My husband and I made four embryos via IVF. The first is our lovely two-and-a-half year old son, the second resulted in an early miscarriage, I’m currently twenty weeks pregnant with the third (yay!), and if all goes well, we will not be using the fourth. We’re not sure what we’ll do with it, and embryo adoption is on the table, but the thought that we could be required to give it to a Christian agency is just so fucking chilling.
It feels weird to click a heart to indicate how much I appreciate this post because the horror of the statements in this document is so multifaceted. Embryos are "children." LGBTQ people should definitely NOT be allowed to adopt them. What else? Maybe we should force their implantation into childless cat ladies.
This whole exercise has precisely zero to do with embryos, children, or adoption, and everything to do with the further control of women and their naughty bits, and indeed for having the chutzpah to even POSSESS naughty bits.
And using drugs, smoking, drinking, eating raw fish, soft cheese, or cured meat is child endangerment. All pregnant people to be locked up and supervised to ensure safe gestation.
Well, if they aren’t locked up, they might do something dangerous, like wear high heels, or stand too long at work, or get on a step stool to paint the nursery…
I'm not sure what qualifies as common language regarding embryos, but I just searched Google for the definition of an embryo and it reports that an embryo is what you get the minute the egg is fertilized and it is an embryo until it becomes a fetus. Google is very vague as to what the differences are between fetus and an embryo. When I asked what the difference was between a blastocyst and an embryo, it reported that a blastocyst was just an advanced stage of an embryo.
According to Google, there are three distinctive forms taken during the embryonic phase,
1. Zygote, where the ova becomes a single cell with the whole DNA complement for a new individual.
2. Morula, where cellular division has yielded about 16 to 32 cells all containing the DNA complement of a new individual.
3. Blastocyst, where cellular division has created a population of cells forming fluid-filled cavity with two parts, one to become the fetus and the other to become the placenta. Interesting factoid, the placenta is actually a part of the infant to be, not the host mother. Genetically, the placenta is sibling to the infant when it is born.
It is the blastocyst that implants into the uterus and it the blastocyst that is exclusively selected to be frozen for IVF.
If anyone imagined that what is frozen in IVF is anything like something that has taken the shape of anything like any living creature, I hope this simple report has disabused you of this fantasy.
Some fun facts: It's an embryo until 8 weeks after fertilization. During that time, the rough shapes of the major organs form, but they don't function meaningfully. The last organ to form before the end of the 8th week is the anus. Once the embryo has an asshole it's a fetus. (Not joking!) Importantly, doctors decided to add two weeks before fertilization when saying how old an embryo or fetus is. So they will tell you that 8 weeks after fertilization is a "10 week" embryo (about to become a fetus).
It's further developed than a blastocyst. It doesn't suddenly change from blastocyst to baby shape.
(I studied embryology back in grad school, taught it, worked in an embryology lab for two years, and wrote a college textbook that included a chapter on developmental biology.)
But yeah, the frozen embryos are very early stage before any recognizable organs appear. According to the Cleveland Clinic they can freeze them either after the fertilized egg (zygote) divides 2-3 times (forming 4-8 cells) or when it has divided to form 200-300 cells.
"Importantly, doctors decided to add two weeks before fertilization when saying how old an embryo or fetus is."
What? What is the justification for adding two weeks before fertilization to gestational age? For these doctors, why doesn't gestational age start strictly at fertilization? Fertilization represents a kind of fulcrum in biology that is the basis of biological continuity throughout all life, but these doctors decide to tack on another two weeks? What's going on?
"It's further developed than a blastocyst. It doesn't suddenly change from blastocyst to baby shape."
Are you talking about embryos? Are you saying that embryos are further developed than a blastocyst? As I said above, my last reference claims that the blastocyst is just a stage in embryonic development. When I took embryology, I recall that that the embryo was itself a stage. What's the last word on that?
Medically, a pregnancy “begins” at the start of the menstruation cycle — the start of a period signals the end of the previous cycle, and the beginning of a new one. It’s also a date that can be known — a woman knows when she started her period, but may not necessarily know the date of the sex that conceived the baby. I don’t really see the harm in using that in a clinical setting, but what’s very insidious is anti-abortion legislation taking advantage of the fact that most people don’t know that when describing the bans, particularly six week bans. You’re not actually what anyone would consider pregnant for the first two weeks. For the next two, you may be pregnant, but it’s impossible to know. It’s only in the final two weeks of a six-week ban that an abortion is possible, and many people don’t have regular cycles and might not know even then. It’s so malicious.
