Suleman, who made headlines for giving birth to the first surviving octuplets, announces granddaughter’s birth
Natalie (formerly Nadya) Suleman – the so-called “Octomom” – has added yet another young addition to her already impressively large family. The mom of 14 announced Sunday on her Instagram that she is now a grandmother to a baby girl.
Suleman, 49, accompanied the announcement with a photo of an infant’s tiny foot behind a pink baby blanket.
Continue reading...Harris campaign seeks to press advantage on powerful motivator, especially in states with abortion on the ballot
As Kamala Harris and Donald Trump prepare to meet on the debate stage in Philadelphia, the battle over abortion rights has vaulted to the center of the 2024 presidential election campaign, the first since the supreme court’s decision overturning Roe v Wade.
At the party’s convention last month, Democrats spotlighted the harrowing stories of women placed in medical peril as a result of post-Roe abortion bans in their states. Last week, the Harris campaign launched a 50-stop “reproductive freedom” bus tour across several battleground states, kicking off in Trump’s “back yard”, miles from the former president’s Mar-a-Lago residence in south Florida.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Legal loophole means there is no restriction on making sperm or eggs available for additional fertility treatments abroad
Sperm donated in the UK is being exported and can be used to create large numbers of children across multiple countries, contradicting a strict 10-family limit that applies in the UK, experts warn.
A legal loophole means that, while a single donor can be used to create no more than 10 families in UK fertility clinics, there are no restrictions on companies making sperm or eggs available for additional fertility treatments abroad.
Continue reading...Harris praises Walz’s time as a football coach as her VP pick says he’ll debate JD Vance ‘if he’s willing to get off the couch’
Kamala Harris introduced her running mate, Minnesota governor Tim Walz, to supporters at a packed, energetic rally at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
The event, which kicks off a week-long tour through the most politically competitive US states, marks a new chapter for the Harris campaign after securing enough delegates to be the Democratic nominee.
Continue reading...Health ombudsman says ‘thousands’ of sperm samples at fertility clinics are at risk of potentially devastating identification mix-ups
Queensland’s health ombudsman has ordered the destruction of thousands of frozen sperm donations, as a new report reveals 42% of all audited samples in the state were of medium or high risk of being misidentified.
The state had more than twice as many potential errors identified in audits as the next worst state, Victoria.
Continue reading...Lawsuit claims that clinic staff mistakenly cleaned incubator with lethal solution, destroying embryos before implanting them
Several couples are suing a southern California fertility center over claims that the facility staff destroyed their embryos in a “toxic incubator” and later implanted these embryos into the women who sought their services. So far 11 couples have sued Tennessee-based Ovation Fertility’s Newport Beach office, with more lawsuits expected to come down the line.
Ovation clinic staff is alleged to have mistakenly cleaned an incubator that held the embryos of dozens of patients awaiting implementation with hydrogen peroxide instead of the usual sterile solution. The use of peroxide created a “toxic incubator” that killed the embryos that were then transferred into the plaintiffs between 18 January and 30 January, none of whom became pregnant.
Continue reading...Marilyn Lands’s victory suggests reproductive rights are key issue for voters ahead of Biden-Trump rematch in November
Disney and allies of Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, have reached an agreement to end a nearly two-year-long court battle that began after the entertainment giant spoke out against the state’s so-called “don’t say gay” law, the Associated Press reports.
DeSantis put his conservative policies at the center of his quixotic attempt to win the GOP’s presidential nomination, but ended up dropping out after getting pummeled by Donald Trump in Iowa’s January caucuses.
Allies of the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, and Disney reached a settlement agreement on Wednesday in a lawsuit over who controls Walt Disney World’s governing district.
In a meeting, the members of the board of the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District approved the settlement agreement, ending almost two years of litigation that was sparked by DeSantis’s takeover of the district from Disney supporters following the company’s opposition to Florida’s so-called “don’t say gay” law.
Our communities should not have to live in a state of fear and confusion, which is exactly what SB4 was designed to do. Unfortunately, Republican leaders in Austin are more interested in fueling anti-immigrant rhetoric than actually creating real, workable solutions to address our immigration laws.
While this back-and-forth can create a sense of uncertainty for the people who live here, this ruling makes me hopeful that the Fifth Circuit will follow clear Supreme Court precedent and rule against the law when it considers the merits.
Continue reading...US president makes last State of the Union address of this presidential term, with much at stake as he heads into re-election fight against Trump
For some reason, expelled former Republican congressman George Santos has returned to watch the State of the Union from the House floor:
Axios reports he wanted to hang out with the lawmakers who voted to remove him from office last year for being a big-time liar:
Continue reading...Guests at Biden address to include Alabama woman whose IVF was cancelled, and Texas women who went through abortion ordeals
More than a quarter of Black female voters describe abortion has their top issue in this year’s presidential election, according to a new poll.
The findings by health policy research firm KFF reveal a significant shift from previous election years, when white, conservative evangelicals were more likely to put abortion as their biggest priority when voting, AP reported. Those voters were highly motivated in recent presidential elections to cast ballots for Donald Trump.
Abortion voters are young, Black women – and not white evangelicals.
