Virgin births are now possible.

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bilateralrope
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Virgin births are now possible.

Post by bilateralrope »

NZ Herald
IVF virgins: Pregnant without ever having sex

4:50 PM Monday Sep 28, 2015

Dozens of young women have had virgin births after undergoing IVF in Britain, it has been reported.

Four major British fertility firms said they had assisted in such cases, with doctors suggesting there have been at least 25 such births in the past five years.

Fertility doctors said single women who had never had sexual intercourse were seeking donor-assisted treatment - at a cost of around $12,000 - because they wanted to have a child now and save sex for a "special relationship".

Others said their cases involved women with a fear of sex. The decision to provide fertility treatment in such cases has been criticised by religious groups, who said it undermined the importance of bringing up children in stable marriages.

Care Fertility, which runs five centres across England, is among the clinics to confirm virgin births. Maha Ragunath, medical director of its clinic in Nottingham, said: "The number of single women I see has doubled over the last decade and single women now account for at least ten per cent of my patients.

"A lot of them are very young, in their twenties, sometimes studying or doing very ordinary jobs and often living with their parents, rather than career women who have been driven and focused too much on their work.

"When I ask them why they are coming for treatment, very often the response is that they are ready to have a child and they don't want to wait around for the right partner to come along," she told the Mail on Sunday.

"A small percentage have never been in a relationship and never had sexual intercourse," she added.

Over the last three years, she has provided successful treatment to three virgin women; one a nurse, another living at home with her parents, and a third who needed multiple rounds of IVF, she said.

Other IVF firms helping virgin women to conceive include the London Women's Clinic, Create Fertility, and the Assisted Reproduction and Gynaecology Centre. Britain's NHS does not fund such cases.

Tracey Sainsbury, a senior fertility counsellor and research officer at the London Women's Clinic, said she saw about two single, virgin women a year wanting to have a baby.

"Some have never had a relationship, others have been in a relationship but never had sexual intercourse, some are single lesbian women; for others there may be psychological or medical reasons why they have never had sex," she said.

Josephine Quintavalle, from the pro-life campaign group Comment on Reproductive Ethics, said: "What is the child for these women? A teddy bear that they pick off the shelf?

"The message from nature is for a male and female to have a child, and I am saddened that we are willing to distort this."

James Newcome, the Bishop of Carlisle, said such trends could damage society.

"The ideal is that a child has a mother and a father who are married to each other. All the evidence shows that is the best context for a child," he said.

In New Zealand, Dr Simon Kelly, Medical Director Fertility Associates Auckland, says while virgin births are not something he is seeing here, there is an increase in single women looking at fertility options.

"The average age we are seeing women [for IVF] in New Zealand is 37-years-old. We are seeing more single women coming in looking at their fertility options. Their age group usually ranges from mid to late 30s."

He says often the reasons behind the single women seeking fertility treatment is due to a breakup coupled with consideration for their biological clock.

"Their relationship has just broken down and they find themselves having to make a very real decision about their own biological clock. And rather than leave it to chance, they are wanting to have a baby using a donor.

"We have also seen an increase of women wanting to freeze their eggs to be used at a later date."
The idea that science can now produce virgin births and that there are Christians opposed to it does amuse me at first glance. At the same time, those opposed do have a partial point. Everything I've seen says that having two parents, in any gender combination, is better for the child than a single parent. So using IVF to allow a single woman to have a child seems questionable to me. Which only gets worse when we are talking about young woman who are studying and/or still living with their parents.
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Eternal_Freedom
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Re: Virgin births are now possible.

Post by Eternal_Freedom »

bilateralrope wrote: The idea that science can now produce virgin births and that there are Christians opposed to it does amuse me at first glance. At the same time, those opposed do have a partial point. Everything I've seen says that having two parents, in any gender combination, is better for the child than a single parent. So using IVF to allow a single woman to have a child seems questionable to me. Which only gets worse when we are talking about young woman who are studying and/or still living with their parents.
I dunno, I think another way to look at this is that yes, these children may have only one parents, but it is one parent that very definitely and deliberately chose to have that child. That strikes me as a far better environment for a child than accidental or unwanted pregnancies that are carried to term anyway.
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Re: Virgin births are now possible.

Post by LaCroix »

If this is questionable, then we should introduce forced marriages after conception and outlaw divorces if children are present.

When a woman finds herself surrounded with nothing but stupid studs and douchebags, and no suitable partner in sight (or not wanting to have a man in her life for various reasons), why should she be forced to sleep around to get pregnant if all she wants is the baby?
A minute's thought suggests that the very idea of this is stupid. A more detailed examination raises the possibility that it might be an answer to the question "how could the Germans win the war after the US gets involved?" - Captain Seafort, in a thread proposing a 1942 'D-Day' in Quiberon Bay

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Lagmonster
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Re: Virgin births are now possible.

Post by Lagmonster »

This is a reasonably sensible accomplishment that we could have pulled off years ago; call me when we can create people via ectogenesis.

One of my co-workers is a man in his forties, who despite being a brilliant person has the charisma of a mushroom, and looks like one too. He has wanted a child for years, but since he lacks the money to pay for a surrogate wages and cannot attract a mate, he likely won't ever reproduce without such technology.
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Re: Virgin births are now possible.

Post by Broomstick »

bilateralrope wrote:The idea that science can now produce virgin births and that there are Christians opposed to it does amuse me at first glance. At the same time, those opposed do have a partial point. Everything I've seen says that having two parents, in any gender combination, is better for the child than a single parent. So using IVF to allow a single woman to have a child seems questionable to me. Which only gets worse when we are talking about young woman who are studying and/or still living with their parents.
Here's the problem:

The best time for a woman to have a child biologically is very late teens (18 or 19) through about 30. Our society, though, is set up with the assumption that people will be studying and/or building a financial nest egg through their mid to late 20's. That works well enough for the men, for whom the window of fertility is much longer, but it puts women in a conundrum. Should she have kids early and potentially stunt her career options and/or financial future? Or should she put off childbearing until she is established in a career and financially well off... but run the risk she waited too long and can no longer have children easily or even at all?

If having a child is absolutely an important life goal for a woman this is a possible option for her. Is it the best option? The truth is, there is no best option, there are always trade-offs. If a single woman has an adequate support system to have a child while in college and chooses to do so I have no problem with that. Likewise, lesbians or asexual people should not be forced into sex acts they may find distasteful for purposes of procreation.
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