Interesting post! And boy, this is a tough one. There are so many competing interests -- the would-be parents, the doctor, the insurance companies, and society.
But it does seem that there's a basic safety issue involved. And the doctor's credo, "First, do no harm" would seem to come into play. At its root, it is a doctor doing a procedure that will hopefully lead to pregnancy and childbirth. It seems that by inserting six embryos, an argument could be made that you are quite possibly doing harm.
However, this doesn't seem something that should be legislated. One state it's going to be ok to implant two, another state four, another state will have no regulation? And the laws made by lawmakers in 50 different states will decide what is appropriate for doctors and their patients to do? That seems worrisome at best. Will the next issue be that parents who already have a certain number of children may not try for more? That seems ridiculous now, but I can see how arguments could be made. Much of the outrage over the octuplets is that the mother already has six young children at home.
Much of what went wrong in this case happened between one doctor and his patient. I'm not sure that legislation would ever have prevented one doctor from going over the line, especially when the line is fuzzy. (Concievably, no pun intented, even inserting four embryos could result in six or eight births if they split once in the womb).
Very very difficult issues. I can see arguments on both sides.
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Interesting post! And boy, this is a tough one. There are so many competing interests -- the would-be parents, the doctor, the insurance companies, and society.
But it does seem that there's a basic safety issue involved. And the doctor's credo, "First, do no harm" would seem to come into play. At its root, it is a doctor doing a procedure that will hopefully lead to pregnancy and childbirth. It seems that by inserting six embryos, an argument could be made that you are quite possibly doing harm.
However, this doesn't seem something that should be legislated. One state it's going to be ok to implant two, another state four, another state will have no regulation? And the laws made by lawmakers in 50 different states will decide what is appropriate for doctors and their patients to do? That seems worrisome at best. Will the next issue be that parents who already have a certain number of children may not try for more? That seems ridiculous now, but I can see how arguments could be made. Much of the outrage over the octuplets is that the mother already has six young children at home.
Much of what went wrong in this case happened between one doctor and his patient. I'm not sure that legislation would ever have prevented one doctor from going over the line, especially when the line is fuzzy. (Concievably, no pun intented, even inserting four embryos could result in six or eight births if they split once in the womb).
Very very difficult issues. I can see arguments on both sides.
March 9, 2009 - 8:12amThis Comment
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