I dated a guy in high school who was the oldest of 13 kids. His parents were still together, and they lived in a 4 bedroom house. The parents got one room, the boys got another(which was actually a converted tool shed), the girls got the 3rd, and the babies lived in the 4th. They never had enough money, the oldest kids absolutely despised the parents because they were stuck taking care of the younger kids. Both parents worked full time and still needed government assistance to get by (mostly because the mom was constantly on maternity leave.)
Having seen the conditions they lived in, I cannot see why that woman decided doubling her current amount of children would be a move in the right direction.
Her doctor should lose his license- the current ethical guidelines clearly state someone her age should never have more than 2 embryos placed at a time.
I really don't understand how/why she sought this treatment. Does anyone know if the previous 6 kids were IVF? I got mad when I saw this story on the news and immediately thought about my ex... But at the end of the day, the lady was well within her rights to make this stupid, stupid choice. And the only thing the public can do is avoid the media whore so she doesn't profit off of it.
Think how bad that was, and that was with the children spaced out so the older could help take care of the younger. This is basically two waves of kids (I think the first six were IVF as well).
To be honest, I don't think someone should be able to do what she did. We generally, as a society, start drawing lines on rights when exercising those rights start hurting others (can't go around punching people) or hurting the individual practicing them (can't drive without a seatbelt). Now, I'm not saying sterilize her or anything like that. But, the pregnancy was dangerous to her health, dangerous to the health of her children, dangerous to the future of her current six. I just don't imagine these kids having a good future ahead of them, at all.
Basically what I'm saying is, if there was a law that said, "No, you can't have an IVF to have eight kids at once" I wouldn't feel bad at all. I mean, it's just irresponsible, both to the health of the parent and the children. I mean, I think the number should be capped even lower. Maybe no more than two eggs during an IVF, if only for health and safety reasons. I mean, if someone want to kept pumping out kids that way, sure, that's their right, and then I guess child services can step in if conditions in the home get too bad.
I mean, if a lot of people were doing it then it would be a problem.
But really, this isn't all that destructively horrible a thing.
I disagree.
This is among one of the worst things anyone could possibly do.
Having more kids than you can afford to raise is up there with murder and karaoke? I mean, it's a pretty shit thing to do and I feel sorry for her kids, family, and friends as they're going to get some of the burden put on them because she can't deal with her own brood; but worst imaginable thing possible for someone to do? Seems like a stretch.
I mean, if a lot of people were doing it then it would be a problem.
But really, this isn't all that destructively horrible a thing.
I disagree.
This is among one of the worst things anyone could possibly do.
Having more kids than you can afford to raise is up there with murder and karaoke? I mean, it's a pretty shit thing to do and I feel sorry for her kids, family, and friends as they're going to get some of the burden put on them because she can't deal with her own brood; but worst imaginable thing possible for someone to do? Seems like a stretch.
Yeah, some of the hyperbole in here is a bit much.
This chick is crazy, her doctors were dangerously irresponsible, and her legion of children will likely suffer as a result. No way should she have been approved for in vitro for the seventh child much less 8 more.
But.
We don't need to be lobbying for forced sterilization, and - as much as I dislike in vitro - this would be a shitty reason to ban it.
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Think how bad that was, and that was with the children spaced out so the older could help take care of the younger. This is basically two waves of kids (I think the first six were IVF as well).
To be honest, I don't think someone should be able to do what she did. We generally, as a society, start drawing lines on rights when exercising those rights start hurting others (can't go around punching people) or hurting the individual practicing them (can't drive without a seatbelt). Now, I'm not saying sterilize her or anything like that. But, the pregnancy was dangerous to her health, dangerous to the health of her children, dangerous to the future of her current six. I just don't imagine these kids having a good future ahead of them, at all.
