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THE HORRORS OF IN VITRO FERTILIZATION

TORONTO, Feb 23 (LSN) - Yesterday and today, the Sun newspapers and the Toronto Star contained stories on the "Human Egg Trade." Proponents of in vitro fertilization (IVF) have succeeded in drawing public attention to the lucrative side of the business of illicit procreation by warning that if Canada erects barriers to the collection of human eggs, it will lose the "business" to the US. The raising of the issue gives pro-lifers the opportunity to educate people on the evils of this procedure. The following explanation reveals that it is impossible to be pro-life and pro-IVF.

Besides the foremost reason against in-vitro fertilization -- that it departs from the God-ordained order of conception resulting from the conjugal union of married couples -- in-vitro fertilization proposes other ethical problems, especially for pro-lifers. Once one realizes the truth that life begins at conception the whole concept of manipulation of and experimentation with human embryos becomes a nightmare. Why not fertilization, why not give infertile couples the chance to have children of their very own? The answer lies in the actual in-vitro procedure itself.

The typical procedure involves the extraction of a number of eggs (usually around 15 or more) from the mother which are then fertilized by sperm from the father (or donated by a third party) in a petrie dish or test-tube (hence the name "test-tube" baby). The embryos are then examined and three or four of the more promising looking ones are implanted into the mother in the hope that one will survive. Embryos judged to be inferior are "allowed to die", while the remainder are frozen and stored for later use.

According to statistics from the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority, the IVF success rate per attempt ranged from 4.9% to 23.7% in England in the year ending in March 1995, with a national average of 14.5%. Almost 20,000 women had test-tube baby treatments that year, resulting in almost 25,000 "treatment cycles" or attempts at artificial impregnation. So with a little simple math we can see that (since each cycle uses 4 embryos) 100,000 embryos were implanted. Taking the 14.5% national average, there were approximately 3,500 live births resulting from the treatments.

Although it may sound impressive to have 3,500 children born in this way, one must recall that, in an embryo, conception has already taken place -- it is a human beings. Of the 100,000 human beings created, only 3,500 survived the procedure -- not the best of odds! 96,500 lives were sacrificed in that year alone! This says nothing of the embryos frozen for later use, those used in treatment cycles are used and not frozen! Thus IVF is a pre-natal massacre.

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