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OPINION

By Dr. Okoth Josue

In-vitro fertilization has become popular among childless couples or those who want to use surrogate mothers. Babies produced through in-vitro fertilization are known as test-tube or Petri-dish babies because fertilization takes place in glassware outside the uterus.

The woman donating the egg/s for in-vitro fertilization has to take strong hormones. This will make her produce many eggs at the same time; a requirement for in-vitro fertilization. To obtain sperm from man, all means are used including use of porn to make him masturbate to produce semen.

Several attempts are usually made to fertilize the eggs in the test-tubes until some successes are made. The embryos implanted in the womb may perish and the process has to be repeated several times. Because of this, doctors implant several embryos in the womb, hoping to harvest at least one or so based on the donors’ wish. Doctors may carry out selection exercise using physical extraction or potassium chloride to kill the unwanted embryos. Some excess embryos may be frozen for future use or they may be killed later if unwanted.

We have to look at this technology visa-vi moral issue and future society fabrics. According to internet sources, since the first test-tube baby was born in 1978, an estimated 12 million babies have been born through IVF. An estimated 110 million babies have died in the process. The whole process shows lack of value of human life.

It is against this background that European countries are now taking steps to burn the IVF technology in their countries. In Alabama, a state in the southeastern region of US, a Supreme Court dismissed a case and stated that, “babies in infertile clinics that are frozen, kept in suspended animation, and often forgotten, are human beings with a right to life”. These babies cry to God and their cry is finally reaching the public eye.

IVF technology will have many complications for future generation. Often the identity of the donors of egg or sperm can never be known. This creates the problem of lineage for the child. In society, we usually refer to siblings as resembling our grandparents: “she has ears like that of her grandmother”. IVF can also lead to half brothers and sisters marrying one another because neither of them knows the source of sperm that engendered their lives – it is possible it came from the same donor.

Some cities today where in-vitro fertilization is practiced, you may find resembling faces with no relationship. IVF-conceived children cannot do away with the feeling that their parents inflicted injustice on them by the way they were brought into existence and this can leave deep scar on them.   

Lineage history sometimes also helps doctors in disease diagnosis. There are diseases which are genetically leaked and this knowledge is important for management. This medicine will be lost.

Scientists are beginning to learn that offspring of IVF are generally aggressive and accuse their parents of being infertile and have no respect for them. We are yet to witness endless court cases among donors and between donors and doctors. IVF is definitely a time bomb.

Dr. Okoth is a concerned Christian and citizen  

Email: okothjosue@yahoo.com