Basically what I'm saying is, if there was a law that said, "No, you can't have an IVF to have eight kids at once" I wouldn't feel bad at all. I mean, it's just irresponsible, both to the health of the parent and the children. I mean, I think the number should be capped even lower. Maybe no more than two eggs during an IVF, if only for health and safety reasons. I mean, if someone want to kept pumping out kids that way, sure, that's their right, and then I guess child services can step in if conditions in the home get too bad.
We've heard a lot about this mother, but I'm curious about the doctor's role in all this.
I don't know a whole lot about IVF, but surely this doctor wasn't under the assumption that all eight of these embryos would be viable? Because if he was, it seems like that constitutes a very blase attitude toward the health of the mother.
Twins can lead to a somewhat difficult pregnancy, although there's usually not a lot of problems involved. Triplets can be pretty hard on the mother, although it obviously varies from person to person.
Now imagine nearly three times as many children. It blows my mind. The human body isn't made to handle that kind of stress - it's something entirely unprecedented in normal human biology. I refuse to believe that carrying eight children was not dangerous to this woman's health, and if the doctor intentionally endangered his patient's health - not to mention the health of these eight kids - then he has failed in his responsibilities as a medical practitioner.
If she wants to have 14 kids, fine. That's her business. If she wants to do it through IVF, go for it. But having eight children at once is just lunacy. It's incredible that this woman isn't dead right now, and that the children were able to survive at all - they had to be extremely undernourished. I don't think it's physically possible for one mother to eat enough to support eight healthy fetuses.
I have to confess I don't know much about IVF and how they work, but yeah, I'm forced to agree that if that doctor expected that what he did would cause the woman to become pregnant with 8 children at once that he should lose his ability to practice medicine.
Saying they should close up the welfare spigot, okay. Saying the government shouldn't pay for her in vitro, okay. Saying she shouldn't be legally allowed to have as many kids as she wants, not okay.
It sucks that it's virtually impossible to do anything to make this woman feel the full consequences of her irresponsibility without harming the children that had no part in making that choice.
Saying they should close up the welfare spigot, okay. Saying the government shouldn't pay for her in vitro, okay. Saying she shouldn't be legally allowed to have as many kids as she wants, not okay.
It sucks that it's virtually impossible to do anything to make this woman feel the full consequences of her irresponsibility without harming the children that had no part in making that choice.
No it isn't. You take her kids away.
I'm sure that after having to take care of them all for a month, that would feel more like a reprieve.
Also, she'd just turn it into another attempt to gain attention.
Saying they should close up the welfare spigot, okay. Saying the government shouldn't pay for her in vitro, okay. Saying she shouldn't be legally allowed to have as many kids as she wants, not okay.
It sucks that it's virtually impossible to do anything to make this woman feel the full consequences of her irresponsibility without harming the children that had no part in making that choice.
No it isn't. You take her kids away.
I'm sure that after having to take care of them all for a month, that would feel more like a reprieve.
Also, she'd just turn it into another attempt to gain attention.
Even if all that were true, they'd still be better in the custody of the state than with that crazy bitch.
Even if all that were true, they'd still be better in the custody of the state than with that crazy bitch.
Is that true?
I've always been under the impression that the system is a bit of a hell in its own right, though reports of the extent to which that's the case vary.
They'd have better luck in the system than most babies would because they're white. Being a part of a large family doesn't really constitute abuse, though, so I'm not seeing the case for putting 'em up for adoption. If anything that merits Child Services actually happened then you could have an argument. That hasn't occurred yet.
How much more likely are you to be adopted if you're white?
I forget the stats, but Cat linked to an article in some other thread that was rather disturbing in the disparity. The other major contributing factor, besides race, is the age of the kid. Newborns get adopted much faster/more often than older children.
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Gabriel_Pitt(effective against Russian warships)Registered Userregular
Saying they should close up the welfare spigot, okay. Saying the government shouldn't pay for her in vitro, okay. Saying she shouldn't be legally allowed to have as many kids as she wants, not okay.
It sucks that it's virtually impossible to do anything to make this woman feel the full consequences of her irresponsibility without harming the children that had no part in making that choice.
