Asanta, you brink up a valid argument for responsibility that is missing from trying to bring forth 8 infants without a reasonable income and everything that goes with it.  I think we agree that this is a matter of ethics believing a single mother with other children has the ability to raise that many children without any income at all.  Not even a wealthy grandmother could fit the responsibility to raise that many children without a stable head-of-the-household.  I use that term alot meaning a person of strong responsibilities. 

How to make this work?  Do we ban multiple births using our federal or state laws?  Do we go so far as to remove the mother’s ability to produce more children?  Do we simply offer incomes based on the number of these children?  I remember having a physical desire to produce many babies when I was pregnant but I recognized this as a hormonal trigger.  I certainly do not recommend aborting any fetus but what is the answer to this dilemma.

And ethical doctor will never implant more than 3 embryos at a time, and selective reduction to twins is offered if all three implant, which is rare. Twins have a far better chance of gestating to term, or at least close to it, than triplets. That doctor’s techniques were so far beyond the pale, it is like they were two sick personalities with a match made in someone’s idea of a hell. Sort of like a Bonnie and Clyde. Where would one be without the other…

Legislating ethics would open a door into handing the government far more power over individual choices.  I’m not certain I would give that kind of power over the federal government.  Once we start that, how can we control it?

Every day during the primary elections the war against people of color and women’s choices would have set America back to the days if the inquisition.  It would treat all women like test animals.  The mother of all those infants had no concept of the cost or care of her babies and may have allowed this for the publicity believing the media would make them all famous and wealthy.  What is missing from this action was education of her circumstances.  Those babies would be under federal care all their lives.  The mother seemed to be a loving woman without a clue how to raise those babies on her own. 

If and when America becomes a Christian nation, babies will be born and raised as test tube babies and everyone would be baptized as Christians.  Orwell tried to warn all of us to knock down government control over our women.  My daughter just returned from Tahiti with some information on h ow to control all new born babies to help take care of senior members of society.

Sandy Price - 02 January 2013 06:23 AM

Legislating ethics would open a door into handing the government far more power over individual choices.  I’m not certain I would give that kind of power over the federal government.  Once we start that, how can we control it?

I think you misunderstand me. I’m talking in the sense of ‘first do no harm’, and ‘cost benefit ratio’. It does no good to implant 9 embryos to watch the mother die of a ruptured uterus, or have her unable to bring the fetuses to term, or end up with a number of children needing lifelong care. IVF is expensive, and the usual goal of the parents is to get a healthy infant(s). In implanting 9, this is guaranteed not to happen.
It is akin to the doctor prescribing a medication. He will prescribe 100mg of X medication, knowing the toxic dose is 1000mg, but 100mg is effective and 300-900 causes uncomfortable side effects. A good doctor will still prescribe 100mg.

Who makes the rules for which procedure harms another?  We are dealing with this right now when it comes to abortions.  What happens if it ever gets to a decision of implating many fertile eggs to guarantee a successful birth or even to store healthy stem cells for the benefit of the already born?  This is complicated stuff.  It would take the Supreme Court to make the final decisions.  At this time it would be denied but another Conservative on that court would change the Bill of Rights.

I do understand what you say but our nation is not governed through logical decisions.  Today, all actions must pass the words of Jesus calling all fertilre eggs potential humans. 

We allowed the separation of church and state to be removed bringing the Evanelicals into all our personal choices. 

I remember when Candidate George W.  Bush promised his Republican Party to hand out federal grants to the churches.  This was in 1998 and bought him the election.  I called this terrible action a threat to our government and I called it correctly.

Thje AMA has control over the actions of the Doctors and many doctors ignore the AMA rules when it means millions of dollars are paid for multiple births.  I would rather not have the government involved as our Congress has virtually no ethics any more.

Sandy what Asanta is trying to say is that any good doctor or health care professional must follow the very basic rule that anything they do to or for a patient must offer a greater chance of doing good than harm. How much of a margin there must be depends on the situation but a doctor should never perform a treatment of any sort that is more likely to cause harm than good.

Who decides that? The medical community decides that through continuous study. If the available medical evidence indicates that a particular course of action is more likely to cause harm than good no physician should offer that option to a patient regardless of the patients willingness to have it done. The physician has a moral obligation to use his/her greater understanding to say no regardless of what the patient wants. A patient can do whatever they want on their own but a physician must not participate or facilitate in any way.

I also need to clarify something since you brought it up. The AMA has absolutely no power over physicians. The AMA is essentially a private club that any physician may chose to join or not. I have a lot of disagreements with them politically and have chosen NOT to be a member. They have some political influence in Washington but they do not make decisions concerning what is ethical and do not have any legal power over the medical community.

So if a doctor elects to implant 8 embryos in a woman and the available medical literature indicates that this is a very dangerous thing to do he should not be doing it. Its not the government or the AMA that makes that decision. The medical community as a whole makes that decision in the sense that physicians are supposed to be informed on the latest studies and understand what the general consensus is. In some cases there are recommendations in writing which are put out by professional organizations such as the American board of internal medicine or the american board of OB/Gyn and responsible physicians should make themselves aware of the recommendations and the reasoning behind them.

Who had the authority over the 8 transplanted babies?  Obviously no one or they would not have been done.  I understand clearly what she meant which would give the federal government full control over all such procedures.  To quote you “he should not be doing it”.  But he did it for the notoriety.  The only control over a doctpr is the AMA who can pull his medical license.  I was married to an MD and the only way to control his work was through the license.  I think you might want the federal government to have control.  I have notice that in many cases, CFI would   want the federal government to rule on everything.  I have made many comments on this and I have left the site because there is no control when everything comes out of the federal government.  No!  It is time for me to leave again until some common sense is shown around here.  It is time that we humans have the responsibility of know right over wrong. Who are you waiting for to show you right from wrong?
Hitler had plans to make new born babies set aside for the use of their organs.  I hear you futzing around trying to tell everyone they shouldn’t be doing this after hundreds of babies were born for that use.  You expect a committee to determine that something is dangerous before you put a stop to it?  In yourworld physicians should be informed.,  Not when someone pays them a million dollars for a test baby to be used as a replacement. 

CFI is based on science. pure science.  Do you want women to give birth to babies for the profit?  I don’t think you people read enough of what is happening in science at this time.

Sandy I really don’t know how to answer you. I am having a hard time making sense of what you’ve written here.

Just to reiterate a minor point i made above though, the AMA does NOT have the power to force physicians to do anything. They are a voluntary professional organization. They are not a governing body and have no legal authority. They also do not license physicians. That is done by the state licensing boards.

In cases like this, a doctor’s reputation is based on results. People don’t get heart transplants at a hospital where all of the patients die. The doctors with the best results train the next generation of transplant doctors.  In this case, they go to a doctor because he has a history of producing live HEALTHY babies. I can guarantee you that most of those 8 are NOT healthy. Many (if not all) will have lifelong learning and/or respiratory issues. He was a maverick, How often have you heard of a doctor doing such a thing? The closest I have heard was still completely different, two embryos implanted each split to become a set of identical twins—quadruplets, and the parents refused the ‘selective reduction’ that as an ethical doctor, he offered. And to protect himself, he would document both the offer, and that it was declined. The bad thing about the medical licensing procedure, is that licenses have to be revoked state by state, thus letting doctors hop from state to state. I believe these laws are getting better. As a nurse, if my license has be yanked, it will be gone. Period. No state hopping. The system isn’t perfect, but it is usually adequate.