Conservative Christian groups won a major victory Monday (Aug. 23) when a Washington judge halted federal funding of embryonic stem cell research to allow a suit challenging the practice as illegal to go forward.
The suit, by a group of doctors and Nightlight Christian Adoptions, says federal funding of embryonic stem cells limits the number of fertilized embryos the agency can make available to couples seeking to "adopt" them from fertility clinics.
This case was brought by an organization Nightlight Christian Adoptions, because research was competing with them for embryos. Now lets look at this Nighlight Christian Adoptions and their Snowflakes®. At the very least NCA is getting $8,000 per attempted snowflake adoption. Now obviously if they are suing because research is using all their embryos they must be placing a whole lot of them, right?
What is the success rate of pregnancies among Snowflakes families who have had embryo transfers?
To date, our families have completed 528 transfers resulting in a pregnancy success rate of 43%. So far, 225
children have been born and 25 more moms are due with 32 babies. There are always families with recent
transfers awaiting pregnancy test results and more families scheduling transfers.
By conservative estimates there are somewhere around 500,000 embryos out there.
So their placements account for what, 1% of the current embryo supply?
Maybe I should throw in a little primer here:
In Vitro Fertilization treatments consists of creating embryos outside of the body and implanting them into the uterus - in hopes of creating a successful pregnancy. Depending on the circumstances, MANY embryos are created for each potential pregnancy. Not all embryos will implant - or in some cases they do (Octomom). In either case, there is generally many embryos left over. Sometimes they are used for future pregnancies, sometimes they stay frozen for years and are finally destroyed, sometimes they are "adopted" and sometimes they are used for research. Snowflake adoptions occur when genetic parents relinquish rights to their embryos so that they can be implanted in another womb. That is the basis for this lawsuit.
Stem Cell Research has the potential to be lifesaving, life-improving and life affirming - all for the living, breathing, thinking humans that are already here. The anti-Stem Cell crowd is basically just the anti-choice crowd wearing a different t-shirt. "Destruction of human life"...blah, blah, blah...how many times do we hear this and allow them to dictate the debate? How many social programs do these pro-potential life folks support? How many are the same teabagging asshats that scream about welfare or medicaid? The fact is every year embryos are destroyed. If they truly were against the destruction of embryos they would say that IVF should be illegal - but THAT would be very unpopular, so like the fetus before - now it continues to the snowflakes.