No it isn't. You take her kids away.
I'm sure that after having to take care of them all for a month, that would feel more like a reprieve.
Also, she'd just turn it into another attempt to gain attention.
Even if all that were true, they'd still be better in the custody of the state than with that crazy bitch.
the novelty is going to wear off, the public is going to move on, and the older 6 are going to be raising the younger 8. You're going to have children raising children in complete poverty. I have no doubt in my mind it's going to get to that point. And that's assuming she doesn't decide to have another litter.
Saying they should close up the welfare spigot, okay. Saying the government shouldn't pay for her in vitro, okay. Saying she shouldn't be legally allowed to have as many kids as she wants, not okay.
It sucks that it's virtually impossible to do anything to make this woman feel the full consequences of her irresponsibility without harming the children that had no part in making that choice.
No it isn't. You take her kids away.
I'm sure that after having to take care of them all for a month, that would feel more like a reprieve.
Also, she'd just turn it into another attempt to gain attention.
Even if all that were true, they'd still be better in the custody of the state than with that crazy bitch.
Citation please.
Mom worked in child protective services for twenty years. Custody of the state is somewhere children need to not end up if at all possible. It's a traumatic heartless system, it can't be any other way in order to treat the children fairly and take care of them quickly... but it should still be a last resort.
Its a weird coincidence that I was reading about this, then this thread, then went and watched this week's episode of FRINGE, and they brought up the "nipple rule" that I was unaware of. While it may be made up TV-science, it sounded like one of the true biology things they use in the show to make it's crazyness seem possible.
Basically almost all mammals have double the amount of nipples than the average size of the litter of offspring they can have. That way, in case of the egg splitting or however it works, they're prepared to feed the maximum number of offspring they have.
People have 2 nipples because they normally have one child at a time to feed, and have the other nipple in case twins happens they're prepared. The guy on Fringe then goes "Thats why triplets are very rare...and anything more than that is usually just not natural."
And it just made me think about how IFV is really some of the most blatant fucking with evolution OR "God's Plan" depending on how you view the world. I'm not sure how it works, but when the body has been designed to take care of two children as an EXCEPTION and an EMERGENCY, why would anyone attempt to overload the body with more than it's designed for?
I understand IFV is amazing for those who are unable to have children, and I don't think saying "Well, you can't have kids and thats just the way it is!" should be the way things are -- but with something that flies in the face of nature so blatantly, the rules to do it should be much, much more strict.
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Gabriel_Pitt(effective against Russian warships)Registered Userregular
edited February 2009
Looking at your post, I'm not sure you actually know what In Vitro Fertilization is.
I've got a friend who wants very much to have a kid, but both her and her hubby have medical considerations that make it extremely difficult, and they recently told me that they've exhausted all of their options short of paying tens of thousands of dollars. So I'm assuming they considered fertility drugs such as this, just that it's out of their price range.
Granted, I don't know the specifics of their situation though...nor should I
I just know that they've given up on having their own kids and starting the long process of adoption. So it kinda honks me off that someone like this woman uses IFV when she already has more than enough kids and someone like my friend who doesn't have any is SOL
Looking at your post, I'm not sure you actually know what In Vitro Fertilization is.
I don't totally have an understanding of it outside of it being test tube babies. All I know is that it allowed a woman to have 8 babies at once, and that sort of thing wouldn't ever happen naturally because it doesn't seem like a human would have the capability to take care of 8 babies.
So, my conclusion was that anything that can make you have that many kids at once should be regulated a little bit more so that this kind of thing doesn't happen. I know I'm confusing parts of IFV with parts of those hormone treatments or whatever that also usually end up giving people multiple children, but my opinion really doesn't change at all.
