We at Birth Pangs sure hope we don’t make any spelling mistakes, because, you know, it’s hard to type while giggling.

In our ceaseless efforts to keep our reality-based readers up to date on the obsessions of the fetus fetishists, we came across this at LifeShite.

Following a UK Parliamentary question, data from a government organization showed that over one million human embryonic children were killed in the UK in the past 14 years as ‘waste’ embryos from in vitro fertilization (IVF) processes.

The acquired data showed that 2,137,924 embryonic humans were created using IVF between 1991 and 2005, but about 1.2m were never used. Scientists killed the embryos who were not deemed strong enough for implantation, and froze those not considered ‘waste’ embryos. Those that survived the freezing process will die in ten years if not implanted.

‘Surplus’ embryos were created because women responded differently to fertility drugs, doctors told the Times Online. As many as 40 IVF-fertilized eggs can be used in some treatments. The embryos are then assessed for viability, with only about 20% usually considered strong enough to implant successfully in a woman.

Lord Alton of Liverpool, an independent peer noted for his stance against abortion, tabled the question to parliament and obtained the statistics from the Department of Health. He said that embryos were being created and destroyed at “an incredible rate,” and advocates embryonic adoption for those embryos that aren’t used for implantation in IVF.

‘Waste’? Waste embryonic children? Just because they’re deemed not ‘strong enough’? Not ‘viable’?

The US, the article informs us, does no such dastardly discrimination.

The Los Angeles-based Snowflakes charity said it does not “discriminate” between embryos judged to be healthy or unhealthyand added that embryos it has used, which doctors had judged not to be viable, have still produced healthy babies.

Gee, and how has that noble non-discrimination worked for them?

The Snowflakes charity arranges the adoption of embryos by couples who want children. This has, however, led to the birth of only 157 babies in the past 10 years.

Hm.

In vitro fertilization is a very successful treatment for infertility. Egg and sperm meet in a lab dish, unite, and are left to grow to the blastocyst stage, which looks like a little clump of mashed bubblewrap.

Then the evul scientists inspect the little clumps to decide which are ‘strong’ enough to merit continued participation in this pretty expensive procedure. And, because, you know, the wannabe parents aren’t going through all this to produce a mutant.

So, then the ‘winning’ little clumps of 16 or so cells are implanted in the uterus. And the non-viable ones are rinsed down the sink. And the ones rated so-so on the viability scale are frozen for possible future adoption.

And, IVF being a pretty popular procedure, 1.2 million of them were declared surplus to requirements over 14 years. (These clumps are pretty small. If all 1.2 million of them were collected together, do you think they’d fill one yogurt container or two?)

We at Birth Pangs have had some fun with the fetus fetishists fetishizing over later-stage fetuses, like the ones at Fetopia. But at least those critters look like some kinda, well, ‘critter’, maybe like a shrimp minus the tentacles.

But clumps of bubblewrap being called human embryonic children?????

(How did we do on the spledding?)