[Tainari88]

Looks like embryos are children and if you drop one and it dies you committed a really serious crime. It means IVF treatments are going to be outlawed or at least severely discouraged for infertile couples. because if you insert a dud into a mother or surrogate and it might be the fault of the clinic and they murdered a child..by dropping the embryo.

What is your opinion?

[Verv]

So, I am pro-life. Let the hate pour in. 1 like react = 1 hate .

I think treating a fertilized embryo like a human life is good, but regular medical malpractice laws should apply... Doctor's errors that are not due to negligence while handling an embryo are not murder. They are the results of a complicated situation. I think the courts will also see it that way, and would only consider serious charges for someone who is willfully negligent while handling embryos.

I generally do not believe in IVF, and it has nothing to do with pro-life: my grandfather was adopted, and two of my cousins were adopted. As was one of my best buds... Adoption is absolutely beautiful and a necessary thing in society, and I think the world would be a better place if couples experiencing fertility issues viewed it as a sign from God or fate that they should also adopt and that this fulfills their parental call and never look at it for a moment as inferior to having biological kids...

This is very romantic, and I have the luxury of saying this as someone who has a biological child... But it is an important issue.

So, [i]what if Alabama bans IVF?

I bet you there is someone out there who is pro-choice but would also ban IVF because they are super-egalitarians who think there is something fishy about spending loads of money to cook up *just the right* bio-baby because wife/husband can't conceive properly and they need it to reflect *their genes, or nothing.*

Food for thought.

[Tainari88]

So, I am pro-life. Let the hate pour in. 1 like react = 1 hate .

I think treating a fertilized embryo like a human life is good, but regular medical malpractice laws should apply... Doctor's errors that are not due to negligence while handling an embryo are not murder. They are the results of a complicated situation. I think the courts will also see it that way, and would only consider serious charges for someone who is willfully negligent while handling embryos.

I generally do not believe in IVF, and it has nothing to do with pro-life: my grandfather was adopted, and two of my cousins were adopted. As was one of my best buds... Adoption is absolutely beautiful and a necessary thing in society, and I think the world would be a better place if couples experiencing fertility issues viewed it as a sign from God or fate that they should also adopt and that this fulfills their parental call and never look at it for a moment as inferior to having biological kids...

This is very romantic, and I have the luxury of saying this as someone who has a biological child... But it is an important issue.

So, [i]what if Alabama bans IVF?

I bet you there is someone out there who is pro-choice but would also ban IVF because they are super-egalitarians who think there is something fishy about spending loads of money to cook up *just the right* bio-baby because wife/husband can't conceive properly and they need it to reflect *their genes, or nothing.*

Food for thought.

This is an interesting topic for me. Because I got married at age 18 and I went to college and kept working and we tried for years to have kids. Nothing happened. Finally, I was 40 years old. People told me, go and get some kind of assessment from a doctor, go and get IVF treatments, go and do this or that. It could be your diabetes or it could be your diet, or your this or that.

I never even went for infertility treatments. First off they are expensive and my husband and I were living on a tight budget. Second, I never cared if a kid of mine was adopted or my own biological child.

Then the journey for becoming a parent started. It was very difficult. We tried to adopt internationally and for some reason it always went wrong. Nothing would work out. Then we tried to adopt kids with disabilities like blindness or something. For some reason it never would work out. Finally a social worker from Jefferson County, Colorado, sat down with us and was very honest. She said that most infants were adopted by their temporary foster families if they were healthy infants. Or adopted by well off couples who they tried to match with the child's background. I was curious about that. I asked what does that mean? She did not beat around the bush, she said, white families prefer to adopt white babies. Or as white as can be obtained. Infants in general were always highly sought after.

She told us that the kids that most needed homes were the ones who no one really wanted to adopt. We asked who are those? I thought maybe they would be kids with learning disabilities, physical challenges, or that they had serious medical issues. No, she said the kids that were the most likely to never be adopted Verv were black boys. Males. Over the age of 8. Especially the ones who were oppositional and argumentative, angry and far behind academically, angry and who had ODD. I did not know what ODD was at the time. She said Oppositional Defiant Disorder.

She said Hispanic couples tended to want to adopt baby girls who were either Hispanic or white or Asian. Again, she said no one wanted Black male children over the age of eight. They remained in the system, until they aged out. The statistic stated that they would most probably never would finish high school and never go to the university or finish there. About 3% chance of ever doing well academically and a high probability of jail or being shot in the street. That is the stats for the USA for foster children who are black males that have been in and out of foster homes (6 different times or above).

We had never been parents before. She held nothing back. Told us that our son was a kid no one liked. Because he was angry and oppositional. Behind in school. Totally unlikable.

