Girl Could Give Birth To Sibling

First off, apologies if this has been posted in the wrong place or has already been posted.

Anyway, I just read this at bbc.co.uk.

Canadian mother has frozen her eggs for use by her seven-year-old daughter, who is likely to become infertile.

Should the girl opt to use the eggs and gain regulatory approval, she would effectively have a baby that was her half-brother or sister.

Critics said the work, presented at a fertility conference in Lyon, was deeply concerning.

But the doctors from the McGill Reproductive Center, Montreal, called the donation an act of motherly love.

I find this, personally, extremely weird and unnatural. I don't see why the family couldn't have just got some "outsider" to donate the eggs, not the girl's own mother!

Imagine if the daughter did actually use the eggs... she'd have a son/daughter AND sister/brother and the mother would have a grandchild AND daughter/son.

It's completely unethical in my opinion, if the child that would be born found out about it's origins, God knows what psychological trauma it would go through.

[edit on 5-7-2007 by xeroxed88]

That is just too weird I think she would of been better off getting eggs donated by someone other than her mother.

I'm going to disagree with the above opinions if I may...

1st, from a strictly scientific standpoint, the whole idea behind procreation is to pass along your own genes. If you can't do that, then this would seem to rate as an awfully close second.

2nd, it isn't our place to decide what's normal, acceptable or traumatic to any particular person or group of people. It would need to be handled carefully to be sure, but if it is, it may be perfectly normal and acceptable to the possible child in question.

For example, I have a daughter that is 6. I have many friends and family that hide/downplay/redirect a death in the family, trying to make it kid-friendly or acceptable in some fashion, thinking that it will be easier to explain death as the child gets older. I have never done that with my daughter - from the time she was 3, when her great-grandmother died, we have always explained to her what happened (not graphic details, just simply that she died), that it is a natural part of life, and sometimes it will make you sad but that's OK. Handling it the way we did, she has never had a problem accepting death. She has lost other family members, pets, seen it on TV, etc... and she understands what has happened and accepts it.

If these parents were to handle the situation similarly, I don't think the child would have any problem accepting and understanding who he/she is, how everything is related, and anything along those lines. Just because we think it is strange doesn't mean they will, and at the very least, any negativity we were to express about the situation to the child (besides it being none of our business) can only serve to harm the child. We should be as accepting and non-intrusive as possible.

If only we could be that way for every situation (accepting and understanding, or at least trying to be), think how much better a world this would be...

What's the problem?

The daughter won't be contributing any genetic material to the conception of this child. Half its genes will come from her mother; the other half would come from her future husband. All the daughter will do is have the embryo implanted and carry it to term.

She will be carrying inside her a fetus containing half her genes, just as in a normal pregnancy. This is because she shares half her genes with her mother, the lady who is generously donating the eggs.

If she had conceived a child herself, the fetus would still have half her genes and half her husband's.

Siblings also share half each other's genes, so no change there either.

Genetically speaking the situation is pretty much the same as for a normal child.

The only difference is that the grandchild would have none of its mother's father's genes. But I don't believe that's a significant difference for any practical purpose.

So why all the fuss?

[edit on 5-7-2007 by Astyanax]

If that girl eventually has kids from her mums eggs then so what, good on her. They'll be her children, not her mother's. Only silly "nit-picking" folk will make a big issue about it.

Many many years ago when I was twenty three,
I got married to a man who was handsome as could be.
This man had a grown-up son
Who had hair of red.
My mother fell in love with him,
And soon the two were wed.
This made my mum my mum-in-law
And changed my very life.
My son was my father,
For he was my mother's life.

To complicate the matters worse,
Although it brought me joy,
I soon became the mother
Of a bouncing baby joy.

My little baby then became
A sister-in-law to mum.
And so became my auntie,
Though it made me feel like dung.

For if she was my auntie,
Then that also made her sister
To the widow's grown-up husband
Who, of course, was my step-mister.

mother's wife then had a girl,
Who kept them on the run.
And she became my grandmother,
For she was my sisters kin.

My dad is now my father's father
And it makes me blue.
Because, although he is my hubby,
He's my grandpa, too.

If my hubby is my grandpa,
Then I am his grandchild.
And every time I think of it,
It simply drives me wild.

For now I have become
The strangest case you ever saw.
As the wife of my grandpa,
I am my own grandma!


or something like that at any rate

Originally posted by Phoenycks
I'm going to disagree with the above opinions if I may...

1st, from a strictly scientific standpoint, the whole idea behind procreation is to pass along your own genes. If you can't do that, then this would seem to rate as an awfully close second.

2nd, it isn't our place to decide what's normal, acceptable or traumatic to any particular person or group of people. It would need to be handled carefully to be sure, but if it is, it may be perfectly normal and acceptable to the possible child in question.
*removed by me*

Great stuff. I agree with the gist of it, and that "2nd" part really summed up my feelings about it. Personally I see it as an act of motherly love, only eliminating one link in the chain (the father of the daughter) in the process. Sure we have all these fancy rules like "mother, sister, brother" and those would all get messed up when we do something like this, but they're just words, nothing more.

Life will go on, and genetic diversity will prosper, even when doing something like this. Nothing weird to be seen here.

[edit on 5-7-2007 by Drexon]