Reply #46: Yes, thank you, but IVF was mentioned in the post by LeftyMom

[Gormy Cuss]

a post which was generically about ethical ways to avoid high multiples pregnancy while undergoing fertility treatments. I was responding to her post.

What happened in the MN case is sad all the way around because they chose a procedure with a high likelihood of multiple egg fertilization and had a very high success rate. From a medical ethics point of view, it's important to question whether there are sufficient tools available with sort of methods to ever recommend it to a woman who will not consider selective reduction in view of the costs (physical, emotional and last of all financial) associated with managing a very high risk high order multiple pregnancy. If there is a highly reliable way of knowing that there are, for example, only two or three eggs ready and the protocol requires such testing before proceeding, that would probably pass muster as medically ethical.

Still, I do feel sorry for the couple because they had six children delivered alive and now have only two, two who will be in for months of neonatal ICU care in all likelihood.