Basically he had a bio mother who tried to raise him but she was violent, hated my son the most because he was the only child she had who was 100% black and his father was a domestic violence man who killed people and was in jail for life. Never getting out. She did not like that child because she had internatlized the racism and would blame him for the color of his skin in comparison to his siblings.

It was scary for us to consider adopting him Verv. What the hell did we know about raising older children who other couples or people had turned away due to being very hard to raise and cope with?

Adoption is serious and very much a hard thing to take on when a child is already damaged by a callous government system, and lacked early stability.

One might think there are enough adoptive parents out there for all the kids who need homes. You would be wrong. Many adults both single and married, same sex or opposite sex couples nowadays do not want the trouble. Kids are a huge responsibility. They are a big expense, and they are a big commitment.

Many people barely can bear raising their own flesh and blood. They do not think about raising some other person's child and especially a kid that the society at large does not want to cope with.

I thought to myself---why are black boys rejected in the USA so strongly? I did my research.

I thought about my idea of being a mother Verv. Did I want to be a mom for the joy of having a little tiny infant, and caring for that baby, and having a special bond? Because the truth is that if you want to be a parent you better in it for the long haul. For the ability to be of service to the child that is in need of your assistance and your care.If it is about your ego as a parent? It is not for you.

I met my son with my husband. We spent time with him initially. Our conclusion was he was a highly unlikable kid. Very hard to like. I smile when I think about it now. He did everything in his power to make sure he hated the idea of coping with poor people like us with no prestige. Lol. Hee hee.

Now he is 26 years old Verv. All grown up. He rarely asks us for advice. But when he does he talks for a long time. I am so proud of that kid. I am crying right now as I type this out. He DID IT. He got over all the shit that the world threw at him when he was young and angry. He at least finished high school with decent grades. Despite having to send him out of state and out of Colorado and far from us in his senior year of high school. It was a crazy racist incident that had nothing to do with him Verv. I do not want to waste time talking about it.

But he muddled through the issues. Finished high school. Went to college. Graduated from college on the Dean's List. He speaks fluent Spanish and English. He opened his own business named after me. He is doing well, rented an apartment in Downtown Denver, bought his own truck for work, and his own economy personal vehicle. He pays his own bills. Never asks for money.

He is very independent. And proud in his way. He is well-traveled and very focused. He is not enraged like he was as a child.

I always finish all my phone conversations with him like this--Well if things get tough or bad or you can't cope with anything anymore on your own? You come home son. You come home and stay with us. We are your family like we promised you when you were a kid....this is your home. Remember that.

He never likes to say much after that. But this last time he said Gracias Mamá.

All that work. It paid off.

[Pants-of-dog]

Imagine there is a fire or some.other calamity occurs in a fertility clinic.

Would the emergency responders then be obligated to save the embryos rather than born people?

After all, by letting one adult die so that they can save a box of refrigerated embryos, the firefighters would be saving dozens of lives instead of just one!

[late]

The country needs a medical review board that handles a variety of issues, ethics being one of them. A medical ethicist would point out that a fertilised egg is an egg. It's not a baby, and giving it rights doesn't make sense.

What is being argued over is when the legal status of being a person is given. It's arbitrary. Some cultures don't confer rights until adulthood. We used to be one of those cultures...

Conferring rights at birth is simple, traditional, and unambiguous.

Having the state interfere with human reproduction is a mistake. It's really that simple. Pregnancy is, by far, the most extreme condition that can be called normal. All manner of things go wrong. The mindless prohibitions we are seeing are killing women. Some of them have to wait until they are dying, and when doctors save them, the ability to have children is lost.

Behind the idea of civilisation is the idea of rationality. The word comes from ratio, which implies a balance.

We need to strike a balance between competing interests. In this, the person with the most to lose, the person with the greatest 'interest', is the woman. Ignore that and you ignore the fundamental mandate of civilisation.

[Tainari88]

@late my point is very simple. I think many people want to save children and do right by children. They think have the baby and give it up for adoption. The reality is not that simple. Not enough good parents to go around to adopt kids that are already here and wanting a stable home life. Most people want their own biological kids. And many can't raise them with the barriers they have in their lives to raising kids. What are the barriers? Free child care.

Did you know Late that in Mexico the entire country has free child care centers where working Mexican moms and dads, grandparents and guardians that are legal custodians of the kids can drop off that baby or child and go off to work or errands, school, etc and come back later to pick them up for free. No charge.

Mexico. The nation where people are making $1.75 an hour.

But the US government can't pass universal health care or universal child care legislation covering this for hardworking parents allover the USA. It is really interesting how family-hostile the US policies are.

