The truth about in vitro fertilisation

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The truth about in vitro fertilisation

Author: Wanda Terlecka, M.D.,
"Love One Another!" 35/2016

In vitro fertilisation (IVF) is only a technique of artificially manufacturing people, which violates the dignity of both a human couple and the conceived child. IVF is a great threat to the life and health of children conceived using this method and is not neutral to the health of mothers.

The truth about in vitro fertilisation

The latest statistics concerning IVF clinics around the world show that only a few per cent of children conceived using this method are lucky enough to be born. That means that statistically the price for the birth of one living child is the death, on average, of ten other children – its siblings. This is due to the fact that IVF involves several selections of human beings at the successive stages of their embryonic and foetal life. Out of several (up to more than a dozen) human beings brought to life, between two and four are selected and inserted into the uterus. The other human embryos die or are frozen; in Poland and around the world, millions of frozen human embryos await a slow death! Another selection is performed if more than one embryo is implanted in the uterus. This time, one or two are kept alive, while the others are murdered.

All children conceived in this way are in the highrisk group with regard to peri- and post-natal mortality and incidence of various diseases, in particular congenital and genetic

IVF necessarily involves death. According to the data published by the British Department of Health, out of 3.8 million children conceived using IVF over the period 1992–2006, only 122,000 were born alive, i.e. only 3.21 per cent of all human beings conceived with this method. Another reason why IVF is unacceptable is the fact that all children conceived in this way are in the high-risk group with regard to peri- and post-natal mortality and incidence of various diseases, in particular congenital and genetic. Specifically, compared to naturally-conceived children, among IVF-conceived children there were four times more stillbirths, a twice-as-high infant mortality rate, a significantly higher rate of congenital defects and cancer, e.g. a two to four times higher incidence of cleft lip and palate, a four or five times higher incidence of oesophageal atresia, a one and a half times higher incidence of cerebral palsy, two or three times more frequent hospitalisations and various surgical procedures before the child is three years old.

The price for the birth of one living child is the death, on average, of ten other children – its siblings

Experts point also to the negative health and moral consequences for parents, in particular for the mother. The most frequent ones include a higher risk of ovarian and breast cancer and a proneness to ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome. In both potential parents, a conviction might develop that to achieve one’s goal it is permissible to agree to have one’s children murdered or expose them to health hazards.

St John Paul II warned: “The various techniques of artificial reproduction, which would seem to be at the service of life and which are frequently used with this intention, actually open the door to new threats against life. […] they are morally unacceptable, since they separate procreation from the fully human context of the conjugal act” (Evangelium vitae, 14). It must be also stressed that IVF contravenes the provisions of the Polish Constitution and the Polish Criminal Code.

Scientists and political leaders should speak of the state-ofthe- art and ethical method of assisting childless couples, which respects the dignity of conceived children and their parents, i.e. NaProTECHNOLOGY. This diagnoses and cures an infertile married couple without any side effects and ethical doubts, at the same time being many times cheaper than IVF. Therefore, we ought to strive to eliminate the inhuman, unhealthy and profoundly unethical method which IVF is and promote and finance Na- ProTECHNOLOGY instead.

Wanda Terlecka, M.D., is president of the Catholic Association of Polish Doctors.

Source: https://loamagazine.org/archive/2016/2016-35/the-truth-about-in-vitro-fertilisation

The article was published with the permission from "Love One Another!" in September 2020.