Stem Cell research and Fertility Clinics.

[Disney Doll]

Any advancement in technology that helps us live longer should be embraced imo.

That's not necessarily true. The human body was designed to live a certain number of years...some of us get more years, some of us get less years.

Once a body has outlived its designated number of years, it ain't always pretty to keep it alive.

 

[Disney Doll]

My beliefs are... doctors can do everything possible to create the best scenario to help you get pregnant, but ultimately it is God who creates the life.

You are correct. I am a perfect example of that.

DH & I went through about 6 years of infertility treatments, undergoing the most current practices available. Some of the best "minds" in the infertility business reviewed and evaluated our case numerous times. They all came to the same conclusion...we had some issues but the medical interventions we were undergoing should have been more than adequate to allow us to conceive a child.

And yet we didn't.

And to this day, none of them can explain why.

After many years of "dealing" with it, I came to the conclusion that we were not able to conceive a child because it was not part of God's plan for us, for whatever reason. I am a person of faith, and this was a diffcult concept for even me to accept.

But sometimes, it is the only explanantion there is. So I "let go and let God".

 

[cardaway]

My beliefs are... doctors can do everything possible to create the best scenario to help you get pregnant, but ultimately it is God who creates the life.

So God doesn't want us and countless other couples to have a baby.

 

[FlyingBelle]

Not at all what I'm saying...

But if doctors could create life, we wouldn't have so many people dealing with infertility.

I've been trying to concieve for over 10 years, can't explain why it's happening now. All I know is that God knows my life better than I do. I can look back over the last several years and say, "hmmm, yeah, now I understand why", and sometimes it makes no sense at all.

All I know is that I trust God with every aspect of my life. My prayers are always asking Him to provide what is best, weather I agree with it or not, and that I have the patience to deal with those things I don't like or understand. I've been through some really tough things in my life, but I've come through them ok and a bit stronger.

Sorry - all that was a bit off topic. Trying to have a child is a really sensitive issue, which brings us back to my original post... why protest those who are trying to concieve in the same manner as protesting abortion clinics?

 

[cardaway]

Not at all what I'm saying...

Yes it is, that second post made it even more clear.

 

[AllyandJack]

People believe what they believe in order to cope. If it brings someone comfort that there is a "plan" or a "reason" or that God made it happen, more power to them. Personally, I don't believe God intended for me to struggle with infertility any more than I believe he intended for my Nana to suffer horribly with lung cancer during the last few days of her life.

Things happen. Sometimes, there isn't a reason or an explanation and we do the best we can to cope and some people turn to God in order to do that. Some people don't.

 

[goofygirl]

Somebody accused me of exaggerating about the "pregnancy centers" which are militant pro-life centers in disguise. I thought I'd provide more info, so here's a story about them:


http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week843/cover.html

 

[Galahad]

When we were 17, I took my best friend to Planned Parenthood for pre-natal care. Her daughter is now a lovely, accomplished 27 year old woman.

They followed here pregnancy? Did they deliver the baby?

 

[Galahad]

Somebody accused me of exaggerating about the "pregnancy centers" which are militant pro-life centers in disguise. I thought I'd provide more info, so here's a story about them:


http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week843/cover.html

OK, I'll amend that accusation. PBS exaggerated. We have women's clinics here that are up front and honest about whether they do abortions or not. I'll be they could be made to look downright horrible with the proper - um - presentation.

 

[goofygirl]

Again, where is the line. Once you make it ok to use 'unwanted embryo's' then what. Then you say embryo has no value. Then you have those who will produce them for this reason. And while we are at lets make only boys or only girls. Once you cross that line the whole thing becomes much bigger.

The same lame argument was made about organ donation. Some people actually said, and still say, "Once you say 'OK' to organ donations they are going to kill you for your parts, you'll have no value except for your parts."

Always was a lame argument and still is.

 

[goofygirl]

OK, I'll amend that accusation. PBS exaggerated. We have women's clinics here that are up front and honest about whether they do abortions or not. I'll be they could be made to look downright horrible with the proper - um - presentation.

Yeah, we can't trust what those darn PBS liberals say, right?


Where did the story exaggerate? The reporter went right to one of the centers and showed what's going on.

 

[Saxsoon]

That's not necessarily true. The human body was designed to live a certain number of years...some of us get more years, some of us get less years.

Once a body has outlived its designated number of years, it ain't always pretty to keep it alive.

This same type of thing happened my great grandmother two years ago. She was declining in health two years previously. She had a pacemaker, and was taken to the hospital when she got really sick at the nursing home. She basically died, but her heart only going 2 or 3 beats a minute because of the pacemaker. Whatever it was, it kept her alive in a vegetative state that was very hard for all of us. The doctors said she won't come out of it, and we decided to let her slip away. It was a very difficult and sad decision for my grandfather and his siblings to make.

Does that mean I am against pacemakers, surely not, just that the human body can only go on so long before some things are beyond repair.