I had to give up my job when I had my bio son at age 45 and a half. Lol. What I made mostly would go to child care costs and so on. My husband preferred to work two jobs rather than have me working to pay for care and never see my baby son. It is ridiculous in the extreme. And Colorado is a good state. Other states are far more expensive for child care than Colorado. New York City comes to mind. Lol.

When you are pregnant with a high risk pregnancy which I was back in 2011, they tell the woman, you got to go to prenatal check ups, you got to monitor your blood sugar, you got to avoid stress, you got to stop working if it is stressful, you got to monitor your diet, your exercise, you got to take vitamins you got to....and the list is endless. It is anxiety producing.

They also tell you it is very easy for you to miscarriage at your age Tainari and also with your health conditions. Do you really want to risk your personal health for a child you will wind up losing anyway? I said I did not care. I wanted to take the risk.

They then said ok, here comes the battery of testing. For Down Syndrome, for genetic defects. The procedures are often uncomfortable for women. And then the birth. Painful contractions, pushing for hours without food or water or ability to move around because you might need a C section and or major surgery to remove the danger of not being able to have a normal birth.

Complications are often common, pre-eclampsia. I knew women in their late twenties with perfect health that gave birth to babies that lived only a few hours and then died. No one knew why they died. Kind of hard to pinpoint. A next door neighbor had a baby boy and while the father was buying baseball game tickets on the computer his son died suddenly from infant death syndrome. I saw the mother's face. Her name was Briana. She looked absolutely devastated.

Women risk their very lives Late to give birth to their children. I can't emphasize enough how critical it is to have SUPPORT for women and the decisions they have to make for their pregnancies.

I wanted kids badly....it was so hard to have the one child I got to give birth to. So much anxiety, worry, and preparation. Then when they are born they require constant care, and investment of time, energy and money in order to make sure the baby thrives.

Women can easily die Late unless they get a lot of support for their health conditions. Women who are epileptic, diabetic, have high blood pressure, severe allergies, have cognitive declines, and or missing a leg or a an organ, who are blind or deaf or have extremely difficult pregnancies that incapitate them for months. Lying on their backs for months because their uteruses are weak.

The midwife who would check on me volunteered for helping birth babies in Haiti. She said the women would be young about 15 and too narrow to give birth naturally and sometimes no anesthesia and had to cut them open for an emergency C section. Some preferred to die to getting cut open without pain meds.

These politicians tend to be very callous about how all that is of extremely personal in nature. Discussions about sex lives, and sex partners and if it is incest or rape, or IVF or surrogacy or single mothers, or married mothers, or how old are you....too old. I was told I was too old so many times during that pregnancy.

The insurance company did not want to pay for my expensive test strips for my Blood Sugar readings. You are using too many. We won't pay for more. Etc.

Then the judges, lawyers and politicians are there telling the pregnant women.....you murderess, you coward, you bitch, you do not know how to respect life....

How can anyone be that arrogant Late? How can the state presume to know it all eh?

[Verv]

This is an interesting topic for me. Because I got married at age 18 and I went to college and kept working and we tried for years to have kids. Nothing happened. Finally, I was 40 years old. People told me, go and get some kind of assessment from a doctor, go and get IVF treatments, go and do this or that. It could be your diabetes or it could be your diet, or your this or that.

I never even went for infertility treatments. First off they are expensive and my husband and I were living on a tight budget. Second, I never cared if a kid of mine was adopted or my own biological child.

Then the journey for becoming a parent started. It was very difficult. We tried to adopt internationally and for some reason it always went wrong. Nothing would work out. Then we tried to adopt kids with disabilities like blindness or something. For some reason it never would work out. Finally a social worker from Jefferson County, Colorado, sat down with us and was very honest. She said that most infants were adopted by their temporary foster families if they were healthy infants. Or adopted by well off couples who they tried to match with the child's background. I was curious about that. I asked what does that mean? She did not beat around the bush, she said, white families prefer to adopt white babies. Or as white as can be obtained. Infants in general were always highly sought after.

She told us that the kids that most needed homes were the ones who no one really wanted to adopt. We asked who are those? I thought maybe they would be kids with learning disabilities, physical challenges, or that they had serious medical issues. No, she said the kids that were the most likely to never be adopted Verv were black boys. Males. Over the age of 8. Especially the ones who were oppositional and argumentative, angry and far behind academically, angry and who had ODD. I did not know what ODD was at the time. She said Oppositional Defiant Disorder.

She said Hispanic couples tended to want to adopt baby girls who were either Hispanic or white or Asian. Again, she said no one wanted Black male children over the age of eight. They remained in the system, until they aged out. The statistic stated that they would most probably never would finish high school and never go to the university or finish there. About 3% chance of ever doing well academically and a high probability of jail or being shot in the street. That is the stats for the USA for foster children who are black males that have been in and out of foster homes (6 different times or above).

