For more than 35 years, there has been broad international agreement that no scientist can experiment on an embryo that is more than 14 days old. This red line was established as scientific guidance in the United States in 1979, and it was incorporated into British law after the 1984 Warnock inquiry into in vitro fertilization. Other nations, including Australia, Sweden and China, have since adopted the same limit, either in law or through scientific regulation.
Tag: in vitro fertilization
Vets Groups Rally Behind Bill to Let VA Provide IVF
A dozen veterans groups and support organizations are rallying behind legislation that would enable the Veterans Affairs Department to offer in vitro fertilization services to veterans with wounds and injuries prevent them from fathering children.
In IVF, Questions About ‘Mosaic’ Embryos
The couple wanted a baby boy, but the male embryo they had chosen — the only one available after an expensive round of in vitro fertilization — received a troubling test result. A handful of cells from the five-day-old embryo were deemed abnormal, apparently missing Chromosome 21, an absence that can lead to developmental defects.
Expanding Insurance for Single-Embryo IVF Could Improve Pregnancy Outcomes
Expanding insurance coverage for a type of in vitro fertilization known as elective single-embryo transfer could lead to improved health outcomes and lower health care costs, according to a newly published study that included researchers from the University of Colorado School of Medicine.
Female Sterilization: Why Are So Many Women Getting Their Tubes Tied, And Why Aren’t Men Doing The Same?
Many women across the globe struggle with fertility: Some try to become pregnant but can’t, others are persistently unsuccessful at in vitro fertilization, and many experience the heartbreak of miscarriage. While these women strive for motherhood, others inhabit the opposite end of the fertility spectrum, hoping to avoid pregnancy at any cost — even if it means permanently closing the door to birthing children. Becoming sterile, though stigmatized throughout history, is no longer viewed as the loss of a woman’s femininity, purpose, or worth in most places. Rather, it’s a conscious choice many women make to gain absolute control over their reproductive systems.
Three-Parent Children Are Already Here
This month, headlines have been filled with speculation about the social and ethical implications of “three-parent” children—that is, children born containing DNA from two mothers and one father through a set of in vitro fertilization procedures known as mitochondrial manipulation technologies.
Couple Fights to Change Law Preventing IVF Coverage For Vets
A current law that is the product of anti-abortion politics prohibits the Department of Veterans Affairs from covering the cost of in vitro fertilization for any of the estimated 1,800 veterans who have suffered damage to their reproductive organs.
For Fertility Treatment, Wounded Veterans Have To Pay The Bill
To have children they’d need help: in vitro fertilization. But IVF is expensive, costing, on average, at least $12,000 per cycle of treatment, according to the American Society for Reproductive Medicine. The Pentagon’s health care system for active-duty troops covers IVF for wounded soldiers like Matt Keil. The Department of Veterans Affairs for veterans doesn’t. By the time the Keils learned about the difference, it was too late.
What Should Be the Fate of a Spare Frozen Embryo?
There are more than 600,000 embryos frozen solid in clinics and labs across the United States, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. These excess embryos are a necessary byproduct of in vitro fertilization. For people who believe that life begins at conception, these embryos raise complex questions of logistics, priorities, and ethical consistency.
Wounded Vets Can’t Get Help With In-vitro-fertilization Costs
U.S. military veterans who are having trouble starting families due to combat injuries do not get financial assistance from the V.A. for in vitro fertilization, leaving couples to pay for the costly treatments themselves. Efforts made in Congress to change that rule have been blocked.