Bwahahahahaha... just looking at the column on the right side of the article tells me all I need to know about this online rag.

What's so funny? That's where the real know-it-alls get their facts. There's some mighty fine meat btwn them thar lines. Yessiree!

Yep... nature has evolved a system of human reproduction over millions of years that weeds out birth defects... then certain persons come along trying to meddle with the process in a gigantic experiment that failed because they couldn't handle natural selection.


The 1% difference makes it unacceptable. We shouldn't be paying for birth defects when the money could be put to better use - such as improving health care for vulnerable infants and children for example suffering from distressing conditions.

km

Your response provides no evidence either that those involved thought they "knew everything" nor that the procedure is a failure. Your article has several quotations that indicate that further study is indicated in the cause of the apparent increase in defects, which disproves your first assertion; the success rate for those who would otherwise remain barren disproves your second assertion.



Is your opinion. I doubt the vast majority (i.e. those 96.5%-ish with perfectly healthy babies who would otherwise have none) would agree.

Also, it would be good if you'd provide some evidence that any public funds provided for this procedure are being diverted from other projects involving health care for children or for those suffering distressing conditions ...

They thought they could bypass natural selection without harmful consequences. Obviously the expression was not meant to be taken literally.


Well, it's a failure if you accept the conclusions of the National Birth Defects Prevention Study that "birth defects occur more often among infants conceived with ART" than by natural selection. That inevitability is why quite a few of told 'em not to go down that road in the first place.


Nor would the others who just want to speed up conception. The whole business is about putting their personal interests above everyone else's at whatever public expense so they obviously wouldn't agree to an objective viewpoint that differed from their selfish one.


Maybe it would be good but it's not my point. Whatever funds are being applied to IVF and its fallout should be diverted to helping people already afflicted by pain and suffering.

km

So, in your mind there is — or perhaps shouldn't be — any pain or suffering felt by those those who desperately want but cannot conceive children? Parenting is a right reserved only for the fertile, or for those who can afford adoption (God only knows what you may have against that solution)?

In your mind, anyone seeking to conceive via IVF is automatically self-centered and is stealing from those who seek treatment for other illnesses?

In your mind funds put to IVF are "diverted," rather than shared or simply allocated without prejudice to any other area of medicine or health care?

In your mind, the tiny single-digit per cent of IVF children with health complications are "fallout?" Let's just toss 'em on the pile with Gays and Holocaust survivors and say they don't really exist.

"In your mind" is a place I am thankful not to be. It's a cold, dispassionate rabbit hole. Were I to effect a Keith Olbermann-like posture, I would say, You, sir, are your own fallout!"

Live by rhetorical absolutism or die by it, I guess. If you say something so definitional as "they failed," they knew everything" or "they got it all wrong", you shouldn't be surprised if the reader might tend to take it as written rather than as "I don't really mean this but am using it for mere impact" ...



So something is either a 100% success or a 100% failure? To me that indicates a rather limited outlook on things ...



Your objection here seems to be not with the procedure or to science, but to those who would make use of it contrary to your preference ... yes?



Again, aside from your proposition that since the procedure has statistically minor flaws the entire thing should be abandoned, you haven't provided much of a foundation for this assertion, imo ...

The point our friend here can't or won't consider is that even if a woman conceives a child with medical complications or risks, and non-the-less loves that child unconditionally, it is a 100% success. Maybe even 110%. That may not be the most pragmatic assessment, but having unsuccessfully attempted IVF in the late 70's, I can tell you first hand that the process consists of 80% emotion and 20% science.

LOL... argue much?

Fool! He who is always right need never argue. We poor ignorant lot that know-it-not can only rail against the omnipotent intellect of the... Pffffft. You know what I mean.