Anything that goes against what the human body is designed to do is very scary, and should be monitored more closely so this doesn't happen.
mxmarks on
PSN: mxmarks - WiiU: mxmarks - twitter: @ MikesPS4 - twitch.tv/mxmarks - "Yes, mxmarks is the King of Queens" - Unbreakable Vow
Saying they should close up the welfare spigot, okay. Saying the government shouldn't pay for her in vitro, okay. Saying she shouldn't be legally allowed to have as many kids as she wants, not okay.
It sucks that it's virtually impossible to do anything to make this woman feel the full consequences of her irresponsibility without harming the children that had no part in making that choice.
No it isn't. You take her kids away.
I'm sure that after having to take care of them all for a month, that would feel more like a reprieve.
Also, she'd just turn it into another attempt to gain attention.
Even if all that were true, they'd still be better in the custody of the state than with that crazy bitch.
They really wouldn't, and knock it off with the language.
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KageraImitating the worst people. Since 2004Registered Userregular
edited February 2009
Ohh now let's hate on the 60 year old that just gave birth to twins through IVF!
I just know that they've given up on having their own kids and starting the long process of adoption. So it kinda honks me off that someone like this woman uses IFV when she already has more than enough kids and someone like my friend who doesn't have any is SOL
IVF.
And I can only imagine the shitfight this thread would be if the woman hadn't used anonymous sperm donors. Silver's head would have exploded all over.
I just know that they've given up on having their own kids and starting the long process of adoption. So it kinda honks me off that someone like this woman uses IFV when she already has more than enough kids and someone like my friend who doesn't have any is SOL
IVF.
And I can only imagine the shitfight this thread would be if the woman hadn't used anonymous sperm donors. Silver's head would have exploded all over.
It was all from the same donor, and from the interview it sounded like she might have actually known him.
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KageraImitating the worst people. Since 2004Registered Userregular
edited February 2009
I'm not at all for regulating people's reproductive choices but it does seem a tad irresponsible to decide to have children at an age you KNOW will risk their health and yours.
But fuck, you can't regulate that because then you have the government telling when you can't have children because it's too risky and omg they may have defects and that's just a fucked up debate that's not worth it.
I just know that they've given up on having their own kids and starting the long process of adoption. So it kinda honks me off that someone like this woman uses IFV when she already has more than enough kids and someone like my friend who doesn't have any is SOL
IVF.
And I can only imagine the shitfight this thread would be if the woman hadn't used anonymous sperm donors. Silver's head would have exploded all over.
It was all from the same donor, and from the interview it sounded like she might have actually known him.
I was thinking more about child support. And are you sure? Because I'm pretty sure a guy being up for 14 lots of child support would make the news.
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KalTorakOne way or another, they all end up inthe Undercity.Registered Userregular
edited February 2009
I remember reading they were all from the same donor, but reliable information about this case seems to be a bit rare. And i thought sperm donors don't generally have to pay child support?
Saying they should close up the welfare spigot, okay. Saying the government shouldn't pay for her in vitro, okay. Saying she shouldn't be legally allowed to have as many kids as she wants, not okay.
It sucks that it's virtually impossible to do anything to make this woman feel the full consequences of her irresponsibility without harming the children that had no part in making that choice.
No it isn't. You take her kids away.
I'm sure that after having to take care of them all for a month, that would feel more like a reprieve.
Also, she'd just turn it into another attempt to gain attention.
Even if all that were true, they'd still be better in the custody of the state than with that crazy bitch.
They really wouldn't, and knock it off with the language.
You're a day late and a dollar short but I'm going to repeat myself anyway:
the novelty is going to wear off, the public is going to move on, and the older 6 are going to be raising the younger 8. You're going to have children raising children in complete poverty. I have no doubt in my mind it's going to get to that point. And that's assuming she doesn't decide to have another litter.
And knock it off with the meta-modding.
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MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
edited February 2009
It's not meta modding to tell someone their language is offensive and to stop. "Knock it off with the language" is a very casual statement. As a fellow aussie, to me that sounds like the kind of normal request I'd get in an everyday conversation. You don't need to be a mod to tell someone that, Silver.
