How many "snowflake babies" are there really?

[jmowreader]

Everyone remembers Dipshit's big photo op with all the snowflake babies...you remember, when he said they weren't "spare parts."

Let's skip over the part where Bush actually said that being in favor of stem cell research means you think butchering babies is okay, and talk about how many children have actually been born from thawed embryos which were donated or adopted.

We're going to have to extrapolate here because we don't have good numbers on this, but Nightlight Christian Adoptions, who runs the Snowflake Baby program (embryo adoption) claims that, to date, 146 families have transferred 222 embryos, 104 pregnancies have resulted, and 99 children have been born with 22 more still in the process of pregnancy. (The numbers don't add up because many of these pregnancies result in multiple births--always remember that this is an in vitro process.) Assuming that all 22 pregnancies result in live births, we're talking 121 Snowflake Babies.

Embryos are also donated. Because it's less expensive (due to the fact you're not dealing with a private adoption agency) and there's less red tape, let's throw out a wild-ass number and say 375 donated embryos have produced live births.

Five hundred born children. That's it.

Let's go back to the hard number of 121 Snowflake Babies. Compare these 121 people to the 135 people George Bush executed while governor of Texas, plus the three that have been executed at the federal level since Bush stole the White House.

Now let's use the extrapolated number. Five hundred born against what, 50,000 Iraqi civilians killed by Bush's war? Against 2500-plus soldiers killed by Bush's war? Against the thousands who died because of the antics of Kenny Boy Lay?

Pay no attention to the killings over there...look at this cute cuddly baby (who cost so much to produce, there's no way you can afford one).

counting bodies like sheep to the rhythm of the war drums...

[rzemanfl]

1. I bet a few of those "snowflakes" are snowjobs, where somebody

had it in for the husband.

[jmowreader]

4. You mean like...

waiting for hubby to go play golf in Myrtle Beach then going to a biker bar wearing black leather and red lipstick?

Possible, but there's WAY too much paperwork for that to work here.

[rzemanfl]

5. Paperwork can be faked. Who's to say what goes on when one

of these zygotes is "implanted" or how much a desperate wife would pay a doctor for his assistance when she made a little mistake?

[jmowreader]

6. Then we wouldn't be talking the Snowflakes

There is "embryo donation," and paperwork on THAT can be faked. Definitely.

Most desperate wives who made a "little mistake," as you put it, wouldn't try to cover it up by faking an implanted embryo. "Honey, why does the baby have your eyes and my best friend's nose?" They'd just get a "menstrual extraction" and claim to have a headache for the next week or so. Search the archives for the thread "the only moral abortion is my abortion."

I better throw in an "on edit" and explain why a woman who's trying to cover up a pregnancy that happened because she's having an affair wouldn't try using the Snowflake Baby thing. Snowflakes is run by a private adoption agency, and they treat embryos exactly the same as living children--the same homestudy requirements apply--plus the wife has to go through some medical testing to ensure there are no "medical contraindications to pregnancy." PLUS you have to pick out the family whose embryos you wish to adopt. The agency says this takes from 12 to 18 months to complete. Oh yeah: everyone in the family--husband, wife, children--have to want the new baby before they'll let you proceed. A cheating wife carrying another man's child doesn't HAVE 18 months to do all this.

[rzemanfl]

9. Didn't know all this. Thanks for the information. My scenario is

unreasonable to say the least.

[BOSSHOG]

2. You bush hating liberal

There are millions of snow flake babies and no two look alike and they are all christians in loving homes where sex is not practiced by their mommies and daddies because sex is bad and the deaths of those in iraq is of no relevance because they are not white nor are they American. Don't you ever read the bible? You obviously don't get your facts from focus on the family or faux or limbaugh. Obviously!

[jmowreader]

3. Obviously!

Was it Jon Stewart who said the reason they call 'em snowflake babies is that they're all different and they're all white?

[Hekate]

7. It hasn't been as many as 500 or they would be trumpeting it

The process of getting pregnant this way is very arduous and expensive. There's hormones to make sure your cycles are exactly right and that your uterus is absolutely ready to implant the zygote. It costs a whole bunch of money.

And the failure rate is actually rather high -- it often takes several cycles before a pregnancy is established, which means repeating the above routine each time, including the part about the money. Then you still might lose the pregnancy in the first trimester.

Think about it -- each time a zygote is implanted but fails to result in pregnancy, according to the "Snowflake" people that must mean a child has died. How can they stand the waste? All these couples creating dozens of these zygotes just to have a couple of kids; so many zygotes being flushed from so many uteri because the procedure didn't "take", not to mention the 400,000 that remain stored in perpetuity, until they are thrown away as medical waste. There aren't enough wombs for them all.

You really have to want a baby to go through this process, btw. Some people use up all their savings, go into debt, and still come away empty-armed. An infertile couple I know gave it their best shot, but they predetermined that they were not going to take forever on this quest, so at a certain point they called it quits (I know her heart still aches) and she started a business of her own.

Hekate

[radfringe]

8. the irony of snowflake babies

photo-oped kids designed to make you go awwwww isn't he/she cute. this is putting a "human" face on research ditto for calling them snowflakes as opposed to something like baby-cicles. More warm fuzzies to distract from the issue

ennywhoo - the purpose of photo-oping "snowflakes" is to make you oppose embryonic research. This is ironic because without emryonic research there wouldn't have been any snowflakes in the first place