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Savannah Fairchild
English 4H
Mrs. DeBock
29 October 2015
Essential Question: Are fertility clinics a good investment for infertile couples?
Working Thesis: Fertility clinics are not a good investment for infertile couples.
Refined Thesis: Fertility clinics are not a good investment for infertile couples because they are
outrageously expensive, they waste embryos and eggs, and have no guaranteed success rate.
Brownlee, Shannon. "Society Should Restrict 'Designer Baby' Technologies." Reproductive
Technologies. Ed. Clay Farris Naff. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2007. Opposing
Viewpoints. Rpt. from "Designer Babies." Washington Monthly (Mar. 2002). Opposing
Viewpoints in Context. Web. 19 Oct. 2015.
This article explains a new technique for those who are still incapable of conception even
after the attempt to undergo in vitro fertilization. An embryologist, Jacques Cohen, came up with
the technique of cytoplasmic transfer. This is the removal of cytoplasm from a fertile donors egg
and injecting it into the patients non fertile egg. The first baby of cytoplasmic transfer was born
in 1997; however, in 2001 Cohen discovered unthinkable news. He announced that two of the
seventeen cytoplasmic transfer babies were given extra bits of mitochondrial DNA. This meant
that those two babies had three parents: the mother, the father, and the mitochondrial DNA from
the donor. The female babies would pass those genetic traits of all three parents down to her
offspring because the mitochondrial DNA can only be passed down through eggs. Fertility

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clinics have little regulation and guidelines to follow. This allows them to experiment with things
that are untested and unknown. Due to the ban on federal funding for embryonic research, the
fertility clinics are left on their own with no funding from the government to conduct research.
This means that they use the profits collected through the patients to fund their research. Their
research provides major breakthrough claims with little evidence to back these claims. This
article provides the argument that fertility clinics are causing more harm than good and are not
equipped with adequate tools to perform these procedures.
Cunningham, D. Scott. "Fertility Drugs and Cancer." Salem Health: Cancer. Ed. Jeffrey A.
Knight. Hackensack: Salem, 2008. n. pag. Salem Online. Web. 20 Oct. 2015.
Fertility drugs and cancer are compared in this article. Several women are at risk for ovarian
cancer. However, certain things can increase or decrease the risk. For example, a woman who has
never had a child, someone older, one whos family history has had ovarian cancer, and the
overuse of fertility drugs. One can decrease the risk for ovarian cancer by having a child, using
oral contraceptives, and breast-feeding. If one were to take the exact dosage given in a certain
amount of cycles closely monitored by a physician, then fertility drugs would not have a large
impact on the risk of cancer. This article is helpful due to its insight on the risk fertility clinics
issue when prescribing women with fertility drugs.
Johnston, Josephine. "Fertility Doctors Are in No Position to Consider Children's Well-Being."
Medical Ethics. Ed. Nol Merino. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2010. Current
Controversies. Rpt. from "Judging Octomom." Hastings Center Report 39.3 (2009): 2325. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 20 Oct. 2015.

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In this article, it is shown that fertility clinics and adoption agencies are two completely
different organizations. This article gives a scenario of a single, low-income mother who wanted
six eggs implanted through in vitro fertilization. The doctor explained that this could cause
multiple births, but she still wanted to undergo the insemination of the eggs. All six eggs were
fertilized and out of the six eggs, two of them created twins. The single mom gave birth to eight
babies. The controversy that came with this pregnancy was that the clinic made no executive
decision as to whether this woman should be allowed to have eight children based on her income
and marital status. However, the fertility clinic argued that their only job is to fertilize and
implant the eggs for their patients. As an adoption clinic would do screenings, back ground
checks, and thorough sweeps on any parents wanting to adopt a child, fertility clinics do not have
that listed in their job descriptions. This article shows the problem that occurs with in vitro
fertilization and fertility clinics: some babies are being born into homes with unfit parents.
Kinsley, Michael. "Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research Is Not Immoral." Human Embryo
Experimentation. Ed. David Haugen and Susan Musser. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2007.
At Issue.Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 29 Oct. 2015.
Michael Kinsley goes to portray the side that stem cell research is in no way immoral. He
goes on to describe the process in which fertility clinics fertilize, implant, and save embryos.
Fertility clinics goal is to create more embryos than necessary because of the unlikely chance
one will successfully implant and grow to become a baby. Kinsley uses this description of
process to show that fertility clinics are indeed not wasting the embryos they create but solely
providing more hope to their patients in case only one embryo does not fertilize. This article is
sincerely opinionated but displays well-thought out arguments. It is proposing a viewpoint

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opposite of my own and therefore helps me have a better understanding of the opposing
viewpoint of the topic.
Kinsley, Michael. "Truly Sincere Opponents of Embryonic Stem Cell Research Would Also
Oppose IVF."Stem Cells. Ed. Jacqueline Langwith. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2012.
Opposing Viewpoints. Rpt. from "A Breakthrough in the Stem Cell Debate." Daily
Beast 2009. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 29 Oct. 2015.fer
This article is claiming that opponents of abortion and IVF are not morally serious. He
focuses more on the opponents of abortion and compares them to the in vitro fertilization
process. Kinsley describes the mindsets of anti-abortionists. Anti-abortionists feel that a human
embryo has all the same rights as a full grown, birthed human being. Kinsley goes on to describe
that if anti-abortionists feel that killing human embryos and stem cells is unethical and immoral,
then they should be hating fertility clinics as well due to the insemination of several embryos in
hopes only one will survive and fertilize. Therefore, fertility clinics do kill human embryos as
well, however, not in an abruptly intentional way. This article helped my research due to
Kinsleys insight on the fact that fertility clinics also have similarities with abortion clinics and
are killing human embryos, even if it is unintentional.
NewCarisa. What Did IVF Cost? Online Video Clip. Youtube. YouTube, Dec. 13, 2013. Oct.
29, 2015.
This video was about a woman who underwent IVF. She went to multiple clinics to the
several unsuccessful attempts with in vitro fertilization. She is diagnosed with PCOS which she
labels as the only diagnosis for her infertility. However, she has been on thyroid medications due
to the slight elevation of her thyroid levels. This woman, Carisa, described her payments for each

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procedure and medication that came along with in vitro fertilization. Her overall expense for an
ineffective IVF cycle was $8,715.50. This price broke down into different charges for
medications, multiple in vitro cycles, embryo storage, acupuncture, egg retrieval, and other
processes that are included with in vitro fertilization. This video was an asset to my research
because it showed that IVF is incredibly expensive, yet it still does not guarantee success.