We had never been parents before. She held nothing back. Told us that our son was a kid no one liked. Because he was angry and oppositional. Behind in school. Totally unlikable.

Basically he had a bio mother who tried to raise him but she was violent, hated my son the most because he was the only child she had who was 100% black and his father was a domestic violence man who killed people and was in jail for life. Never getting out. She did not like that child because she had internatlized the racism and would blame him for the color of his skin in comparison to his siblings.

It was scary for us to consider adopting him Verv. What the hell did we know about raising older children who other couples or people had turned away due to being very hard to raise and cope with?

Adoption is serious and very much a hard thing to take on when a child is already damaged by a callous government system, and lacked early stability.

One might think there are enough adoptive parents out there for all the kids who need homes. You would be wrong. Many adults both single and married, same sex or opposite sex couples nowadays do not want the trouble. Kids are a huge responsibility. They are a big expense, and they are a big commitment.

Many people barely can bear raising their own flesh and blood. They do not think about raising some other person's child and especially a kid that the society at large does not want to cope with.

I thought to myself---why are black boys rejected in the USA so strongly? I did my research.

I thought about my idea of being a mother Verv. Did I want to be a mom for the joy of having a little tiny infant, and caring for that baby, and having a special bond? Because the truth is that if you want to be a parent you better in it for the long haul. For the ability to be of service to the child that is in need of your assistance and your care.If it is about your ego as a parent? It is not for you.

I met my son with my husband. We spent time with him initially. Our conclusion was he was a highly unlikable kid. Very hard to like. I smile when I think about it now. He did everything in his power to make sure he hated the idea of coping with poor people like us with no prestige. Lol. Hee hee.

Now he is 26 years old Verv. All grown up. He rarely asks us for advice. But when he does he talks for a long time. I am so proud of that kid. I am crying right now as I type this out. He DID IT. He got over all the shit that the world threw at him when he was young and angry. He at least finished high school with decent grades. Despite having to send him out of state and out of Colorado and far from us in his senior year of high school. It was a crazy racist incident that had nothing to do with him Verv. I do not want to waste time talking about it.

But he muddled through the issues. Finished high school. Went to college. Graduated from college on the Dean's List. He speaks fluent Spanish and English. He opened his own business named after me. He is doing well, rented an apartment in Downtown Denver, bought his own truck for work, and his own economy personal vehicle. He pays his own bills. Never asks for money.

He is very independent. And proud in his way. He is well-traveled and very focused. He is not enraged like he was as a child.

I always finish all my phone conversations with him like this--Well if things get tough or bad or you can't cope with anything anymore on your own? You come home son. You come home and stay with us. We are your family like we promised you when you were a kid....this is your home. Remember that.

He never likes to say much after that. But this last time he said Gracias Mamá.

All that work. It paid off.

That is, of course, an exceptionally beautiful story - you have 100% made the world a much better place with your husband in an extremely significant way.

I am sure that I will share this story with others in the future.

You can rest assured that you have done about as much as anyone can do as an individual to heal America through this act. Very beautiful.

[Tainari88]

That is, of course, an exceptionally beautiful story - you have 100% made the world a much better place with your husband in an extremely significant way.

I am sure that I will share this story with others in the future.

You can rest assured that you have done about as much as anyone can do as an individual to heal America through this act. Very beautiful.

Thank you Verv.

My son had one older brother. Different father. And one younger sister also different father. They were adopted by other families. The last one to be adopted was my son.

His older brother never made it through high school. He dropped out and had problems. He still does.

The younger sister was adopted as an infant. She does not remember another family other than her adoptive family. She graduated from art school in Arizona. She lives in Colorado and they sometimes socialize as adults.

I met her. A lovely-looking girl.

The US needs to make family-friendly policies. Not make it harder for young couples to get married, have children, and get a starter home. It is a wonderful thing to invest in children and families. It builds a great society.

Also, they should do a lot of support services for parents who want to adopt kids from social service backgrounds. It makes a big difference. The last time I did research on my son's situation in 2006? The USA had 500,000 children in the foster care system. Most of them will go back to their original families. But they need housing that is affordable, jobs programs and universal health care, universal child care, preschool, healthy nutrition programs, recreational programs and a lot of support.

I read that in some programs here in Mexico they have people volunteering to help moms fix meals, and do laundry and light housekeeping and help mind the children when they have to go to government offices or go get things done. That would be a big help in the USA. They can afford it Verv.

Just got to set your priorities about what family friendly really means.

Let Dads get paternity leave to be with their young newborns. They need to feed and diaper and so on the babies too.

Nothing like caring for your little baby.

[Pewty]

Apt cartoon on Politico today: