posted
I'm not sure. I don't think that there's anything morally wrong with putting a child up for adoption when you feel like they'd be better off that way, but why are you in that position in the first place? It seems like adoption is really the best, most caring solution to a problem, but that doesn't mean that it was okay to get in that situation in the first place.
Egg donation is different in that there's really no reason to do it, other than to just be kind to a family that wants to have a child. It's like your deliberately setting out to create a child that you don't want, so that you have to give it away.
I'm trying to explain that I feel like creating a child that you don't want is a bad thing to do. If it was an accident, it may be the best thing to give it away. But to do it on purpose? I'm not sure that's quite the same thing.
Would you say that it's wrong for a woman to repeatedly get pregnant, so that she can give newborns to people who want them? Is that equivalent to egg donation?
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Abraham and Sarah had a surrogate. Didn't turn out very well, in fact someone was blaming a good part of the strife in the world on it. I don't know if we are meant to understand that it is okay or definitely not okay from that. I'm grateful I have been able to have my own children. I guess it all comes back to what is in someone's heart when they make the decision.
Egg donation can carry health risks for the donor. I'm not sure how it's done, but it seems like it would have to be more invasive than using a tampon. Which is not itself wholly without risk.
I think the "like prostitution" argument is specious, since the material isn't donated for "pleasure" unless the couple acquiring the baby is planning to eat it or something. Which is why Mormons don't support clinical fertilization.
Seriously, I don't think the LDS church has any official position beyond saying "the means whereby life is created is ordained of God."
But in answer to the question posed in the thread title, I think it is only less moral in the sense that wanting to adopt a newborn is more selfish than being willing to adopt an older child. People wait on line to adopt a newborn, but older children drift through the foster care system for years.
quote:Still brings us back to the egg donation. Is it an equivalent act to puting a child up for adoption?
I don't think so, for emotional reasons. I cannot quite imagine having a completely unemotional birth experience. Good or bad, it's not something to be indifferent about. Whereas I could totally see egg donation being very unemotional. Not that that's how *I* would feel, but I could see a great many women looking at it as nothing more than a minor surgical procedure.
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So disregarding the genetics, and using the emotional attachment point that jeniwren brings up. How is it *your* child if you haven't gone through the birth experience yourself and haven't become emotionally attached?
If you aren't (speaking only of women here) emotionally attached to the baby because you didn't want or carry it, then are you really "responsible" for it at all when all you've done is donate genetic material?
My neighbor, (to bring her up again since she strongly influenced me on this) said that she never regarded any baby that was concieved from the eggs she donated as "hers". It was "theirs" the parents who wanted a baby badly enough that they went to the trouble to find an egg donor in the first place.
Conversely, when she considered being a surrogate the baby was always "theirs" not hers as well. In that case you might actually have more of an emotional attachment since your hormones are the ones going crazy and you are the one nourishing the baby in your womb. But there is also clear legal precedent that the baby a surrogate mother carries as long as she contributes no genetic material is very clearly "theirs" not hers.
I always felt that the example of Abraham and Hagar was meant to show that Abraham fouled up by taking matters into his own hands instead of waiting for God to sort things out in his own time.
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So what I'm getting from this is that a baby from sex in a moment of passion where the mother decides to keep it (regardless of the father) is somehow better off than a baby that is concieved to two people who genuinely want the baby, even though one is unable to contribute genetically, and had another person willingly give their genetics instead.
posted
If I hadn't stumbled into a Serious Relationship when I did, I probably would have already gone through egg donation. There are usually two or three ads at a time in the campus paper here offering 10-20K for eggs from my demographic. It's a lot of money, and very tempting. But I'm wishy-washy about the weirdness of giving someone else my kids before I have my own, and Mark definitely doesn't like the idea. *shrug*
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It's part of it, but morality can't be defined solely on the welfare of the people it affects. Very often, doing the moral thing will leave a lot of people feeling like they aren't better off.
