The fertility industry is booming worldwide with desperate parents (both gays, lesbians, and heterosexuals) throwing money at unscrupulous clinics which make their money whether you get pregnant or not. All the way from IUI and IVF to surrogate mothers, businesses have popped up to help infertile couples. Indeed, many infertile women do give birth to healthy babies, particularly if the mother is still young but many older women who kept postponing her pregnancy either because of career or money or not having a life partner are not always having healthy children or suffering from miscarriages. The situation has become so severe that women who would have never imagined being pregnant so late in their lives are now becoming pregnant with donor eggs. And don’t even talk about what is happening with surrogates in poor countries like India where these desperately poor women are carrying babies for parents from rich countries. In this crazy environment to have babies, women are taking extremely dangerous drugs like Clomid, that can cause lifelong problems.
Latest research in Australia shows that there was a massive — 28% — higher risk of birth defects in children conceived through fertility treatments. The problems that have been noticed relate to muscles, heart, cerebral palsy and gastrointestinal complications. Women who take fertility drugs and undergo in vitro fertilization are more likely to have stillbirth or to give birth to babies with low birth weight or give birth prematurely. The really bad news is that if a woman has ever had fertility treatment but eventually gets pregnant naturally has a 25% higher probability of having a child with birth defects. In other words, the disease can be attributed directly to the drugs.
The NY Times has highlighted the huge number of children conceived through artificial insemination from donated sperm from donors who have not only been not tested for diseases but may have also lied about their profiles. These babies are brought into this world because of the greed and narcissism of their selfish parents who would not accept the fact that they were infertile and should either be happy childless or consider adoption. Many experts now suggest that it is not a great idea to mess with our bodies and take the risk of human beings who will be sick their whole lives. In fact some people are so casual about assisted reproductive therapy (ART) that many parents are now helping by paying for their single, childless daughters to freeze their eggs so that when they do find a partner they can get pregnant artificially and give them a grandchild.