Also right on cue, after noting how many women would be willing to freeze their eggs, comes this story on the risks of birth defects associated with IVF. Please note: these data are from IVF, and are almost certianly mostly more or less “fresh” eggs. We don’t know yet the impact of freezing and thawing out eggs after 10 or more years.
Scientists carried out a survey of 33 French centres collecting data on more than 15,000 births from 2003 to 2007.
The study, the largest of its kind, found evidence of a higher than expected rate of serious congenital abnormalities.
Research leader Geraldine Viot, from the Maternite Port Royal Hospital in Paris, said: “We found a major congenital malformation in 4.24% of the children, compared with the 2-3% that we had expected from previous published studies.
“This higher rate was due in part to an excess of heart diseases and malformations of the uro-genital system. This was much more common in boys.
“Among the minor malformations, we found a five times higher rate of angioma, benign tumours made up of small blood vessels on or near the surface of the skin. These occurred more than twice as frequently in girls than in boys.”
For those who are followers of F.A. Hayek, and respect his concept of “tacit knowledge,” comes this gem:
Many of the defects are thought to be linked to “imprinting”, the process by which certain genes are switched off or kept active according to which parent they are inherited from.
Why these problems occur is still a mystery. There could be a wide range of explanations, including infertility itself, ovarian stimulation, the maturing of eggs in the laboratory or the ICSI (intra-cytoplasmic sperm injection) technique which injects a single sperm into the egg, said Dr Viot.
IN other words, we don’t even know what we don’t know. And we give ourselves permission to experiment on other people’s lives.
This can’t be the meaning of freedom: that I am entitled to do whatever I want and can pay for, at the expense of an unborn child.