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I disagree. PSI. If doing the moral thing doesn't leave society better off then what is the point? And even if you personally aren't better off you have the satisfaction of knowing society is.
quote: We say that pregnant teens giving their child up for adoption are committing an unselfish act of sacrifice and love. Why is it any different for a donor?
I think it's different because you don't accidentally donate sperm/eggs. Giving a baby up for adoption is trying to fix a problem that exists. In adoption, there is already a baby. In sperm/egg donation, you are purposely creating one.
I don't know if it's right, and I don't know if it's rational, but I just couldn't donate my genetic material to someone else any more than I could make my wife pregnant and then give that child away. My reproductive powers are mine, and I beleive that I will be judged by how I use them.
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But who's to say that having one child be better off makes the entire society better off? You seem to be adding things up that don't equate. It's quite possible that adoption or egg donation have ramifications that we don't even understand yet.
And sometimes something will happen where society seems to be better off for the time being, but then later it's realized that the thing in question actually caused more problems than it fixed.
I think morality is much more complex than the surface picture of happy society/sad society. Sure, if something causes nothing but pain and strife for centuries, that's a warning sign. But the momentary happiness or "well-being" of a person or group of people isn't the goal. We need long-term growth. But it's very difficult to judge our long-term growth until we've already seen the outcome. That's why I don't fight for one position or the other over this egg donation deal...because there's no way to see the possible long-term effects.
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posted
If you say that morality is the same as benefiting society, then I would have to say that if we could, it would be moral to go back and murder Hitler in his crib. After all, wouldn't society be better off without the suffering he caused?
Take it to the next level. What if we are able to screen out people who have the potential to become evil like that? What if we are able to kill off most people so that the remaining people are all happy and content? Would society be better off? Some would say yes, others no. Are eugenics of this sort moral? Very few would say no.
So what is moral? For me, I say that the better question is "what is right?", and I believe that there are times where the right thing to do just doesn't make sense to our moral minds. Sacrificing Isaac made absolutely no sense, and from every way that I can think of, it was an immoral thing to do, and yet it was the right thing to do, because God commanded it.
so where does that leave us? Is that a cart blanche for religous people to commit whatever evils they want because they say that God told them to do it? I don't know. If I think something is right, even if it doesn't make sense, I don't expect you to understand. If it is against the law, I don't expect the judicial system to throw up it's hands and say "Well, if you think it was right, who are we to argue?"
But also, if I think something is universally right or wrong, I will do what I can to get the laws to reflect my morality.
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I don't know, one of the reasons why I brought it up is because egg and sperm donations *are* happening already. There wasn't a giant moral debate on the subject before it happened (or at least I wasn't around for it) The first test tube babies were for married parents so they got around the squickiest of the "moral" issues back then. But now it seems there is a slippery slope, and no one cares. Shouldn't this be just as passionate of an issue as gay marriage?
posted
I'm going to address the infertility treatment topic rather than the sperm/egg donation topic.
I have already thought a lot about why I am going through fertility treatments that cost a fortune (and are not covered by insurance) and put my mind and body through the ringer. I will never be able to carry more than one baby to term (well, it's very, very unlikely), so we're going to adopt anyway.
Here's why I want to have a baby. I feel that I have a duty to the Marx family to give them another generation. They were almost wiped out during WWII and they deserve to have their name and genes live on. I am also commanded by my religion to have at least 2 children, one of each sex. We will only adopt girls (adopted children have to be converted to Judaism and the conversion process is much easier with a girl), so we need to conceive a boy to fulfill the commandment to be fruitful and multiply.
AJ, look at it this way - you have a purebred dog that you can also use as a stud. Do you feel immoral because there are dogs in shelters waiting to be adopted? (I don't think you should - you love the breed and want to nurture and improve it).
Posts: 3037 | Registered: Jan 2002
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quote: AJ, look at it this way - you have a purebred dog that you can also use as a stud. Do you feel immoral because there are dogs in shelters waiting to be adopted? (I don't think you should - you love the breed and want to nurture and improve it).
