Fertility Treatments: For Convenience?
Motherhood—achieving it and surviving it—is a perennially popular topic of blog discussions. But rarely does one comment continue to draw responses years after first being posted, like the following one has from a woman who wanted to undergo IVF fertility treatments as a matter of convenience.
“I don’t have fertility problems,” she wrote, “but I would like IVF because it would be better for my career and lifestyle if I could give birth to multiples rather than prolong my family planning.” The woman then posed this question: “Is it immoral to want fertility treatments to become pregnant with more than one baby?”
That was in 2003, and the responses have continued since, some barbed, all blunt.
“Do you realize how insane and ridiculous you sound?”
“You are better off with a goldfish that doesn’t require your time.”
“Not only are you talking about something immoral, but something that’s just wrong!”
Many women wrote to tell their own stories of the difficulty and danger involved in multiple births, aghast at what they saw as a selfish quest for a “designer” family. “Putting your babies’ lives at risk for the sake of convenience is incredibly irresponsible,” one stated. A mother of triplets answered the original question head-on: “It’s not immoral to try fertility treatments when they’re unnecessary, but it is unethical.”
Others were less judgmental, like this mother who was pregnant with twins as she responded. “You have to do what’s right for you. If you want more than one child, then it’s your decision, no one else’s.” And another woman attempted to create room for discussion. “There are more of us out there that have had that same thought,” she wrote, “although some may not admit it.”
Tell us what you think: Is having unnecessary fertility treatments for career and lifestyle reasons immoral…irresponsible…acceptable?
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fertility abuse
I think using fertility drugs when you don’t need them is abusing the reason for them as well as a slap in the face of all women who do have fertility problems.
Melissa Turner | 7 months, 2 weeks ago
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I think everyone's missing something
I have a few points to make to help anyone decide if this is immoral or not (by the way, if you have to question it, it most likely is somewhat immoral to your thinking whether someone else agrees with you or not).
#1. Fertility drugs were originally made to help women who weren’t able to have children on their own. Just the idea of using a drug to become pregnant when you’re naturally able to anyway would be immoral. It’s unnatural to use any kind of man-made chemical in order to achieve the most natural thing in all of human existance which is the ability to reproduce. Fertility drugs for someone (including those who can’t have a baby on their own but moreso for those who can) is like becoming your own God and manipulating your body.
#2. Imagine being on the other end of this equation. Put yourself in the child’s shoes 10 years from now. How would you feel if you went to your mother asking how you and your siblings were all born at the same time (being a normal child and being curious about being different from other families who can only have one baby at a time) and find out from your mother that she had taken fertility drugs in order to have all her children at the same time so that it wouldn’t interfere with her career. The idea that your life was planned around your parent’s job is completely damaging.
#3 Morally speaking, Reproduction is the most basic instinct any creature has. It ensures the existance of our species on this planet and the recreatonal use of these fertility drugs is going to alter our way of giving birth in the long run. Many generations from now it’s going to be normal to give birth to litters of children, we’ll face a major economic breakdown and overpopulation of the world which results in depletion of the natural environment for housing, loss of animal species due to the lacking homes for them, and the eventual destruction of the planet do to all the waste. Of course these are dramatized results and I’m in no way of knowing how accurate they are, but it’s still possible. The idea of using a man-made chemical for something as natural as childbirth would be immoral to the human species.
Your decision to do something to your body is entirely your own and if you want to do something as selfish as have all your kids at one time in order to work around your career, then you’re already past the point where you should be worrying if it’s immoral or not.
Jaime Oswald | 6 months, 3 weeks ago
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awsome to mother who want more kids!!!
i think it i a joy to have more then one at a time i am 22 yrs and i have 4 kids and i’m doing just fine….and it is none of any ones business what you do in your life about your body omg ppl that mind omeones business is wrong ….
kimberly etelle | 6 months, 3 weeks ago
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thats great
i think its great, because u know what u want in your life. and about the negative comments… they are just insecure about their decisions and they are afraid of getting the control of their lives.
hain and jen | 6 months, 2 weeks ago
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tryin to get pregnant
tryin to see if i have a lazy ovary or what or ovarian cysts
channell.beaver | 6 months, 1 week ago
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Why
But who would want all thoughs kids at once,if u want twins
Aaliyah Dawkions | 5 months, 1 week ago
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About Fertility Treatments VS Adoption
I agree that adoption would be an ideal alternative for those who would otherwise have to resort to IVF for infertility. But I am nearly 30 years old, I am a college graduate, but I am single and don’t see marriage in my future. I have a strong connection with my family and live in a healthy and supportive environment that would be a happy place to raise a child. Unfortunately, we live in a society that has so many rules and standards about adoption and who qualifies as an adoptive parent that I don’t fit the bill. I make a solid income and am in the process of buying my own home. But because I am single, I have been rejected by several agencies. I also find it practically repulsive that the cost of adoption is so outrageous compared to the price of a few cc of “frozen pop.” I have settled for the idea of IUI as far as my method of family planning and while my initial intention was to adopt, I no longer feel selfish about my decision due to the roadblocks set up by individual agencies as well as government agencies that are responsible for placing children into familes, tradition or not so traditional.
Amy Tirrill | 5 months, 1 week ago
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MISS
NEED HELP
KAMESHIA MONROE | 4 months, 3 weeks ago
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my tubes are tied,but i would love to have multipl
I am in my thirtys and i had children at a younger age,my tubes been tied ,but i am thinking about undergoin tubal reversal, and try fertility drugs am i wrong,no i can handle my life career, and children all by myself.Its all about budget and balance.
veronica lacy | 2 months, 4 weeks ago
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comments on your passage
our passage sucks because itdoesdescribe your opinion on genetic discrimination
rebecca rose | 2 months, 4 weeks ago
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