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(PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
Its kind of awesome how supposedly pro-choice people turn into fucking monsters whenever someone has more than the 'approved' number of kids. Whatever number that is.
Christ, guys. Forced sterilisation? In vitro conception bans? Are you people that fucking stupid?
Then how about I tell her to knock it off with the fucking hypocrisy instead?
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Gabriel_Pitt(effective against Russian warships)Registered Userregular
edited February 2009
Her hypocrisy being what?
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KalTorakOne way or another, they all end up inthe Undercity.Registered Userregular
Swearing on the board isn't prohibited; misogynistic language, which is what Cat took offense to (i assume) might be a different story (though to my knowledge the only prohibited language is the n-word). But whatever: this isn't the thread to debate the usage and intentions of the word "bitch."
After doing a little thinking, I'd like to revise my position.
I would certainly like for human IVF to not currently exist. While it brings happiness to some people, the need for it at present is due largely to cultural or personal ethic issues which I have difficulty reaching so much as a neutral position on. There is also the difficulty of adopting in itself, which, while tragically ironic, I can more easily understand.
However, practically speaking, it exists and isn't going anywhere, along with natural reproduction, various forms of surrogate reproduction (which I consider roughly the same as IVF), and adoption.
Realistically, you cannot ban IVF any more than you can drugs or abortion. It's out there, there is a lucrative demand for it, and it would be a nightmare to police, for what is quite likely a numerically-insignificant population. As much as it sucks for the children who may be harmed by it, they are few enough to be considered expendable, compared to the resources required to prevent that potential harm.
However, if the resource trade-off is small enough, it may be useful to attempt to create a minor stigma against using IVF (and surrogating) rather than adopting, and/or to add a layer of complexity that makes it closer to adoption so far as difficulty goes. My reasoning being that adoption may become more tempting if it's not as significantly harder to pull off.
However, I'm not sure how practical that is. It may be that the situation is just fucked and adoption-needing kids are just screwed as usual until society as a whole starts giving a damn about them and gets a different perspective on reproduction in general.
Maybe I'm confused, but I don't see how IVF is in any way less moral than the plain old "fuck and fertilise" model that the vast majority of people have been using since the dawn of time. Are couples with an infertile partner somehow obligated to adopt when no other couples are? Or are we going to say "no more pregnancies until all the kids are adopted"?
Also, I'm still dying to know if the doctor actually thought all 8 of these embryos were going to take. I mean, in regular pregnancies eggs are fertilised in groups of four, but usually three of these don't attach to the uterine lining and just leave the system - and when the extras attach you get fraternal twins/triplets/whatever. I was assuming that IVF worked the same way, but people say they usually just implant these embryos in pairs at most. So what's the story with these eight implantations?
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I mean, if a lot of people were doing it then it would be a problem.
But really, this isn't all that destructively horrible a thing.
I disagree.
This is among one of the worst things anyone could possibly do.
Think how bad that was, and that was with the children spaced out so the older could help take care of the younger. This is basically two waves of kids (I think the first six were IVF as well).
To be honest, I don't think someone should be able to do what she did. We generally, as a society, start drawing lines on rights when exercising those rights start hurting others (can't go around punching people) or hurting the individual practicing them (can't drive without a seatbelt). Now, I'm not saying sterilize her or anything like that. But, the pregnancy was dangerous to her health, dangerous to the health of her children, dangerous to the future of her current six. I just don't imagine these kids having a good future ahead of them, at all.
Basically what I'm saying is, if there was a law that said, "No, you can't have an IVF to have eight kids at once" I wouldn't feel bad at all. I mean, it's just irresponsible, both to the health of the parent and the children. I mean, I think the number should be capped even lower. Maybe no more than two eggs during an IVF, if only for health and safety reasons. I mean, if someone want to kept pumping out kids that way, sure, that's their right, and then I guess child services can step in if conditions in the home get too bad.