Actually I agonize over this frequently all of the time. I comprimise with myself by participating in Cardigan Corgi Rescue. But, yes I do feel guilty at times.
quote: The Mangsen triplets are 9 months old now, colliding into one another with their rolling walkers like baby bumper cars.
There's angelic Angelina, the good baby who never cries, never fusses. Matthew, who out-eats, out-weighs, out-whines his siblings. And Justin, the perpetual-motion machine nicknamed "The Rocket" by his parents.
But these are no ordinary triplets. They were born from embryos that their doctor said had been frozen for nearly 12 years.
I thought you might be interested in this, AJ.
Incidentally, one of the reasons we had decided not to pursue IVF if the IUI didn't work was the question of what to do with any remaining embryos.
In IVF, they give the woman hormone treatments so that she'll produce as many eggs as possible. After insemination, the viable embryos are either implanted or frozen. Generally the doctor will implant several (sometimes 4, 5, or 6) knowing that typically only 1 or 2 may make it. In the above case, they all did. Sometimes women opt to abort 1 or more of them to either give the remaining ones a better chance or because there are just too many. Our doctor told us that he would never implant more than 2 or 3 to avoid that scenario.
Most of you are aware of my stance on abortion (I don't believe in it), so we didn't want to be faced with the decision of what to do with any remaining frozen embryos. Discarding them wouldn't be much different from abortion in our eyes. Leaving them frozen just seems wrong. We could have donated them, but then you would always wonder if you had offspring running around somewhere.
Our particular situation made it a moot point anyway, but we had decided if it came down to it, we would choose adoption over the IVF.
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Yes, and IVF is the reason you here more stories about women having 5 and 6 sometimes.
<derailment>
There's a couple that lives in my area that is adopting 9 children from Russia, all brothers and sisters. I think they wanted to adopt one or two, but couldn't bare the thought of the separating the family. They were already separated in the Russian orphanages, but the Russian officials were very happy to keep reunite them after determining that the couple could do it.
I wonder how many Dan will come home with?
Posts: 4625 | Registered: Jul 2002
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First of all, I don't really think that morality really plays a big role in the question of egg/sperm donation. Women shed their eggs every month, and those are just going to waste. Same thing can be said about sperm (the part of it going to waste). In my opinion if your giving up of the sperm/egg is going to make someone else's life better, by allowing them to have a child then that's a good reason to do it if you are the altruistic type (love your neighbor and all that). Esspecially since the people who undergo expensive in vitro procedures are very commited to having a child and will probably be good parents.
What I have a big problem with is the way that some people try to obtain eggs. Posting ads around college campuses advertising lots of money for eggs is just wrong. It gives uninformed girls the impression that its an easy way to make a quick buck. When in fact it is a lengthy, painful and potentially hazardous procedure. First they give you hormone injections to make you ovulate several eggs at once. This screws up your normal hormonal cycle and can have lasting detrimental effects. Then to get the eggs out they stick a sharp metal tube (kinda like a syringe but more blunt) into the ovary through the belly and suck up the eggs. This is done blindly, so if they might have to do it a couple of times to get enough eggs. Yea, unpleasant. The bottom line of my rant is that as long as a woman is well informed and prepared for the procedure and still wants to donate eggs that's alright. The problem, I guess is when women donate eggs out of dire need for money. That tickles the morality issue. But hey, donating plasma is also a sketchy procedure, but it saves lives and I've known people who do it due to a need for money. People should be free to make their own bad decisions w/o outside interference.
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quote: I feel that I have a duty to the Marx family to give them another generation.
I know the Marx family is all special and everything but my husband and I were talking about this exact thing yesterday. My cousin Josh and I are the last Meyers, and I'm a girl. Two generations ago, all the Meyers were men. Then guess what? Except for my dad and his brother, every child born to the Meyers were girls. ALL of them. We traced it back to the guy that came here from Holland. As far as I know, there is not a male Meyer left in America (that can make babies) that is related to us, unless you count my cousin, Josh. Josh and his girlfriend have been having abortions, rather than have kids. He never wants to have any.
