It’s not really surprising, but it is interesting that evidence of the long-term health risks to babies born from IVF is starting to emerge. For a while now there has been some evidence of higher rates of prematurity, low birth weight, and birth defects in IVF babies. What’s more interesting is what the New York Times is reporting today—that there are “unusual gene expression patterns”—bad ones—in IVF babies.
This dovetails precisely with what current biological science would predict. Turns out that the science I was taught in high school biology class about genes, that they are blueprints from which critters are mechanically churned out, is nearly all wrong. The blueprint, or computer code, metaphor doesn’t work. We can’t be said to simply be the sum of our genes. It’s more like we’re the sum of a process, namely what’s called by biologists “development”—the precise, complex choreography that results in the growth of a creature from (almost) nothing.
So it makes sense that doing part of that development in a Petri dish instead of the human body would have consequences, genetic ones at that. The age-old yearning to be free of the female body has once again been frustrated.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Everybody's favorite villain (again): the single mom
Events have shifted that octuplets story. I figured it would play out the way the story of the McCaughey septuplets in Iowa did—with oohs and ahs and a donated 16-room house, 15-passenger van, baby food from Gerber, and a lifetime supply of Pampers from Procter & Gamble —and I was all set to rain on that parade.
Never underestimate the power of race or sexism to flip a story. Now that it has emerged that the mother of the octuplets is unwed (and has six other kids), there isn’t much gushing. The headline in my local paper reads, “Winning Sympathy the Hardest Task.” In the article, a call-out headed “Cost of 14 Kids” reads “for a single mother, the cost of raising 14 children through age 17 ranges from $1.3 million to $2.7.”
Excuse me?
Last I checked, children cost the same to raise whether by a single mom, a single dad, two moms, two dads, or a mother and a father. Suggesting children cost more if raised by single mothers vilifies single mothers, implying they’re parasites on society. The birth of the octuplets already burdens society, in the form of the millions of dollars their birth cost our medical system, but that would be true even if Ozzie and Harriet were their parents.
This woman is surely crazy, but then so are the McCaugheys and the Gosselins (of the TLC reality show). It’s just that certain forms of insanity—such as having sextuplets in God’s name or putting your children on a reality show—are socially acceptable and others aren’t.
Lynn Paltrow of National Advocates for Pregnant Women (so glad to learn about them!), put it best (courtesy Salon’s Broadsheet):
Never underestimate the power of race or sexism to flip a story. Now that it has emerged that the mother of the octuplets is unwed (and has six other kids), there isn’t much gushing. The headline in my local paper reads, “Winning Sympathy the Hardest Task.” In the article, a call-out headed “Cost of 14 Kids” reads “for a single mother, the cost of raising 14 children through age 17 ranges from $1.3 million to $2.7.”
Excuse me?
Last I checked, children cost the same to raise whether by a single mom, a single dad, two moms, two dads, or a mother and a father. Suggesting children cost more if raised by single mothers vilifies single mothers, implying they’re parasites on society. The birth of the octuplets already burdens society, in the form of the millions of dollars their birth cost our medical system, but that would be true even if Ozzie and Harriet were their parents.
This woman is surely crazy, but then so are the McCaugheys and the Gosselins (of the TLC reality show). It’s just that certain forms of insanity—such as having sextuplets in God’s name or putting your children on a reality show—are socially acceptable and others aren’t.
Lynn Paltrow of National Advocates for Pregnant Women (so glad to learn about them!), put it best (courtesy Salon’s Broadsheet):
"When the pregnant woman is not brown or black and the drugs/technologies are provided by big pharma, the discussion focuses on questions of ethics. But if the issue is childbearing by low-income women of color, and the drug is homegrown/ illegal then the debate is a question of punishment through the criminal justice or civil child welfare system." Paltrow also cited a study showing that, while we often talk about the effects illegal drugs can have on pregnancy, "women who take fertility drugs and choose to carry three or more embryos to term often experience pregnancy loss and risk severe, lifelong harm to the children who survive."
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Why aren't Sasha and Malia going to public school?
Michelle Obama rocks, but I'd feel a lot more excited about her recent visit to the Department of Education and promises of improvements in public education if she and Barack sent their kids to public school.
I can just hear the but of course they can't do that guffaws, and it may be true that DC public schools suck. That begs the question of why they suck. I bet they'd stop sucking if the elites sent their kids there. The bottom line is that our public schools should be good enough for the president's children. This is a democracy. We should expect no less.
I can just hear the but of course they can't do that guffaws, and it may be true that DC public schools suck. That begs the question of why they suck. I bet they'd stop sucking if the elites sent their kids there. The bottom line is that our public schools should be good enough for the president's children. This is a democracy. We should expect no less.
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