domingo, 9 de octubre de 2016

BioEdge: Argentina a new destination for fertility tourists

BioEdge: Argentina a new destination for fertility tourists

Bioedge

Argentina a new destination for fertility tourists
     
Argentina, the home of Pope Francis, has become a surprising destination for fertility tourism. Since 2013, the government has subsidised IVF for everyone, including gays and single women. In the United States, a single cycle of IVF can cost as much as US$15-30,000; in Argentina, $4-7,000. People seeking donor eggs and cheap IVF are coming from as far away as the US and Australia, as well as other South American countries. 
Bioedge



Bioedge

British actress Sally Phillips has made a magnificent documentary about Down Syndrome for the BBC. (You can watch it here on a dodgy YouTube link.) Her own son Ollie has Down Syndrome and Ms Phillips is convinced that Ollie has been a jolly good thing for her and her family. It grieves her to see that most mothers treat a diagnosis of Down Syndrome as a catastrophe. In the UK about 90% of women abort their Down Syndrome child after screening; in Iceland 100% of mothers do. That's 100%.
Ms Phillips tells the camera, as she chokes back tears, “The type of characteristics that these people share are so benign. It’s like when the Western explorers encountered the dodo. This nice, curious bird comes up and gets … wiped out. Through not being suspicious enough. Or violent enough.” This makes her concerned about what the Brits call NIPT (non-invasive pre-natal testing) which is being rolled out across the country.
The documentary is unashamedly emotional. That’s the way it should be. Thank God somebody has the courage to feel emotional about Down Syndrome people. I started to get angry when I read a scathing review in the New Statesman dismissing the doco as “profoundly anti-choice”. But there’s no point in being angry with someone whose attachment to an ideology blinds them to the splendour of being human. 


Michael Cook
Editor
BioEdge



This week in BioEdge

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Should governments subsidize a drug for healthy people?

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An evolutionary argument for bad science

by Michael Cook | Oct 08, 2016
An article in Nature suggests that humans are unlikely to live longer than 125

by Xavier Symons | Oct 08, 2016
What if a patient thinks they are already dead?

by Xavier Symons | Oct 08, 2016
Rotterdam City Council wants to administer compulsory contraception for “vulnerable women”, saying that birth control is a form of “child protection”.

by Xavier Symons | Oct 08, 2016
The Council of the District of Columbia is set to debate euthanasia legislation later this month.

by Xavier Symons | Oct 08, 2016
A well-known moral philosopher says issues of cooperation in wrongdoing are essential to understanding conscientious objection.

by Michael Cook | Oct 08, 2016
Liberal legislation has opened the door for a global market.
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