Having more kids than you can afford to raise is up there with murder and karaoke? I mean, it's a pretty shit thing to do and I feel sorry for her kids, family, and friends as they're going to get some of the burden put on them because she can't deal with her own brood; but worst imaginable thing possible for someone to do? Seems like a stretch.
Yeah, some of the hyperbole in here is a bit much.
This chick is crazy, her doctors were dangerously irresponsible, and her legion of children will likely suffer as a result. No way should she have been approved for in vitro for the seventh child much less 8 more.
But.
We don't need to be lobbying for forced sterilization, and - as much as I dislike in vitro - this would be a shitty reason to ban it.
I don't know a whole lot about IVF, but surely this doctor wasn't under the assumption that all eight of these embryos would be viable? Because if he was, it seems like that constitutes a very blase attitude toward the health of the mother.
Twins can lead to a somewhat difficult pregnancy, although there's usually not a lot of problems involved. Triplets can be pretty hard on the mother, although it obviously varies from person to person.
Now imagine nearly three times as many children. It blows my mind. The human body isn't made to handle that kind of stress - it's something entirely unprecedented in normal human biology. I refuse to believe that carrying eight children was not dangerous to this woman's health, and if the doctor intentionally endangered his patient's health - not to mention the health of these eight kids - then he has failed in his responsibilities as a medical practitioner.
If she wants to have 14 kids, fine. That's her business. If she wants to do it through IVF, go for it. But having eight children at once is just lunacy. It's incredible that this woman isn't dead right now, and that the children were able to survive at all - they had to be extremely undernourished. I don't think it's physically possible for one mother to eat enough to support eight healthy fetuses.
No it isn't. You take her kids away.
I'm sure that after having to take care of them all for a month, that would feel more like a reprieve.
Also, she'd just turn it into another attempt to gain attention.
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
Even if all that were true, they'd still be better in the custody of the state than with that crazy bitch.
Is that true?
I've always been under the impression that the system is a bit of a hell in its own right, though reports of the extent to which that's the case vary.
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
They'd have better luck in the system than most babies would because they're white. Being a part of a large family doesn't really constitute abuse, though, so I'm not seeing the case for putting 'em up for adoption. If anything that merits Child Services actually happened then you could have an argument. That hasn't occurred yet.
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
I forget the stats, but Cat linked to an article in some other thread that was rather disturbing in the disparity. The other major contributing factor, besides race, is the age of the kid. Newborns get adopted much faster/more often than older children.
Also:
"Well, they come cheaper by the dozen, you know,"
Mom worked in child protective services for twenty years. Custody of the state is somewhere children need to not end up if at all possible. It's a traumatic heartless system, it can't be any other way in order to treat the children fairly and take care of them quickly... but it should still be a last resort.
Basically almost all mammals have double the amount of nipples than the average size of the litter of offspring they can have. That way, in case of the egg splitting or however it works, they're prepared to feed the maximum number of offspring they have.
People have 2 nipples because they normally have one child at a time to feed, and have the other nipple in case twins happens they're prepared. The guy on Fringe then goes "Thats why triplets are very rare...and anything more than that is usually just not natural."
And it just made me think about how IFV is really some of the most blatant fucking with evolution OR "God's Plan" depending on how you view the world. I'm not sure how it works, but when the body has been designed to take care of two children as an EXCEPTION and an EMERGENCY, why would anyone attempt to overload the body with more than it's designed for?
I understand IFV is amazing for those who are unable to have children, and I don't think saying "Well, you can't have kids and thats just the way it is!" should be the way things are -- but with something that flies in the face of nature so blatantly, the rules to do it should be much, much more strict.
I've got a friend who wants very much to have a kid, but both her and her hubby have medical considerations that make it extremely difficult, and they recently told me that they've exhausted all of their options short of paying tens of thousands of dollars. So I'm assuming they considered fertility drugs such as this, just that it's out of their price range.