It is malicious. The thing about doctors starting "pregnancy" before you could possibly be pregnant is that they are assuming the period between menstruation and ovulation is two weeks. But that is the exact part of the menstrual cycle that is so variable. Two weeks is just a good guess and doctors aren't necessarily transparent about it (or even knowledgeable).
Actually, detecting pregnancy is one of the easiest things to do. Pregnancy testing kits are easily available at drug stores. It is very strange that menstruation is being the measure of the start of a pregnancy when any examiner might ask if she had tested for a pregnancy. Further disturbing that any woman might have to depend on a medical examiner to determine if she was pregnant at all.
And to advance the discussion even after considering pregnancy testing kits, we might consider their reliability even while they are certainly more reliable than the last reported menstruation. When do pregnancy testing kits detect pregnancy?
If a woman is using birth control and she has stocked up on mifepristone or the equivalent, she should also be keeping pregnancy testing kits.
If your cycle is a little bit longer than 4 weeks, then that likely means you’re ovulating (and conceiving the baby) a little bit later than the two-week mark. Pregnancy tests detect hcg, a hormone that takes time to build up after the embryo implants, so if you ovulate late then you might trigger a pregnancy test later than exactly at 28 days, too. So what was once a two weeks window to get an abortion is now, say, a one and a half week window. Every day gives you less time to schedule off work, get an appointment with a clinic, get the money, possibly even travel. Many pregnant people will be able to make it work in the two week window. But some won’t, simply because they run out of time. And that’s what these bans are about — putting as much friction in the system, making it as hard as possible, peeling off people who don’t have the resources — and then making it so like people can judge that they’re not working within the system, when the system is designed to make it as challenging as possible.
And you can’t date fertilization even if yo7 do know when you had sex, because sperm live, IIRC, about five days, and eggs 1-2 days. So you can have sex on Saturday night, and the egg can be fertilized on Monday when you ovulate.
It used to be that pregnancy was not considered established until the fertilized egg was implanted in the endometrium, the lining of the uterus.
But over the last 5-10 years, the forced birth terminology seems to have crept into the mainstream, and both the media and regular people seem to have switched over to considering pregnancy to begin at fertilization. That’s the result of a deliberate effort from the forced birth contingent to demonize IUDs, hormonal contraception, and the morning after pill by claiming (incorrectly) that they interfere with implantation of a fertilized egg.
FTR, the morning after pill works by delaying ovulation. If you’ve already ovulated, it will not prevent you from getting pregnant. (This last nugget comes not only from science, but personal experience.)
As Sam notes below, pregnancy testing kits work by detecting HCG. That is not immediate - it’s only detectable in urine about the time that a woman with a regular menstrual cycle would, in most cases, miss her period. That’s generally 10-14 days after conception.
However, many women do not have a completely regular cycle, and about 25% pregnant women experience bleeding or spotting the first month of pregnancy. That’s usually interpreted as a light period, so the woman doesn’t have the clue of a missed period to indicate pregnancy.
Because it’s impossible to pinpoint the exact moment of fertilization or implantation, and because women’s cycles vary, doctors have traditionally dated the pregnancy from the first day of the last menstrual period. Ovulation does not take place 14 days after that - it takes place 14 days *before* the next period. Most women don’t have an exact 28 day cycle.
Children exist when we give birth to them. They don't already exist until we give birth to them. Embryos are an unreleased work in progress. Let's collect all the sand grains on the beach and sell them as giant pearls.
Our local zoo, for fundraising purposes, holds birthday celebrations for some of the animals, almost invariably for those born at the zoo, where the birthdate is known. I thought about it because ... of course, the animals could care less when their birthdays are. The only thing of significance to them is that they were born, that they live. For them, birth is the ticket to the show of life. It is for us, as well, despite what the anti-abortionists would have us believe. Women should be able to decide. Always. In every case. Regardless of the timing of a pregnancy.