 

[goofygirl]

People believe what they believe in order to cope. If it brings someone comfort that there is a "plan" or a "reason" or that God made it happen, more power to them. Personally, I don't believe God intended for me to struggle with infertility any more than I believe he intended for my Nana to suffer horribly with lung cancer during the last few days of her life.

Things happen. Sometimes, there isn't a reason or an explanation and we do the best we can to cope and some people turn to God in order to do that. Some people don't.

By the same token, as someone who does not want a baby, if I got pregnant I would not believe that God intended me to be a mother. I would terminate the pregnancy, all the while praying to God for healing.

 

[noodleknitter]

What facts are they not giving women about their options? It isn't as though everyone doesn't know about abortion as an option.

That is no different than an abortion clinic selling (you do know they are a big money making business?) abortions even to the point of making sure a woman does not hear her babies heart beating.

 

[Galahad]

Yeah, we can't trust what those darn PBS liberals say, right?

Nope. where did I say that?

Where did the story exaggerate? The reporter went right to one of the centers and showed what's going on.

The key word is ONE of the centers. You can edit any group of encounters to make it as good or as bad as you want and then imply that it applies to all who call themselves women's clinics. It's not a liberal or conservative thing. Fox news probably does in more than most. But it IS a media thing. A story isn't a story unless you can make it as controversial as possible.

 

[cardaway]

What facts are they not giving women about their options? It isn't as though everyone doesn't know about abortion as an option.

Actually I find it quite possible a teen girl might not know that she is within her rights to get an abortion no matter what her parents might have told her.

 

[AllyandJack]

By the same token, as someone who does not want a baby, if I got pregnant I would not believe that God intended me to be a mother. I would terminate the pregnancy, all the while praying to God for healing.

Exactly. Sometimes things just are what they are and have no higher power power or meaning behind them.

 

[smartestnumber5]

What facts are they not giving women about their options? It isn't as though everyone doesn't know about abortion as an option.

That is no different than an abortion clinic selling (you do know they are a big money making business?) abortions even to the point of making sure a woman does not hear her babies heart beating.

Do you have a link to a story about a clinic which performs abortions in which a woman asks to hear the heartbeat of the fetus and she is denied it? Or clinics that put earmuffs on women while they're doing sonograms so that women don't hear the heartbeat?

I can't think of a reason why sonograms would be done at all at that early point in pregnancy. What is the medical purpose of them? My cousin's wife just had a baby and as far as I know, she wasn't even given an appt by her obstetrician until she was 3 months along--past the point the vast majority of abortions take place--and it was a planned pregnancy. So why would women who aren't sure they even want to continue the pregnancy need a sonogram even earlier than that? Are these people performing them even medically qualified to use them as the diagnostic tools that they are--do they even know what kinds of problems they are supposed to be looking for?

Not to mention, some of the facts they're not getting (according to one of the women who used the clinic) is information about birth control. A crisis pregnancy center that doesn't give information about how not to get pregnant again!? It's like going to a doctor complaining of bladder infections and the doctor simply giving you an anti-biotic and not telling you how to avoid the infections in the future.

It would also be interesting to see what the "facts" about the health and psychological risks of abortion given that much of the information claiming abortions "cause" depression or increase risks of breast cancer, etc, are highly contested in the medical community because they assert causal links and not just correlations. (In college I once attended a debate btw a planned parenthood representative and a anti-abortion activist and the anti-abortion activist actually brought up a study from a European country showing that women who had abortions were at an increased risk of homicide, and this was supposed to be a reason to oppose abortion. As if having a abortion makes it more likely that somone is going to murder you!)

 

[Saxsoon]

Maybe I misinterpreted what you said, but I think that study was saying that abortion drives them to go and kill other people. Not people killing them.

Also, I don't know if any of you have heard of this woman, her name is Pam Stenzel. Great woman. Her biological father was a rapist and mother was a teen at the time. She put Pam into adoption, and Pam loves her mother for that so much. It is obvious she is against abortion.

She goes around to High Schools each year (possibly a quarter maybe half a million student each year) and talks about abstinence and such. She was saying how she has counciled many women who have had psychological depression years after the abortion. Not exactly statistics, but someone's first hand expierence.

 

[JennyMominRI]

There is no difference and never has been. Its politics at its worst.

Fertility clinics are viewed as a generally positive thing by pretty much everyone on both sides of the abortion issue.

Stem Cell research is viewed as a generally positive thing by pretty much everyone except those opposed to abortion.

The common thread IMO, is the abortion issue and since this president is anti-abortion he is also anti-stem cell research.

I don't believe everyone who is anti abortion is against stem cell research.
I do believe that the vast majority who are against stem cell research are, however, anti abortion.

Well, women that go to fertlty clinics are tryingt TOO get pregnant. Women going to Abortion clinics don't want to be pregnant..This tells me it is more about feelings towards the women than about the embryos...