Granted, I don't know the specifics of their situation though...nor should I
I just know that they've given up on having their own kids and starting the long process of adoption. So it kinda honks me off that someone like this woman uses IFV when she already has more than enough kids and someone like my friend who doesn't have any is SOL
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I don't totally have an understanding of it outside of it being test tube babies. All I know is that it allowed a woman to have 8 babies at once, and that sort of thing wouldn't ever happen naturally because it doesn't seem like a human would have the capability to take care of 8 babies.
So, my conclusion was that anything that can make you have that many kids at once should be regulated a little bit more so that this kind of thing doesn't happen. I know I'm confusing parts of IFV with parts of those hormone treatments or whatever that also usually end up giving people multiple children, but my opinion really doesn't change at all.
Anything that goes against what the human body is designed to do is very scary, and should be monitored more closely so this doesn't happen.
Uh yeah, sure. Pretty certain I can think of worse, champ.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090205/od_nm/us_twins_odd;_ylt=AlCwFCj1x8vTMlpb6Vk_W1QSH9EA
And I can only imagine the shitfight this thread would be if the woman hadn't used anonymous sperm donors. Silver's head would have exploded all over.
Oh come on, they're a dime a dozen by now
(that said, fertility doctors clearly only ever do this as a publicity stunt, its a massive ethics fail)
It was all from the same donor, and from the interview it sounded like she might have actually known him.
But fuck, you can't regulate that because then you have the government telling when you can't have children because it's too risky and omg they may have defects and that's just a fucked up debate that's not worth it.
I was thinking more about child support. And are you sure? Because I'm pretty sure a guy being up for 14 lots of child support would make the news.
You're a day late and a dollar short but I'm going to repeat myself anyway:
And knock it off with the meta-modding.
Using swear words, i guess...
Swearing on the board isn't prohibited; misogynistic language, which is what Cat took offense to (i assume) might be a different story (though to my knowledge the only prohibited language is the n-word). But whatever: this isn't the thread to debate the usage and intentions of the word "bitch."
Mind you I'm actually writing an actually on-topic post as we speak, so don't take me for an instigator. :P
I would certainly like for human IVF to not currently exist. While it brings happiness to some people, the need for it at present is due largely to cultural or personal ethic issues which I have difficulty reaching so much as a neutral position on. There is also the difficulty of adopting in itself, which, while tragically ironic, I can more easily understand.
However, practically speaking, it exists and isn't going anywhere, along with natural reproduction, various forms of surrogate reproduction (which I consider roughly the same as IVF), and adoption.
Realistically, you cannot ban IVF any more than you can drugs or abortion. It's out there, there is a lucrative demand for it, and it would be a nightmare to police, for what is quite likely a numerically-insignificant population. As much as it sucks for the children who may be harmed by it, they are few enough to be considered expendable, compared to the resources required to prevent that potential harm.
However, if the resource trade-off is small enough, it may be useful to attempt to create a minor stigma against using IVF (and surrogating) rather than adopting, and/or to add a layer of complexity that makes it closer to adoption so far as difficulty goes. My reasoning being that adoption may become more tempting if it's not as significantly harder to pull off.
However, I'm not sure how practical that is. It may be that the situation is just fucked and adoption-needing kids are just screwed as usual until society as a whole starts giving a damn about them and gets a different perspective on reproduction in general.
Also, I'm still dying to know if the doctor actually thought all 8 of these embryos were going to take. I mean, in regular pregnancies eggs are fertilised in groups of four, but usually three of these don't attach to the uterine lining and just leave the system - and when the extras attach you get fraternal twins/triplets/whatever. I was assuming that IVF worked the same way, but people say they usually just implant these embryos in pairs at most. So what's the story with these eight implantations?
You're basically spending a lot of money and taking physical risk because you really really really want a child but fuck if you're going to adopt one.
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I think the doctor only implanted 6 embryos.
Meh. The cost is marginal next to the total cost of raising a kid. You can put me in with "doesn't really see the difference".