There is one other male Meyer (very distant relative) who is still at child-making age, but the man has a physical problem and he can't.
My point is that, through a combo of all-female births, personal choices and physical problems, the Meyer line is about to die.
Is there a chance that God wanted it this way? Seems pretty likely to me. In fact, the odds were totally in our favor to have a million Meyers, fifty years ago. To have it end so suddenly, it's a miracle in a way, although not really a good one.
Not that you shouldn't have children, it's just my personal experience. Posts: 6367 | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
But ovulating isn't the same as inseminating. Until insemination, they're still eggs no matter how many are there.
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You know, AJ, after talking with you briefly about this over the weekend, I was wondering if it was something I would be willing to do.
I don't feel any particular desire to see my genes propogated, or any obligation to do so, but my sister always wanted kids and has been told many times over the last few years that she she probably never will. I was asking myself if I'd be willing to give her a few eggs so that she could have children as close to her own as possible.
I was, of course, thinking about this being years away, when she'd settled down. And would I be able to let them raise what was sort of my child in whatever way they wanted, that sort of thing.
Of course, having gotten an email from my mother with pictures of my sister's ultrasound, I guess it's all irrelavent now.
Posts: 3956 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
All I was saying is that Sanya was making a point that the egg is there, you might as well use it or it will go to waste. I'm saying that, while that may be true of the egg in question, it isn't necessarily true of all the subsequent eggs.
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posted
I need to point out now that I'm not arguing the morals of the egg donation or anything. I have said before in this thread that it's something I haven't really formed an opinion on. All I'm saying is that it's a fallacy to think that "you might as well sell the eggs, you're never going to use them," because you can never be sure of that. That's all.
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Actually it is true PSI. In your body a whole section oocytes becomes mature every month. Only one generally hogs the hormones and escapes the follicle though. After that one escapes the rest of that set of oocytes die. THe following month another section of oocytes mature.
quote:My point is that, through a combo of all-female births, personal choices and physical problems, the Meyer line is about to die.
I can understand that point. However, the Marx line is in jeopardy due to murder. The line is that much more precious because it was almost extinquished.
Also, let me clarify. I feel that my duty is to the Marx line more than the name. If we have a girl, she will still be another generation with Marx blood in her veins. That is still a triumph.
quote:Is there a chance that God wanted it this way? Seems pretty likely to me. In fact, the odds were totally in our favor to have a million Meyers, fifty years ago. To have it end so suddenly, it's a miracle in a way, although not really a good one.
Seventy years ago, the odds were that all of the Marxs would be murdered. It was a miracle that any survived.
I've never really understood the idea of attributing tragedy, illness, or adversity to G-d's will or plan. I'm basically agnostic, but I would never believe that it was G-d's will that my husband's family be slaughtered for their beliefs. It would never occur to me not to seek treatment for my infertility just as it would never occur to me not to seek treatment for the condition that causes the infertility. I feel that my duty is to preserve my own life and to try to create new life.
Posts: 3037 | Registered: Jan 2002
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quote: I am also commanded by my religion to have at least 2 children, one of each sex.
What is your religion, then? Are you agnostic?
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I'm not saying you shouldn't try to preserve the line, I was just giving you my feelings about a similar thing that's happening in my family. However I will make a comment about this:
quote: I feel that my duty is to preserve my own life and to try to create new life.
So do I, and so I take care of my health and had children. But that had nothing to do with the preservation of a line. Wouldn't you have tried to have children even if your last name was Jingle-Heimer Schmidt?
Posts: 6367 | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
I'm Jewish. To be more precise, I'm a practicing Jew who has doubts.
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PSI, I wasn't clear in separating my points. I know that you're not telling me that I shouldn't have children or that it's G-d's plan that I shouldn't. I was trying to explain why I'm choosing to do fertility treatments rather than adopt all of my children. Due to my religion and my family circumstances, I feel it would be immoral of me not to try.
