Fertility Preservation | Susan Komen Foundation & Planned Parenthood
Posted by Lisa Rosenthal on Wed, Feb 01, 2012 @ 11:00 AM
Reproductive Health & Reproductive Rights
The two cannot easily be teased apart...
Perhaps it's understandable that the Susan G. Komen Foundation doesn't want to fund abortion based on their recent decision to cancel funding for Planned Parenthood. That position may take on larger implications in the arena of reproductive health, especially for the population of cancer survivors that it is dedicated to serving.
In November of last year, Mississippi citizens voted on a amendment to their state constitution called Proposition 26, better known as the Personhood Amendment. It hoped to redefine personhood as a “human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning, or the functional equivalent thereof.” Under the proposal, fertilized human eggs would be considered human beings, which would ban all abortions in the state. But it would also limit contraception and threaten fertility treatments. The majority of Mississippi citizens voted against this bill, for a myriad of reasons.
Fertility Preservation & Egg Freezing
Egg freezing is an option for patients about to start chemotherapy treatment for cancer. Prior to their chemotherapy regimen, their ovaries can be stimulated and their eggs retrieved eggs for freezing. This process allows the patient time to store eggs and provides them with reproductive options in the future.
Fertility preservation creates eggs and embryos, an act that could be illegal if they were declared people. So, how would fertility treatment, for cancer or otherwise, be able to create embryos or freeze eggs if they were considered people?
How would we be able to dispose of extra embryos? Disposing or destryoing embryos, that have absolutely no chance of survival without being transfered to a women's uterus (where there is still only the possibility of survival) would be considered abortion.
And, efforts are underway (check political candidates' positions on this) about making birth control illegal.
Fertility preservation was specifically created for men and women with the diagnosis of cancer. So that they would have a chance to have the families that they wanted, after dealing with a diagnosis that in the past may have destroyed those dreams. That technology would be in legal jeopardy if efforts toward reducing reproductive rights in this country continue on it's current trajectory.
Whatever your position on abortion, personhood or sanctity of the embryo, consider carefully this slippery slope, especially when it comes to your right, or that of your sister's, brother's, son's or daughter's right to create a family of their own and/or preserve the opportunity to create a family through fertility preservation.