by Martina Billings-McAtee, RN

Created on: December 04, 2009

As more women begin to contemplate having children later in life, the use of alternative methods of conception have increased. More women are turning to invitro fertilization, sperm banks and surrogacy to help them obtain the child they have always wanted. The use of IVF has led to problems in and of itself. In order to ensure that there is even one child to be inserted and that this embryo implants several eggs are usually fertilized outside of the body. Once the fertilized eggs become viable embryo's the decision must be made as to how many of them will be inserted. They usually choose to implant two or three.

Once the number of embryo's is chosen then many decisions can present themselves along the way. One of these questions is, in the even that more then one embryo takes, is the couple willing to raise twins, triplets, even quadruplets? If not will they be willing to consider selective reduction? As if that alone isn't enough, matters are complicated further when the couple must decide what is to be done with the non implanted embryo's.Most couples choose to store the viable embryo's and some even allow "adoption" of their embryo's in which a surrogate agrees to have the embryo implanted and carry it to term, raising it as her own child. While these are all valid options it seems that it all goes back to the same question that has been asked since the beginning.

When does life begin?

If you were to look at the embryo's under a microscope the lay person would be hard pressed to distinguish these cells from that of any other part of the body. They are simply cells in a dish that have divided several times. There is no brain, no heart beat, no fingers or toes. To consider these cells "people" with equal rights would cause congestion of the court system, a halting of women seeking fertility treatments and would begin to unravel court decisions such as Roe v. Wade.

Again, all things being relative, if you consider cells in a petri dish to be a person, then abortion is suddenly murder as is stem cell research. The truth is there is nothing even resembling a "person" at this stage and medically there is no child. However, when you consider the religious aspects of when life truly begins you can then see why the debate becomes so heated.

There may never be a solution that makes every side happy when dealing with the question of "When does life begin?" If the idea of destruction of unused embryo's does not sit well with your conscience there are other options open to couples who would like to have a child but don't like the idea of keeping their potential "children" in storage at cryobanks. All options must be weighed and a solution that doesn't weigh heavily on your mind must be reached. Rest assured, there is a solution that will allow for people to have a child without sacrificing their values and personal beliefs.

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