I bet tRump will find a way to claim he needs the Treasury of the US to give him 'child support payments' for these embryos, in such a way as to put more money in his own pocket. Ugh.
"a response to the needs of children who already exist and are in need of a family" What a slap in the face to children in foster care! Then again children in foster care have already been born and can go pound sand.
I do not have any words. As an older woman I am always perpetually stunned. I so appreciate and am in admiration of the strength and dedication at AED! Full supporter!
I know! So much anti abortion rhetoric (such as the phrase “pre born children”) proceeds from the assumption that every fertilized egg is guaranteed to result in the birth of a baby unless someone does something to intervene. I know these folks don’t like science, but anybody who’s lost a wanted pregnancy can tell them that’s just not how pregnancy works.
They live in their own fantasy world, which does not include embryos that fail to implant, are flawed and result in miscarriage, any of the scientific fa ts that cause pregnancies to end naturally.
Women are already going to jail for miscarrying. Why would anyone would agree to a government program that might hold them accountable for a miscarriage to the point of jail? For context about half of ordinary embryos don't make it. Usually, it happens so early that women are not even aware they were pregnant. But if you have the current government overseeing implantation and it doesn't take, then what?
My husband and I made four embryos via IVF. The first is our lovely two-and-a-half year old son, the second resulted in an early miscarriage, I’m currently twenty weeks pregnant with the third (yay!), and if all goes well, we will not be using the fourth. We’re not sure what we’ll do with it, and embryo adoption is on the table, but the thought that we could be required to give it to a Christian agency is just so fucking chilling.
They just want more abuse victims
What about all the real kids who are in foster care ???
Once more down the fascist rabbit hole, folks.
😱😱😱😱😱😱
“I’d like to order two frozen embryos to go, please”. 🙄
No problem. The US has about 1.5 million frozen embryos in storage.
It feels weird to click a heart to indicate how much I appreciate this post because the horror of the statements in this document is so multifaceted. Embryos are "children." LGBTQ people should definitely NOT be allowed to adopt them. What else? Maybe we should force their implantation into childless cat ladies.
It feels like it’s only a matter of time before they start floating the idea of using incarcerated women to incubate unused embryos.
Whose to say the haven't been doing that already? They are sick fuckers, who I put nothing past.
Meanwhile, forced sterilizations at ICE facilities. (not sure how many but there were several at least).
They are somehow convinced that every white 16 year old will happily become a trad wife if they make it the only choice.
Well, yes, if they make it the only choice.
And shuttling pregnant minors, many of whom were raped, to an ICE facility in Texas where they will be forced to give birth.
This whole exercise has precisely zero to do with embryos, children, or adoption, and everything to do with the further control of women and their naughty bits, and indeed for having the chutzpah to even POSSESS naughty bits.
So if embryos are "children" and have all the same legal rights as "children" then miscarriage is what?
A crime if you are a WOC, at least according to the over 500 arrested since the fall of Roe.
Suicide?
Negligent manslaughter at the very least.
And using drugs, smoking, drinking, eating raw fish, soft cheese, or cured meat is child endangerment. All pregnant people to be locked up and supervised to ensure safe gestation.
Well, if they aren’t locked up, they might do something dangerous, like wear high heels, or stand too long at work, or get on a step stool to paint the nursery…
Or God forbid, TAKE TYLENOL
Everyone knows the safest place to give birth is alone in a jail shower!
I'm not sure what qualifies as common language regarding embryos, but I just searched Google for the definition of an embryo and it reports that an embryo is what you get the minute the egg is fertilized and it is an embryo until it becomes a fetus. Google is very vague as to what the differences are between fetus and an embryo. When I asked what the difference was between a blastocyst and an embryo, it reported that a blastocyst was just an advanced stage of an embryo.
According to Google, there are three distinctive forms taken during the embryonic phase,
1. Zygote, where the ova becomes a single cell with the whole DNA complement for a new individual.
2. Morula, where cellular division has yielded about 16 to 32 cells all containing the DNA complement of a new individual.
3. Blastocyst, where cellular division has created a population of cells forming fluid-filled cavity with two parts, one to become the fetus and the other to become the placenta. Interesting factoid, the placenta is actually a part of the infant to be, not the host mother. Genetically, the placenta is sibling to the infant when it is born.
