From the Wall Street Journal, Contra Costa Times:

A group of influential Georgia legislators has introduced a bill that would make illegal some of the procedures used by Nadya Suleman, a 33-year-old California woman who gave birth to eight babies through in vitro fertilization in January. Similar legislation has been introduced in Missouri.

“Nadya Suleman is going to cost the state of California millions of dollars over the years; the taxpayers are going to have to fund the 14 children she has,” Republican state Sen. Ralph T. Hudgens, one of the sponsors of the bill, said in an interview. “I don’t want that to happen in Georgia.”

The Georgia bill would limit the number of embryos that may be implanted to a maximum of three for a woman age 40 or older, and two for a woman younger than that.

Research has shown that multiple birth babies are significantly more likely to develop disabilities including cerebral palsy, neurological complications and learning disorders, as well as other long-term health issues. A multiple birth pregnancy also triples the mother’s risk of death.

Data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has found that 80 percent of U.S. fertility clinics don’t follow voluntary guidelines for limiting embryos set by the American Society for Reproductive Medicine. The ASRM has advised that no more than two embryos be implanted in women under 35.

Suleman has said she had six frozen embryos left over from prior treatments, and asked that they all be used because she didn’t want them to be destroyed. She says two of the embryos split, creating eight babies.

”Assisted reproduction is a multibillion-dollar business,” said Marcy Darnovsky, of the Center for Genetics and Society in Oakland, CA. ”Like other commercial enterprises, it needs rules.”

See also:

Laboratory techniques that screen for diseases in embryos are now being offered to create designer children — Wall Street Journal

This entry was posted on Monday, March 2nd, 2009 at 9:25 pm and is filed under assisted reproduction, cerebral palsy, law. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.