InVitro Fertilization Essay

Submitted By howhappy
Words: 2055
Pages: 9
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To begin, I will summarize a scholarly journal entry that I have reviewed from JSTOR, then I will also review an article that I found on a popular media website about the topic of In Vitro Fertilization (IVF). After the summarizations, I will critique the two sources, then finally I will compare the two and draw a conclusion. The journal entry I chose was written by Judith Modell in 1989 and was titled “Last Chance Babies”. Judith was performing research in an Infertility clinic in America. She shadowed Doctors, Patients and the Medical staff and performed multiple interviews on all groups. I have learned from Judith’s journal entry that the first “test-tube baby” was born in England on 31 July of 1978. Then three years later, the first “test-tube baby” in America was born in Norfolk Virginia. Judith explained the IVF process as when the eggs are taken from a woman, and the sperm sample taken from a man, and once combined together in an “artificial environment” (Modell, 1989) the embryo is then placed into the woman’s uterus to form into a natural child birth. Judith mentions that from her observations, the morale of the clinic along with its organization of the program, seemed to have a big impact on the success of the patient’s success of IVF procedures in 1987. In 1987 she noted that the clinic she was shadowing at, had only received one successful IVF case, then later that year there was a turnover of leadership, as well as a reorganization of the program, and in 1988, there were 16 successful IVF cases. Judith noted that the goal of a patient participating in an Infertility Clinic is “to have a biological baby made up of 100% genetic material” (Modell, 1989). “Last Chance” was the term that doctors and patients referred to in having a procedure like IVF. When doctors would tell a patient what their success rates could be, there seemed to be a lot of confusion in distinguishing the number of odds in the total patient population of IVF success’s/failures, and the odds of the patient by themselves. Patients seem to think they would be the lucky 1 out of 4 people to have a baby and would continuously take a gamble on IVF procedures to obtain their goal of having a baby. There was no set limit as to how many IVF procedures a couple could have. The doctors were concerned that the patients were in denial that they had an Infertility Disease and could simply not get pregnant, but many couples would not take that for an answer and would keep trying. In Judith’s interviews with the patients to determine why they put themselves through the complicated and stressful procedure, they stated things like “I would have never forgiven myself if I hadn’t tried”, “IVF is the end of the road”, and “They had nothing to lose” (Modell, 1989). In regards to how the IVF patients felt about parenting a child as a product of IVF, many were worried that their children would be called “freak” or “test-tube baby”, so many parents told Judith that they may never tell their kids that they were a product of IVF. The patients said when it comes to something like adoption, the child ought to know where they came from, but IVF makes the child normal since they are born from their natural mother and father. One patient told Judith in an interview that she felt the tension between artificial and natural in the IVF procedure, and said it was weird to have the eggs and sperm leave their bodies, then come back. In comparison to surrogacy and adoption, most patients going though IVF felt IVF was the way to go in terms of the bond between parents and biologically born children. They have that blood connection. Some couples even felt that surrogacy “violates that marriage contract” by suggesting adultery. Some of these couples felt the same feelings about artificial insemination by a donor sperm. They were thrown off by the idea that someone else was participating in the act that was supposed to be between and husband and wife and that there should not
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