A Personal IVF Story
And why the Republicans are barreling toward a collision between savvy politics and the core convictions of some of their supporters.
When I was 24, my parents sat me down and confessed, with a heavy heart, that due to infertility, I was begotten by a random sperm donor via intrauterine insemination (IUI). I thought my entire life that I was French-Canadian, but a DNA test revealed I was mostly of Irish heritage.
My origin story is relevant because it provides me with unique insight into the Twitter topic du jour: the Alabama Supreme Court just ruled that destroying frozen embryos amounts to wrongful death of a child. The biggest hospital in Alabama has suspended all in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments, IUI’s petri-dish ally, which produce many such embryos.
Now, Democrats are using IVF as a stick to whack Republicans. I don’t blame them: It’s a political winner. Polls show that 78 percent of voters who identify as “pro-life” support IVF, and even 60 percent of Republican women believe fertility treatments should be covered by health insurance.
It’s mainly observant Catholics who are against IVF as a constituency. The Church teaches that….
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I'm an uber leftist, progressive, environmentalist, feminist. It's nice that you are you, that you're alive. But that's only one data point.
On the whole, ALL of the "fertility" industry is a horror show. No child should be manufactured with sperm and/eggs from randos, it's quite disgusting.
There are 8+ billion humans
There are a bazillion children needing parents already
We should NOT be funding the "fertility" industry, at all.
No eggs
No sperm
No surrogacy
No multiple embryos
No to the entire disgusting scheme.
A lovely and graceful essay.
Just FYI, Marc Girardot thinks there's a lot of overwrought hysteria suggesting women who put off childbearing until their, say, late 30s are gravely endangering their fertility. https://covidmythbuster.substack.com/p/whats-driving-the-infertility-boom
I have been greatly blessed; I was able to become pregnant the old-fashioned way and give birth to a child at age 40. Couples who need a bit of assistance in achieving their miracle ought have no scorn aimed at them. There's a profound difference between bearing a child, which is a matchless experience, and adopting someone else's baby. The love one gives to each may be equivalent but still there is a primal hunger to feel the kicking of a living child within one's own body and the joy of a man seeing his woman's belly grow round with a wanted baby
Every new technology brings with it wonders and horrors. The rent-a-womb business is a pretty ugly one. The spectre of Eugenics haunts assisted reproduction, though I certainly strongly believe that avoiding the birth of children with life-limiting congenital diseases is good for everyone.
It must have been very hard for your parents to reveal to you a secret that might have endangered family ties and caused unending ripples that could have no easy resolution. But they wanted you so badly and they must be so proud of you now, and so glad they had the courage to find a way to bring you into the world.