Forum Index
»
Infertility Support and Discussion
NYT article about reducing from twins to a singleton
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
|
Am curious to get thoughts on this from ppl going through IF.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/14/magazine/the-two-minus-one-pregnancy.html?_r=1&hp I kept thinking - why did the doctors go ahead with implanting more than one embryo in women who did not want twins (esp for women using DE)??? At first I told my RE that I would rather ahve a BFN than get pregnant with twins we only transferred one embryo. |
Anonymous
| Disgusting. |
Anonymous
|
I am in my 2ww and while I want a singleton, if we wind up with twins, I'll be delighted to be pregnant.
So while I would absolutely not do so, I can completely understand reducing to one. Safer, more likelihood of not miscarrying, of carrying child to term. |
Anonymous
|
I think that a lot of twinning happens not from doctors implanting two embryos, but from the use of fertility drugs like Clomid or Follistim.
I am torn. I have an acquaintance who reduced from triplets to twins; was that wrong? Im sure I have friends who have aborted fetuses with non-life-threatening genetic anomalies, like Down syndrome. Is that wrong? It does feel different to me to reduce from two to one -- in some hard-to-explain way, it does feel "worse." But I don't know why it should feel any worse than the other types of reductions that people do. Ultimately, I don't feel like I can tell a woman what she should do after careful consideration of her emotional and financial resources. I don't even know what I would do, to tell you the truth. I hope I won't ever be in that situation. |
Anonymous
| I read this earlier an was appalled. It just shows what a slippery slope the choices are. I wish they were more limited. |
Anonymous
| Creepy |
Anonymous
|
The problem is, if we get to decide for ourselves what is right and what is wrong, then EVERYONE gets to make that determination. So then we get our freedom, but at the cost of everyone getting the same freedom.
So we can't say that sex selection is wrong. We can't say that reduction from two to one is wrong. We can't say that aborting a fetus that has a genetic predisposition for breast cancer is wrong. Those feelings are just feelings. We may call it our "conscience," but without objective right and wrong, it is not actually anything real. So right now, we draw the line at birth. A mother may choose to reject and destroy her "defective" or "unwanted" fetus, but she cannot do the same to her newborn or her toddler or her 13 year old SN son. THEN she is a monster. But not before birth. Not even if she chooses which fetus dies and which one lives and watches the doctor inject potassium chloride into her child's heart on the screen, live. Then she is making a rational decision. What will the child she allowed to live think when s/he is old enough to know? Talk about survivor's guilt. Are there really women on this board whose stomachs were not turned by that article? Who feel nothing when they listen to stories on NPR about sex selection abortions in India? Doesn't anyone realize the price we pay for our reproductive choices? If there is no objective right and wrong, everything is permissible. Period. |
Anonymous
|
There were a lot of commenters on that story who said something to the effect of "what will the surviving twin think when s/he finds out?" I found that odd, because I don't know why the child would ever have to know. What parent would sit down and tell their child about that particular circumstance of their conception?
I'm sorry, I know that's just a minor point in the whole debate, but it just struck me as weird that people were assuming the parents would share this decision with their child. Anyway, to this point:
We pay a high price for living in a free society, yes. That means that some people, MANY people, will do things with which I strenously disagree, even things that I find, personally, morally repugnant. But the question to ask also is, what price will we pay if certain choices are no longer made available to us, and if we forbid and criminalize these choices. If it's a mother reducing quints to twins, are we willing to call her a murderer? Or her doctor? I'm not saying PP is right or wrong to ask the questions s/he did, I'm only suggesting that both sides of the equation must be considered. And sometimes it seems like there just are no perfect answers. |
Anonymous
|
"[Parents decide] they don't want that life for themselves, and it's their prerogative to fashion their life the way they want."
So anything goes before the baby or babies are born. But as soon as the baby's umbilical cord is cut, you're an evil monster if you decide you don't want to deal with your child. My SIL did every genetic screening test known to modern medicine both times she got pregnant. She is an abortionist herself, and would have aborted if anything looked wrong. She got her boy and her girl, carefully spaced and healthy. Except both of them have been diagnosed with a host of mental disorders. Their behavioral issues have gotten them expelled from several schools, and they are not even in middle school yet. My SIL says wistfully that she wishes so much they could have screened for these mental problems, because she never would have let them be born if she had only known. It is so creepy to hear her say things like that. But that follows directly from this illusion that we can control human lives with technology. There are consequences to this false sense of control. |
Anonymous
|
I recall an article in the Washington Post a while ago when a young woman conceived through ART expressed existential angst over the manner of her conception. I don't remember the circumstances of her life, but she was passionate about parents considering their children's feelings when making reproductive choices.
It is easy to say the child will never find out. But the truth is out there. There are always ways that it could leak out. The parents who decide to terminate a twin need to know and be prepared for that possibility. Their decision places an incredible burden on their surviving child. An unfair burden. So working backward, it would seem to indicate their decision, while legal, is immoral. |
Anonymous
|
I think it is really sad.
I don't know how you could look at the one child every day and not wonder about the other one. |
Anonymous
|
I don't have any problem with this at all and find the people who think this is disgusting should mind their own business and concern themselves with their fertility and reproductive decisions.
But, regardless of opinion, there is science that supports this as a good medical decision. http://journals.lww.com/greenjournal/Fulltext/2004/07000/Fetal_Reduction_From_Twins_to_a_Singleton__A.16.aspx |
Anonymous
Hardly. |
Anonymous
. So you could look at an ultrasound screen at two healthy lives you deliberately created and point to one and say "I choose that one," and then watch the doctor stab the other one in its beating heart? We are not supposed to have any "problem" with that? |
Anonymous
I don't know why people think that Down syndrome is not life threatening. These patients have a substantially elevated mortality rate due to congenital abnormalities. about 30% of patients will die before age 30 - many of these in the first year of life. signed someone who terminated a Down syndrome fetus with severe heart malformations. |