Like freakin' rabbits....

[Wombat]

Almost nobody? Well then fertility patients are "almost nobody." They know hour by hour what's going on with their body. They've scheduled when to take the drugs, when to concieve (naturally or otherwise), and when to check to see how the fertilization and implantation went. They should be extremely knowledgable about "how pregnant" they are, especially in the beginning.

There's nothing hot tempered about my reaction. I was actually fairly civil. You should try it. Comparing a pro-choice person to Mengele is ridiculous. Even if someone walked through an elementary school shooting all the toddlers, they'd be mass murderers, but nothing close to what Mengele did to his victims. That kind of hyperbole just makes you look like an ass.

[Gurm]

What's more monstrous - selectively reducing a few zygotes, or dooming 7 children to an early death and a life filled with pain and sickness?

And it's a GUARANTEE. Multiples die young. ALL OF THEM. You will never find an 80-year-old multiple. They just don't exist, because they come out damaged.

If we had the medical science to save them somehow, I'd be all for it. You wanna have 'em? By all means go ahead - that's what the "choice" part of pro-choice is about. Have at it. But to PURPOSELY have seven kids at once KNOWING that they'll all be deformed and retarded and sick, and then die before you do? That's monstrous and sick.

Those Macaughay kids? They're not 3. They're 7. Seven years old and they're learning to talk finally. A couple have cerebral palsy. They're all developmentally impaired (aka retarded). It was a horrifyingly cruel thing to do, bringing them into the world.

And y'know what, KvH? Your Mengele comparisons ring a little hollow, considering that you hate black people. Capece?

[Nowhere]

Poor women...

[Nowhere]

Well, I think the key here is average. Aside from the fact that there are really too many people on the planet, in order for two to be average, those who have children will have to average more than two. Even an average of two children would result in a declining population when one considers that there are accidents, disease, murder, infertility, homosexuality, and any number of factors which might make one of those two children not reproduce themselves, so there needs to be some kind of backup to account for the deficit. Kids who grow up in larger families naturally learn better social skills as well, so that's a good thing, too. If they are all the same age, though.. I dunno..

What's wrong in declining? (well, personally I'd like to have 2 to 3...so that, on average would mean constant amount or increase...but what's wrong in declining?)

And about social skills...I'd have to search some research about that (I'd guess one somebody in my faculty would have something about it ), but that's not too obvious, especially if many children are born at the same time. They "require" "exclusiveness" from mother for a long time (perhaps that's one of the reasons for developmentally impaired children Gurm is talking aboout...dunno, just speculation, research needed (damn, they've brainwashed me; I won't claim almost anything without solid evidence to back it up ))

[Gurm]

I asked Julie what the cutoff was for statistically normal kids. Remember she worked for quite some time doing genetic diagnostics - y'know, running chromosomal analyses for couples with high-risk pregnancies or who wanted to get pregnant. She and my friend's wife actually ran my friend's chromosomes with his wife's to see if anything weird would happen.

Anyway, she said up to triplets is fine. Quads "might be ok if they go full term, except that they are almost always born premature". Ouch. Anything over that, she said she's NEVER seen normal chromosomes. Wow. The doctors she worked for would NEVER NEVER NEVER have implanted as many embryos as these idiotic doctors in the news do. It's medically unethical and irresponsible.

Isn't it funny how the same people who carry on and on about the sanctity of life, the importance of family, and the sanctity of marriage... recoil in revulsion at the idea of an interracial marriage? (It's apparently an ABOMINATION, right KvH?) Or of a gay person being allowed to be a parent? Or of using stem cells to SAVE LIVES?

[Kurt]

"Capisci"

[KvHagedorn]

And it's a GUARANTEE. Multiples die young. ALL OF THEM. You will never find an 80-year-old multiple. They just don't exist, because they come out damaged.

http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/content_pages/record.asp?recordid=48365&Reg=1

http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/content_pages/record.asp?recordid=48367&Reg=1

And having all of a set of Quints survive birth is a relatively recent event, due to better medical care, so it's no wonder you don't see 80 year old ones, but:

Oldest Living Set (All 5 survive)
61 years old - Diligenti (Argentina, July 15 1943) Maria Esther, Maria Fernanda, Maria Christina, Carlos Alberto, Franco (spontaneous)

[Brian Ellis]

A young Sri Lankan lady helps Margaret with the heavy housework. She has had 9 or 10 attempts to conceive using IVF over the past few years. It would seem that the fertilised eggs (from herself and a donor) simply will not implant. All she earns from doing housework goes towards this treatment, aided by a Cypriot woman who philanthropically pays the difference. Before implantation, each egg is tested for chromosomic abnormalities, because of the high risk with IVF, and only good eggs are used. She has three at a time.

OK, cerebral palsy is usually as a result of prolonged oxygen starvation before or at birth and is not a genetic disorder. It is an accident. So let's separate that from the equation.

There is absolutely no excuse for implanting >3 embryonic eggs, IMHO, at one time. AND there is even less excuse to implant genetically impaired ones, which would probably spontaneously abort at some stage, possibly causing spontaneous abortion of otherwise viable siblings, at the same time.

So, KvH is against abortion (quelle surprise!!!). But what is abortion? 95% (or more) of abortions are natural and often occur before the mother is even aware she is preggers. In the case of "our" Sri Lankan, she has aborted tens of times (possibly a hundred if there was natural conception before she started the IVF treatment). So, by extension, KvH must be against helping childless couples from hoping that IVF will do the trick, because abortion may result.

But, a fertilised egg in vitro may not be implanted for any reason (e.g., too many successful conceptions). Is that also abortion? Is freezing a fertilised embryo for later use abortion, especially if it is not used? An embryo can survive freezing. A foetus cannot. I believe the limit is somewhere over 20 sets of divisions. Surely, KvH can accept that an embryo is no more a human than one of his spermatazoa and he hasn't used all of those to make a baby.

Science can help, in some cases, motherless couples to achieve otherwise impossible preganancies but abortions are a necessary negative side that goes hand-in-glove with the technology.

My personal view of man-caused abortion is that it should not be permitted just as a means of birth control for healthy mothers and babies, but there are a number of medical reasons why it is sometimes necessary, yes NECESSARY.

[Gurm]

1. KvH hasn't used ANY of his spermatazoa.

2. Trying to get a religious person to acknowledge that there is a difference between an embryo and a foetus, or a zygote and a foetus... is futile. They will happily allow you to cause dozens of abortions in an attempt, however misguided, to get a woman to catch, but even ONE abortion in order to PREVENT a pregnancy is an evil evil act. I suppose that the murdered babies care a lot about intent, y'know?

[KvHagedorn]

Bad news, murg.. I've been selling my sperm to sperm banks since I was 18. I've been told I now have well over 4000 offspring.

[Gurm]

Bad news, murg.. I've been selling my sperm to sperm banks since I was 18. I've been told I now have well over 4000 offspring.

Wow. I'm telling your dad, and your granddad. That's all kinds of immoral, according to your satanic bible.

Oh, did I mention that your God is dead? Yeah. Oh, and by the way - all the women who had your sperm babies? They're black. So you birthed 4000 little "abominations". That is what you call interracial babies, right? I mean, I could dig up the quote, but why bother? Everyone knows you're a pathetic, bible-thumping, masturbating, closeted queer.

[Sasq]

enough guys