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Baby, it’s <i>not</i> cold outside anymore — 4 Comments

  1. Not a word about the Catholic position here, Neo.
    The ethics seem not to concern you, since you allude to them only in passing. See your 5 choices.
    When does a human life begin?

  2. Frog:

    I think it’s obvious that they are not MY five choices. I’m quoting the article. This is not an in-depth post with a lot of in-depth discussion of the issues. It’s a quick introduction to the topic, using one general reference about it and a lot of quotes.

    I not only ignored the Catholic position, I ignored just about every other position. If you want to talk about the Catholic position, go right ahead.

    You may not realize it, but I don’t always want or need to spend hours and hours writing a single post, researching and then listing the positions of every religion on earth. Or is it only the Catholic religion you require that I research?

    In case you’re wondering, the Catholic Church is against in vitro fertilization in the first place, so they are against the very process that would lead to the dilemma described in this post. You can read about it here. And perhaps it would surprise you to discover that the Church is against the adoption of embryos already frozen (see this). Or perhaps it would not surprise you.

  3. Thanks for writing about this Neo. I couldn’t quite figure out what was going on with the time-line until I read your post.
    There are of course unresolved ethical questions about all this, and likely will always be. It is a function of our modern era being medically capable of astounding things, and yet ethically unprepared at times. In a nation where a million unborn are aborted a year, this embryo issue will await a broader awakening.
    It is perhaps enough to wish the new family and baby well as you do. They all are a bit of a miracle.

  4. Thanks for this excellent and illusive post. in one sentence you ask “… One also wonders whether there are medical ramifications of the long storage process. “. All research done on long-term frozen embryos of mice and of long-term frozen human cells (bone-marrow, stem cells, cell lines) have never shown any detrimental effect of cryo-storage (if it is done properly). The (unfertilized) egg in a womans ovary are stored there from birth until ovulation (i.e. up to 45 – 50 years), and here we know that with every year the risk for genetic abnormalities goes up (not so for cryo-storing the fertilized egg or embryo). It could become a problem if sperm cells/eggs/embryos are stored over centuries, because natural background radiation will cause a slow but persistent accumulation of gene mutations.
    regards, Michael

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