Should Mixed Up Embryo’s Mom Get to Weigh In on Abortion?
Remember the outrage over the Japanese doctors who oh-so-accidentally transferred one couple’s embryo into the wrong mom-to-be?
The story’s back in the news – with a twist. It turns out the woman whose embryo was accidentally transferred into the womb of an ususpecting IVF patient (who later aborted) did not find out about the incident for a full two and a half months. Doctors said the woman, who was in her forties, was not overly concerned. Her exact words (according to the health officials) were “I’m sorry to hear that.”
So what’s the problem? Some members of the press are now debating whether that woman should have had a chance to weigh in on the subject when doctors realized the mistake. In other words – some are debating whether the embryo’s “Mom” should have had the right to talk the pregnant woman out of aborting her “child.”
Wait, what? Technically, they’re suggesting that one woman should have the right over another woman’s body. And they’re not the only ones.
Some of the commentors on the original reporting of the story here on Strollerderby expressed their outrage at the woman who underwent the abortion – even pro-choice moms. As Emma says, “That’s pretty disgusting. This woman was so desperate for a child she
paid for expensive IVF treatments, but she couldn’t bear to keep a
child that wasn’t her’s biologically? I completely understand her
anger, and a large settlement would be justified. For me, despite being
pro choice, the abortion is unfathomable.”
As a woman who was very happy to get pregnant and even happier when the pregnancy ended (with the birth of my daughter), I’m not sure I’m OK with the idea of going forward with a pregnancy for the sake of someone else . . . especially someone I’ve never met. Planned surrogacy is one thing. Accidental surrogacy, and suffering through all the ill effects of pregnancy for someone else’s child is quite another.
On the other hand, this woman and her husband provided egg and sperm in good faith. They thought their embryo would become a child, and it was their flesh and blood. They didn’t impregnate some poor woman on purpose, and they sure as heck could have suffered exponentially from the loss of either the chance to become pregnant or the loss of that fetus.
Should the biological parents’ of the embryo have been allowed to know the situation right away? Should they have been allowed contact with the pregnant woman? Or was there enough of a burden on the women who suffered from the wrongly transferred embryo?
Image: PatDollard.com
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Wouldn’t forced surrogacy be like reproductive rape? If the embryo could be transferred safely to it’s actual mother then that would be good, but otherwise I can see this getting messy.
What about later when the biological parents want the baby and the parents who carried it and raised it have to give it to them? Can you imagine how heartbreaking that would be?? For both sets of parents and the child. What a messed up situation all around.
So people that go to the trouble of having IVF should be happy with any old embryo they get?! If the couple had wanted to just raise ANY child and not their own biological child they wouldn’t have bothered with getting IVF. It certainly isn’t the accidental donors right to have a say over the woman’s body because of the Doctor’s screw up. How incredibly totalitarian to argue otherwise. Could you imagine the precedent? A doctor could “accidentally” implant an embryo in a healthier/younger surrogate and that woman could be compelled to carry the child to term at the behest of the donor. That’s the logical conclusion of the argument being suggested here.
Sounds like a huge mess and an enormous waste of money.
“Accidental surrogacy, and suffering through all the ill effects of pregnancy for someone else’s child is quite another.” Really, though, that’s up to the pregnant woman. A baby you carry – and even a baby that you don’t carry but that you raise – that child can be every bit as much your child as one that shares your DNA. It’s not a given that this embryo was going to become “someone else’s child” – and, in fact, if the mistake had gone unnoticed, that woman would now be very happily raising “her” child. Simply going along with the assumption that it’s not “your” child, it’s “someone else’s” because some of your proteins are different – that assumption angers me.