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quote: The ovaries can be smooth, or during ovulation, they become marked by clusters of rounded bumps, or follicles , which house and nurture eggs. The number of eggs that are contained in the ovaries depends on the age of the woman. The highest number is actually found before a girl is born. While still in the mother's womb, a 20-week-old female fetus has approximately 7 million eggs. At birth, the number has decreased to 2 million. By the time a girl enters puberty, she has between 300,000 and 500,000 eggs. This decline in number is the process called atresia , a natural and continuous process that is uninterruptable. Only between four and five hundred will ripen into mature eggs during a lifetime.
So to figure the actual possible number of eggs available each month. Figure a woman normally has 30 years of reproductivity plus or minus a bit. 300,000 /30 = 100,000 eggs available per fertile year or 8,333 eggs per month. From those numbers it is obvious that only a fraction of the avaiable eggs are ever used. Even if someone released 3 eggs a month 3eggs times 30 years times 12 months is 1080 eggs. You can bump it up to 40 years of fertility if you like, and it isnt going to change the order of magnitude of the estimates.
quote:Q: Will I go into menopause sooner on fertility medications?
A: Each month, hundreds of follicles in the ovary begin stimulation but only one goes onto full maturity and ovulation. The other follicles undergo a natural cell death. Fertility medications stimulate follicles that would have otherwise not developed to maturity and does not accelerate the onset of menopause.
posted
hee hee, I was wondering how intelligent the google ads at the bottom of this thread would be...
Posts: 11265 | Registered: Mar 2002
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Oh BTW, Mrs. M, for me, fertility treatments aren't as big a deal as egg donation. I don't think I really have any problem with encouraging your body to do what it's supposed to be doing anyway.
Posts: 6367 | Registered: Aug 2003
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I see you've found the answer, Banna. I asked my reproductive health lecturer the same questions, and came up with similar answers.
-At 20 weeks gestation (in womb): a female has 6-8 million germ cells (premature oocytes). -At birth, a female has 2 million germ cells -At puberty, a female has 400,000 germ cells -Total germ cells that complete ovulation as a mature oocyte: 400-500. ------ There are many, many drugs they can use in egg donation procedures. The goal is to encourage more follicles to properly complete oogenesis instead of atresia (degeneration), which is the usual end result of most of the follicles in a given month. Dr. Frishman said that somewhere between 10-100 follicles undergo atresia in any given month, though they don't know the exact number (as it's hard to figure out, and women differ from one to the next). Most (like 90%) of the time, only one follicle will mature to give an oocyte (with fluff polar bodies) though sometimes more than one oocyte will be produced (fraternal twins).
So, the drugs given in egg donation procedures will not cause any more follicles to be used up than would normally. They simply nudge more follicles away from atresia to maturation.
Is it possible to have a type of twin that's strictly different from fraternal or identical? I'm asking because I have something jigging in my mind about it, as if I heard someone say it before.
Like, (this may sound stupid) is it possible for the egg to divide before it's fertilized, having twins with half of the same DNA of the other? Or is there anything I'm missing?
(I believe this came up in a conversation for me before, regarding the Olsen twins, and other twins that look almost exactly alike, but are fraternal.)
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posted
On average, any two siblings will share half their DNA. So that would be true of fraternal twins as well.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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possible but statistically unlikely considering the number of chromosomes that would have to split exactly the same way on both children, in both the egg and the sperm.
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But the momentary happiness or "well-being" of a person or group of people isn't the goal. We need long-term growth. But it's very difficult to judge our long-term growth until we've already seen the outcome. That's why I don't fight for one position or the other over this egg donation deal...because there's no way to see the possible long-term effects.
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but my husband and I were talking about this exact thing yesterday. My cousin Josh and I are the last Meyers, and I'm a girl. Two generations ago, all the Meyers were men. Then guess what? Except for my dad and his brother, every child born to the Meyers were girls. ALL of them. We traced it back to the guy that came here from Holland. As far as I know, there is not a male Meyer left in America (that can make babies) that is related to us, unless you count my cousin, Josh. Josh and his girlfriend have been having abortions, rather than have kids. He never wants to have any.![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
