook is facing pressure from the birth father to abort one of the unborn triplets she is carrying for him as part of their surrogacy contract. Cook spoke out Tuesday about the ethical dilemma she is facing. “They are human beings. I bonded with these kids. This is just not right,” she told the New York Post.
The babies’ father, a man from Georgia, hired Cook for $33,000 to have a child by in-vitro fertilization using his sperm and the eggs of a 20-year-old donor. The 47-year-old California native was implanted with three embryos, which all developed normally against the odds. Cook said the birth father immediately began to complain when he learned all three embryos had survived. She is now 17 weeks pregnant. Cook shared with the Post a letter she sent to the father arguing, “The doctor put in three healthy embryos . . . The chances were high they were all going to take. You knew I was 47 years old. If you knew you only wanted two babies, then why put in three embryos?”

The father has begun threatening Cook with financial penalties if she does not undergo an abortion for one of the triplets. The father’s lawyer, Robert Warmsley, told Cook in a letter Friday that the dad “understands, albeit does not agree, with your decision not to reduce.” “As you know, his remedies where you refuse to abide by the terms of the agreement, are immense [and] include, but are not limited to, loss of all benefits under the agreement, damages in relation to future care of the children [and] medical costs associated with any extraordinary care the children may need,” the lawyer warned. “Cook received an additional letter Tuesday “urging her to schedule a ‘selection reduction’ — abortion of one of the fetuses — by day’s end,” the Post reported. Cook told the Post that given the pressure she’s facing, she’s wavering on her decision to keep all three babies. “I have to reduce. I’m scared. I don’t want to suffer,” she said.

Jennifer Lahl, head of the Center for Bioethics and Culture, a group that opposes surrogacy, told CNSNews.com that Cook reached out to her for advice, because she saw “no good reason to terminate a healthy pregnancy.” “By all medical exams to date, the babies that Melissa is carrying are all healthy. It’s just a matter of we don’t want three. We want two, which for me is rather disgusting to see that’s how we treat children,” Lahl said. Lahl said that this case was indicative of larger problems with surrogacy, commenting that “it’s treating women as hired paid workers - breeders.” “We make demands about what kind of children we’ll have, what kind of children we want, how many children we want, how many children we don’t want,” Lahl said asking, “Do you really want to turn pregnancy into a commercial contract?”

Lahl’s organization has now set up a donation page to raise funds so Cook can afford to deliver all three triplets despite the financial penalties she is facing. The growing demand for surrogates in the U.S. and abroad has led to ethical dilemmas similar to Cook’s, including an incident in Thailand in which an Australian couple allegedly abandoned their surrogate son after learning he had Down Syndrome. The couple left the country with the child’s healthy twin sister. Thailand has since banned surrogacy for foreign couples and same-sex couples.

Birth Father Demands Surrogate Undergo Abortion After He Learns She’s Carrying Triplets
 
Scientists grow two-week-old human embryos in lab...
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For first time, scientists grow two-week-old human embryos in lab
May 4, 2016 - Scientists have for the first time grown human embryos outside of the mother for almost two full weeks into development, giving unique insight into what they say is the most mysterious stage of early human life.
Scientists had previously only been able to study human embryos as a culture in a lab dish until the seventh day of development when they had to implant them into the mother's uterus to survive and develop further. But using a culture method previously tested to grow mouse embryos outside of a mother, the teams were able to conduct almost hour by hour observations of human embryo development to see how they develop and organize themselves up to day 13. "This it the most enigmatic and mysterious stage of human development," said Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz, a University of Cambridge professor who co-led the work. "It is a time when the basic body shape is determined."

The work, covered in two studies published on Wednesday in the journal Nature and Nature Cell Biology, showed how the cells that will eventually form the human body self-organize into the basic structure of a post-implantation human embryo. "Embryo development is an extremely complex process and while our system may not be able to fully reproduce every aspect of this process, it has allowed us to reveal a remarkable self-organizing capacity ... that was previously unknown," said Marta Shahbazi, a researcher at Britain's University of Cambridge who was part of the research teams. Robin Lovell-Badge, an expert in stem cells at Britain's Francis Crick Institute who was not directly involved in this work, said it provided "a first glimpse" of how the early human embryo develops at the point when it would usually implant in the womb lining, becoming invisible and impossible to study.

14-DAY LIMIT

As well as advancing human biology expertise, the knowledge gained from studying these developments should help to improve in-vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments and further progress in the field of regenerative medicine, the researchers said. But the research also raises the issue of an international law banning scientists from developing human embryos beyond 14 days, and suggests this limit may have to be reviewed. Zernicka-Goetz, who spoke to reporters in London, said a wealth of new information could be discovered if human embryos could be grown in a lab dish for just a few days more. "Longer cultures could provide absolutely critical information for basic human biology," she said. "But this would of course raise the next question - of where we should put the next limit."

Sarah Norcross, director of the Progress Educational Trust, a charity which campaigns for people affected by infertility and genetic conditions, agreed that the research raised questions around the 14-day limit and said the international scientific community should "decide whether it is necessary and desirable" to extend it, and if so, by how much. "A public discussion of the rights and wrongs of this would need to follow before any change in law could be contemplated," she told Reuters.

For first time, scientists grow two-week-old human embryos in lab
 

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