Life Links 10/29/10

A fertility center in Maryland set out to discover what percentage of IVF embryos became born children. As you can imagine, it's not a high percentage:

Researchers from Shady Grove Fertility Center in Maryland set out to quantify the fate of the eggs retrieved in the IVF process. They reviewed all the IVF cycles conducted at their center between 2004 and 2008. In those 14,324 cycles, they retrieved 192,991 eggs. Initially, 110,939 of the eggs fertilized. However, only 44,282 continued to develop into viable embryos. Using the most optimistic set of assumptions, that all the frozen embryos will eventually be used, this will result in 8,366 babies. Thus, only 7.5% of all the fertilized eggs will go on to become live-born children.

An Arizona law which requires that abortionists to be physicians and abortionists to be present for pre-abortion physical exams is scheduled to go into effect on Monday after a judge ruled that Planned Parenthood couldn't amend a lawsuit to block the provisions. Planned Parenthood doesn't think requiring physicians be the ones to perform abortions make abortions safer.

Planned Parenthood released a statement saying women would suffer under the new regulations. "These laws will do nothing to make abortions safer but will end up making some women wait longer for an abortion because of the difficulty to find physicians who can fill in for specially trained, highly capable nurse practitioners," the group said.

A Pennsylvania man named Deaundra Williams has been convicted on two counts of third-degree murder after killing his pregnant cousin and her unborn child.


Both the federal government and adult stem cell researchers James Sherley and Theresa Deisher have filed documents in the case over the federal funding of embryonic stem cell research.

Whatever the appeals court decides about Lamberth’s preliminary injunction will be made moot, however, by Lamberth’s final ruling on the case, which is expected in the near future. Upon request by plaintiffs, Lamberth agreed to consider a so-called summary judgment, deciding the case based on each side’s arguments so far.

Based on the timetable Lamberth laid out, plaintiffs filed their arguments for Lamberth’s consideration earlier this month and the defendants are expected to do so today. The judge will then either rule for one of the parties, or decide that he needs more information to make the decision and take the case to trial.