It is the blastocyst that implants into the uterus and it the blastocyst that is exclusively selected to be frozen for IVF.
If anyone imagined that what is frozen in IVF is anything like something that has taken the shape of anything like any living creature, I hope this simple report has disabused you of this fantasy.
They don't do "facts" but make up their own reality. We in the medical community need to shut their fantasy down.
Some fun facts: It's an embryo until 8 weeks after fertilization. During that time, the rough shapes of the major organs form, but they don't function meaningfully. The last organ to form before the end of the 8th week is the anus. Once the embryo has an asshole it's a fetus. (Not joking!) Importantly, doctors decided to add two weeks before fertilization when saying how old an embryo or fetus is. So they will tell you that 8 weeks after fertilization is a "10 week" embryo (about to become a fetus).
It's further developed than a blastocyst. It doesn't suddenly change from blastocyst to baby shape.
(I studied embryology back in grad school, taught it, worked in an embryology lab for two years, and wrote a college textbook that included a chapter on developmental biology.)
But yeah, the frozen embryos are very early stage before any recognizable organs appear. According to the Cleveland Clinic they can freeze them either after the fertilized egg (zygote) divides 2-3 times (forming 4-8 cells) or when it has divided to form 200-300 cells.
"Importantly, doctors decided to add two weeks before fertilization when saying how old an embryo or fetus is."
What? What is the justification for adding two weeks before fertilization to gestational age? For these doctors, why doesn't gestational age start strictly at fertilization? Fertilization represents a kind of fulcrum in biology that is the basis of biological continuity throughout all life, but these doctors decide to tack on another two weeks? What's going on?
"It's further developed than a blastocyst. It doesn't suddenly change from blastocyst to baby shape."
Are you talking about embryos? Are you saying that embryos are further developed than a blastocyst? As I said above, my last reference claims that the blastocyst is just a stage in embryonic development. When I took embryology, I recall that that the embryo was itself a stage. What's the last word on that?
Medically, a pregnancy “begins” at the start of the menstruation cycle — the start of a period signals the end of the previous cycle, and the beginning of a new one. It’s also a date that can be known — a woman knows when she started her period, but may not necessarily know the date of the sex that conceived the baby. I don’t really see the harm in using that in a clinical setting, but what’s very insidious is anti-abortion legislation taking advantage of the fact that most people don’t know that when describing the bans, particularly six week bans. You’re not actually what anyone would consider pregnant for the first two weeks. For the next two, you may be pregnant, but it’s impossible to know. It’s only in the final two weeks of a six-week ban that an abortion is possible, and many people don’t have regular cycles and might not know even then. It’s so malicious.
It is malicious. The thing about doctors starting "pregnancy" before you could possibly be pregnant is that they are assuming the period between menstruation and ovulation is two weeks. But that is the exact part of the menstrual cycle that is so variable. Two weeks is just a good guess and doctors aren't necessarily transparent about it (or even knowledgeable).
Actually, detecting pregnancy is one of the easiest things to do. Pregnancy testing kits are easily available at drug stores. It is very strange that menstruation is being the measure of the start of a pregnancy when any examiner might ask if she had tested for a pregnancy. Further disturbing that any woman might have to depend on a medical examiner to determine if she was pregnant at all.
And to advance the discussion even after considering pregnancy testing kits, we might consider their reliability even while they are certainly more reliable than the last reported menstruation. When do pregnancy testing kits detect pregnancy?
If a woman is using birth control and she has stocked up on mifepristone or the equivalent, she should also be keeping pregnancy testing kits.
If your cycle is a little bit longer than 4 weeks, then that likely means you’re ovulating (and conceiving the baby) a little bit later than the two-week mark. Pregnancy tests detect hcg, a hormone that takes time to build up after the embryo implants, so if you ovulate late then you might trigger a pregnancy test later than exactly at 28 days, too. So what was once a two weeks window to get an abortion is now, say, a one and a half week window. Every day gives you less time to schedule off work, get an appointment with a clinic, get the money, possibly even travel. Many pregnant people will be able to make it work in the two week window. But some won’t, simply because they run out of time. And that’s what these bans are about — putting as much friction in the system, making it as hard as possible, peeling off people who don’t have the resources — and then making it so like people can judge that they’re not working within the system, when the system is designed to make it as challenging as possible.
