IVF Insanity

I overheard 2 women talking yesterday. It was about how one of them wanted a kid but for whatever reason, could not get pregnant. So, went for IVF. She did 6 rounds, none stuck. (How much did that cost?) Once she stopped doing the IVFs, she got knocked up. But that time, her body was basically destroyed by the IVF and the kid arrived 3 month premature. Kid was in a hospital for about 6 months, was released home with oxygen. Medical bills for the kid exceeded $1,000,000. I don't know what was and what was not covered by the insurance, but that was the amount that was mentioned.

My concern is not with medical bills. Anyone can have medical bills, shit can happen. My concern is in the future. With so many jobs disappearing, incomes dropping, housing getting more expensive, schools being overcrowded, colleges getting more expensive and much more difficult to get into, why is there such fierce fight in an attempt to bring more kids into this world? What is it in this world that is so amazing that people desire for their kids to experience?

I was thinking, there are many statistics out there, but general idea is that a good majority of people, they do not really think. Even the New Age folks, who claim to have all kinds of awareness and knowledge, they too breed just like the majority does and don't really do anything different.

Search me. I think IVF is morally obscene in a world where so many people lack basic medical care, and the world is bursting to the seams with people.

What do you mean, Techie? Water shortages, cataclysmic climate change, war, famine, economic collapse, who wouldn't want to be around for all the great fun to come?

And anyone can get a super job, as long as you are wiling to wear diapers while you work. .

As far as the mindset of brainless people who don't believe we are having any kind of problem whatsoever, when we were discussing Paul Erlich, who himself had one child, I found an article where he was espousing that people only replace themselves, i.e. couples should have no more than two children. The version of the article allowed comments and was overrun by hundreds of outraged people. It was extremely depressing to read.

I can no longer find that article, but Here is one that has fewer comments. Some rational people showed up at the end, but as best as I can tell, many people in general believe:

-- the Bible said "go forth and multiply," therefore Christians have a duty to out-breed those Other people, such as Muslims. The non-religious version of this applies to other groups, pick-your-preference here: smart people, white people, certain ethnic groups.

--- As long as you are a First World person and you can "afford" to have X number of children, it's okay.

-- it's one's "right" to have children, no matter what state the Earth is in.

The only plausible explanation for this would be these people also believe the physical laws of overpopulation and scarcity that apply to every organism on Earth....simply don't exist for humans. That's right, we can have too many amoebae, coyotes, Japanese carp, stray cats, and other populations that deserve to be rounded up and exterminated because they followed biological instincts, but humans have "biological urges" and therefore have a right to indulge them no matter what.

-- Similarly there are climate change deniers and those who are still buying that old chestnut that everyone in the U.S. could fit into the state of Texas, never mind having any clean water to drink or sufficient food. Any suggestion that we are reaching capacity is not reality--it's a liberal plot to "control" their lives.

Why are those people in the Amazon warehouse putting up with a job where they have to pee in bottles? Because they got kids! After all, one was pregnant.

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mr. neptune
Why are those people in the Amazon warehouse putting up with a job where they have to pee in bottles? Because they got kids! After all, one was pregnant.

Excellent point. Which also explains why many employers favor people with kids. It is simple. If they have those who depend on them, such people will tolerate a lot more abuse.

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yurble
Search me. I think IVF is morally obscene in a world where so many people lack basic medical care, and the world is bursting to the seams with people.

Some people in places like USA seem to think that life is ok for now and that is all that matters. Well, life is not OK in many places and the reality is, we share the same planet with those places. What happens elsewhere will eventually happen everywhere else. Yet, people go crazy in an attempt to add more people to this overused planet.

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Techie

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yurble
Search me. I think IVF is morally obscene in a world where so many people lack basic medical care, and the world is bursting to the seams with people.

Some people in places like USA seem to think that life is ok for now and that is all that matters. Well, life is not OK in many places and the reality is, we share the same planet with those places. What happens elsewhere will eventually happen everywhere else. Yet, people go crazy in an attempt to add more people to this overused planet.

Life is not okay in many places in the US. Infrastructure is crumbling, job security is diminishing, debt and addiction are increasing. You have to really choose a very insular life to not see what's happening all around. And of course it is very insular anyway to look only at your own country, no matter how well it is doing in truth, and not to consider at all the fate of people who had the misfortune to be born somewhere where things aren't going as well.

In some ways, yes, this is the best of times. War has declined from previous centuries, even though we still have plenty of it. We have antibiotics and we have sufficient food if you live in a developed country. But the last few years the weather has been crazy and that's been a little foretaste of what's coming. We know coastal cities are going to flood. And unlike previous disasters, like the mini ice age and the plague, this is something we caused and it isn't going away in a few hundred years. It's a fundamentally different kind of disaster. That, along with contraceptives, and more personal autonomy than people had for much of human history, is what makes this a very different time, allowing for sensible choices about reproduction. But I guess if people were sensible to begin with, we wouldn't be in this mess in the first place.

Yurble, the stuff that you are describing about USA is why I could not understand the drive that people have to procreate. Many things need to be fixed around here and improving incomes while lowering taxes would be a good start. I would have to think that 90% of people here do live insular kind of life because they seem to think that next generation is going to be just fine with things going the way that they are.

The United States needs to outlaw IVF.

We have hit maximum capacity at 326 million people, natural resources are getting extremely scarce, I live in a severely overpopulated city in the state, the state itself is severely overpopulated (FL) - just no.

I wish to God people would get a new hobby besides breeding.

And do away with The Most Competitive Sport in America(TM) known as parunting.

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selidororous

I wish to God people would get a new hobby besides breeding.

Please, do miniatures and bonsai, Earth will thank you!

Every time a woman giving birth goes Uhhhhh,! Uhhhhh!, Earth says "NO!, NO!" Stop it bitch!!"

When did people come to the conclusion that "getting over disappointment" is no longer an adulting skill? I
If you ask me, people who can't get over disappointment - and that seems to be a large percentage of adults in developed countries today - are failing at adulting. However, it seems this is no longer a valuable skill; with the rise of the "have it all" mentality and rampant consumerism, people have given it up as an old-fashioned value.

I'm not proposing that people adopt a stiff upper lip and be unable to express pain or grief, but I do think that society and individuals would be better served with an understanding of "you don't always get what you want." Instead of IVF we could have counselors helping people cope with disappointment. There are so many situations in life where resilience would be far more valuable than a medical intervention, and IVF tops that list.

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yurble
I do think that society and individuals would be better served with an understanding of "you don't always get what you want."

This is gold. My grandparents used to say: "Prepare to deal with the worst, hope for the best". They were the people who used to get stuff done and did not make a scene if something did not work out.

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Techie

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yurble
I do think that society and individuals would be better served with an understanding of "you don't always get what you want."

This is gold. My grandparents used to say: "Prepare to deal with the worst, hope for the best". They were the people who used to get stuff done and did not make a scene if something did not work out.

Reminds me...I was reading on Reddit the other day. OP was offering tech support and asked the user to check under the table to see if a cable was plugged in. User whined, asking for a tech to be sent out instead. OP quoted a cost. Lazy user tried "What would you do if I was quadriplegic?"

OP had the extreme satisfaction of telling the user that the other day there had been a quadriplegic who had managed the task. Went on to explain (not to the user, just to us) that it was someone with limited movement in the limbs who dropped himself out of the chair onto the floor to get the job done.

Some people are going to whine. Others are going to get shit done.