Continue reading...Xavier Becerra says US must provide federal protections for reproductive rights if it hopes to avoid further restrictions
The health and human services secretary, Xavier Becerra, said the US must provide federal protections for reproductive rights if Americans hope to avoid further restrictions on in vitro fertilization, contraception and abortion in an exclusive interview with the Guardian.
Becerra’s comments come in the wake of an Alabama supreme court decision that gave embryos the rights of “extrauterine children” and forced three of the state’s largest fertility clinics to stop services for fear of litigation and prosecution. The fallout from the decision prompted the Alabama legislature to hastily sign new legislation that will give IVF providers with immunity from civil and criminal suits, which the governor signed into law on Wednesday night.
Continue reading...Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith rejects Access to Family Building Act, saying bill is ‘vast overreach full of poison pills’
Senate Democrats’ attempts to move forward a bill that would have granted Americans federal protections for in vitro fertilization access have failed.
The bill, sponsored by the Illinois Democrat Tammy Duckworth, came after a recent Alabama supreme court ruling that declared frozen embryos are children and led to the closure of multiple infertility clinics across the state.
Continue reading...Republicans struggle to find a unified response to the state’s ruling that threw into question the legal status of human embryos
Donald Trump has voiced “strong support” for IVF treatments, days after a ruling by the Alabama supreme court threw into question the legal status of human embryos and several providers in the state cut off access to the procedure.
The former US president said that under his leadership, the Republican party “will always support the creation of strong, thriving, healthy American families”.
Continue reading...Arguments that led to Alabama supreme court ruling that embryos are ‘extrauterine children’ similar to Missouri senator’s in 2013 case
Anti-abortion arguments made in the recent controversial Alabama supreme court decision, which led to the shut down of in vitro fertilization (IVF) in nearly half of the state’s clinics, echo those made by the Republican US senator Josh Hawley.
The Missouri lawmaker made similar arguments in 2013 and when he worked on the legal team arguing the “Hobby Lobby” case on contraception before the US supreme court.
Continue reading...Nationwide services say they will cease transporting embryos in and out of state following court decision deeming them ‘children’
Some nationwide embryo shipping services have indicated that they will stop transporting embryos to and from Alabama following the state’s recent supreme court decision ruling frozen embryos are “children”, according to a major infertility association.
In the week since the ruling, IVF clinics, auxiliary services and patients have grappled with whether they are able to legally operate. While the court’s decision recognized embryos as “children”, it did not specify how existing embryos should be handled.
Continue reading...President and vice-president speak out against ruling while Haley attempts to retract comments on embryos being babies
The decision of the Alabama supreme court on in vitro fertilization, granting legal protections to frozen fertilized eggs, drew fire from President Joe Biden and other Democratic leaders on Thursday, laying responsibility for the decision on the US supreme court’s ruling overturning Roe v Wade in 2022.
“A court in Alabama put access to some fertility treatments at risk for families who are desperately trying to get pregnant,” Biden said in prepared remarks on Thursday. “The disregard for women’s ability to make these decisions for themselves and their families is outrageous and unacceptable.”
Continue reading...Former UN ambassador and Republican presidential candidate expresses support for Alabama supreme court ruling
The Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley has spoken in response to the recent supreme court ruling out of Alabama, revealing that she believes embryos created through IVF are “babies”.
In a new interview with NBC, the former UN ambassador expressed support for the Friday ruling by Alabama’s supreme court that deemed that frozen embryos are “children”.
Continue reading...Guy’s hospital and Sheffield clinic may have used faulty freezing solution that could damage eggs and embryos
Scores of women have been affected by the use of a faulty freezing solution at fertility clinics in London and Sheffield, with frozen eggs and embryos potentially destroyed as a result, the fertility regulator has said.
The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) confirmed the issue was limited to Guy’s and St Thomas’ assisted conception unit in London, and Jessop Fertility in Sheffield.
Continue reading...Extending the limit could help uncover causes of recurrent miscarriage and congenital conditions, experts say
Scientists are calling for a review of the 14-day rule on embryo research, saying that extending the limit could help uncover the causes of recurrent miscarriage and congenital conditions.
Until now, scientists studying the earliest stages of life have been restricted to cultivating embryos up to the equivalent of 14 days of development. They can then pick up the path of development several weeks later, on pregnancy scans and from material donated from terminations.
Continue reading...Scientists complain after ‘sheer waste’ of human embryos discarded despite patients’ wishes
Leading scientists are calling for a change in the law to help IVF patients donate unused embryos to biomedical research after a collapse in donations over the past 15 years.
The increasing commercialisation of IVF, overstretched NHS clinics and cumbersome paperwork are blamed for a 25-fold decrease in the number of donated embryos. Scientists described some patients going to “extraordinary lengths” to ensure their embryos could be used for research rather than discarded, with many private clinics failing to routinely offer donation as an option.
Continue reading...The 102,157 cycles of IVF performed in 2021 was a 17% increase on 2020, with an average of two cycles for each woman
One in every 18 babies in Australia are now born through IVF, with a record high number of births recorded in the latest data.
The annual report from medical researchers at the University of New South Wales found a record 18,594 babies were born in Australia as a result of IVF treatment in 2021, with more than one in three women (37.1%) who completed their first cycle of IVF giving birth.
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