And you can’t date fertilization even if yo7 do know when you had sex, because sperm live, IIRC, about five days, and eggs 1-2 days. So you can have sex on Saturday night, and the egg can be fertilized on Monday when you ovulate.
It used to be that pregnancy was not considered established until the fertilized egg was implanted in the endometrium, the lining of the uterus.
But over the last 5-10 years, the forced birth terminology seems to have crept into the mainstream, and both the media and regular people seem to have switched over to considering pregnancy to begin at fertilization. That’s the result of a deliberate effort from the forced birth contingent to demonize IUDs, hormonal contraception, and the morning after pill by claiming (incorrectly) that they interfere with implantation of a fertilized egg.
FTR, the morning after pill works by delaying ovulation. If you’ve already ovulated, it will not prevent you from getting pregnant. (This last nugget comes not only from science, but personal experience.)
Oh wow. I did not know that.
Again, you completely remove the existence of pregnancy kits from consideration. See my above post.
As Sam notes below, pregnancy testing kits work by detecting HCG. That is not immediate - it’s only detectable in urine about the time that a woman with a regular menstrual cycle would, in most cases, miss her period. That’s generally 10-14 days after conception.
However, many women do not have a completely regular cycle, and about 25% pregnant women experience bleeding or spotting the first month of pregnancy. That’s usually interpreted as a light period, so the woman doesn’t have the clue of a missed period to indicate pregnancy.
Because it’s impossible to pinpoint the exact moment of fertilization or implantation, and because women’s cycles vary, doctors have traditionally dated the pregnancy from the first day of the last menstrual period. Ovulation does not take place 14 days after that - it takes place 14 days *before* the next period. Most women don’t have an exact 28 day cycle.
Yep, humans are all default assholes, just some are more forthcoming with that expression than others
Children exist when we give birth to them. They don't already exist until we give birth to them. Embryos are an unreleased work in progress. Let's collect all the sand grains on the beach and sell them as giant pearls.
Our local zoo, for fundraising purposes, holds birthday celebrations for some of the animals, almost invariably for those born at the zoo, where the birthdate is known. I thought about it because ... of course, the animals could care less when their birthdays are. The only thing of significance to them is that they were born, that they live. For them, birth is the ticket to the show of life. It is for us, as well, despite what the anti-abortionists would have us believe. Women should be able to decide. Always. In every case. Regardless of the timing of a pregnancy.
Sheesh.
I bet tRump will find a way to claim he needs the Treasury of the US to give him 'child support payments' for these embryos, in such a way as to put more money in his own pocket. Ugh.
These embryos belong to the women who produced them.
And they should sue. For theft of genetic material.
"a response to the needs of children who already exist and are in need of a family" What a slap in the face to children in foster care! Then again children in foster care have already been born and can go pound sand.
a very important fact!
It bears repeating: once children are born the right has no interest in them
I do not have any words. As an older woman I am always perpetually stunned. I so appreciate and am in admiration of the strength and dedication at AED! Full supporter!
This is grotesque. In addition, these people don't seem to understand that embryos do not necessarily develop into viable pregnancies.
I know! So much anti abortion rhetoric (such as the phrase “pre born children”) proceeds from the assumption that every fertilized egg is guaranteed to result in the birth of a baby unless someone does something to intervene. I know these folks don’t like science, but anybody who’s lost a wanted pregnancy can tell them that’s just not how pregnancy works.
They live in their own fantasy world, which does not include embryos that fail to implant, are flawed and result in miscarriage, any of the scientific fa ts that cause pregnancies to end naturally.
The saying "god is the biggest abortionist" has never entered their delusional world.
Women are already going to jail for miscarrying. Why would anyone would agree to a government program that might hold them accountable for a miscarriage to the point of jail? For context about half of ordinary embryos don't make it. Usually, it happens so early that women are not even aware they were pregnant. But if you have the current government overseeing implantation and it doesn't take, then what?
Women imprisoned in their own homes or worse, special centers where they would be under surveillance
Gilead!
So true. 💔