'Snowflake babies' cost money?

[underpants]

WHAT? I thought or at least I had gotten the impression that this was all done to save those precious souls.

Money changes hands?
The wealthy funders of all this aren't willing to bear the costs?

What would you estimate the entire cost for the adoption to be?

For this program you have either two or three separate fees depending on where you live:

If you live outside of Southern California:

1. Our program fee of $5000
2. Fees from the agency performing your homestudy, ranging from $1000-$2500
3. The fertility clinic's fee for a frozen embryo transfer (FET), usually ranging from $2,000 and $7,500

If you live in Southern California:

1. Our program fee of $6600 (includes homestudy). A $1,600 credit is applied if you have already completed a homestudy with another agency.
2. The fertility clinic’s fee for a frozen embryo transfer (FET), usually ranging from $2,000 and $7,500

What additional out-of-pocket expenses can we expect?

Any lab work your clinic requires of the genetic family prior to the shipping of the embryos ($500-$1000), shipping embryos via Federal Ex.

http://www.nightlight.org/snowflakefaqsgp.htm#Program

-WHAT FOLLOWS IS MY OPINION-

Having observed the right for quite some time I have to say that I feel comfortable is presuming the following:

The whole "snowflake baby" movement exists for two reasons
1. for the purely political statement. Don't let them fool you into feeling ashamed for seeing the political angle of this, they operate on the margin that you and I leap over to get to a normal rational field of thought to analyze a situation.

2. This is an end run around the cumbersome adoption process where it is hard to find, you know, a baby that you want. Sure you could go to the former Eastern Block and get one but that is REALLY expensive.

See anything missing from this photo-op? Something you KNOW would be front and center if there was one?

[MountainLaurel]

1. They do a home study for ART?

I never realized that.

:shrug:

[underpants]

21. What would the homestudy entail?

Sorry for the late response but my wife asked me in an e-amil about it and I don't know the answer.

What is a homestudy and what does it tell them? Is it basically tracking the baby to see how it does?

[MountainLaurel]

22. In adoption or foster care

A home study is usually done to determine that you would be appropriate parents: That the child would have a bedroom, that the home isn't a dangerous place, that you're not living out of the back of a car, that you're not going to lock the kid in the closet and tell her ask Jesus to forgive her when she spills her milk. Much of it involves looking at the parents, their medical and mental health history, education level, finances, criminal history, stability, relationships, family history, etc. Here is a source for more information: http://home-study.adoption.com/.

But I'd never heard of anyone having to go through a home study before receiving IVF treatment. Usually, that is strictly a medical matter.

[underpants]

23. Excellent thank you

:hi:

[MountainLaurel]

24. De nada

:toast:

[Vickers]

2. His audience TODAY will look quite different, I imagine.

:eyes:

[underpants]

8. Yeah I would think so

;-)

[abluelady]

3. Thanks for that Information

I was curious as to where would the private labs get the embryonic stem cells? Do they buy them from these same fertility clinics? Could these cells be snowflakes?

[underpants]

6. From my brief research I would say- No and No

Some articles CBS dance all around it but mostly the embryos are donated by families. There does also seem to be the option of the donors selecting the adoptive family but that is consistent with other adoptions.

To date no single women have adopted one.

Single men are ineligible as they would have to use a surrogate

Can single parents adopt through Snowflakes?

On the application we ask if you are open to placing with a single mom. Since Snowflakes began in 1997 we have had few genetic families open to placing with a single mom and have yet to work with a single adoptive mother. Single men are ineligible to adopt through Snowflakes at this time as it would require the use of a surrogate to carry the baby.

Notice that this is their website.

[woodsprite]

9. I went thru IVF and our doc had a form that let you

either donate your embryo to another couple, donate to science (stem cell), keep them frozen for future use (storage fee) or have them put back in at a non-viable time (essentially return them from whence they came).

If you donated to another couple, the only thing they were charged was the frozen storage fee until they were ready to go thru the procedure. No adoption fee there. As it turned out, our last frozen embryo is now 6 yrs old and starting first grade - I didn't have any more left to worry about, but we had chosen to donate any that remained to science, as a 2nd choice I would have them returned to my body. If I were going to give my frozen embys away, I'd want to pick the family that got them, not have some gov't dufus do it.

[abluelady]

10. I Don't Mean to Be Nosey

But if you don't mind, did the choice to donate to science specify any more than "science."
I truly hope that these cells are donated to labs receiving private funds rather than being disposed.

[meegbear]

4. Hey! You can't put a price on human life ...

fees, sure, but no set price.

[zanne]

5. Will the kids go looking for their "real" parents?

That's all I could think about when I was watching the press conference. "Mom, Dad, am I adopted"? Then, "I want to find my birth parents". How can they find their birth parents? Are the records kept? Most importantly, if this keeps up, will the kids be seen as second-class citizens?

[underpants]

7. Actually yes, sort of

http://www.donorsiblingregistry.com/

[Tin Man]

11. What? snowflake babies don't come from the cabbage patch?

I was almost positive that, around springtime, the embryos are cast into a cabbage patch, where they will grow into beautiful snowflake babies. Later when the first snow falls, the village erupts in activity as the cabbage and the babies are brought in from the fields... sauerkraut and bratwurst are prepared, church bells peel, and the whole community celebrates another Kohlbabyfestival !!!

[Ian David]

12. The anti-abortion groups should be picking up the tabs...

The anti-abortion groups have been buying abortion clinics to shut them down.

Shouldn't they also be buying these frozen blastocysts to rescue the Petri-Americans from oblivion?

[sinkingfeeling]

13. I'm writing the White House to ask them, maybe Tony Snow, if the

'embryo' adoption plan is only for whites and what happens to all the non-white embryos. Maybe that nitwit, Sen. Brownback's little talking embryo was a non-white one and that's why it was saying, "Don't kill me."

[underpants]

15. VIDEO of Senator Brady and his talking embryo

You made me bust out laughing.

:rofl: "Sen. Brownback's little talking embryo" :rofl:

Sam Brownback Has Lost His Mind (2:27)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uS8B0gCPxjc

[Ian David]

14. Why wasn't at least one lesbian couple up their with their Snowflake?

Those damn Snowflakes... they are walking undead medical abominations intent on destroying mankind...

[Arkansas Granny]

16. I have no objection to the idea of "snowflake babies", however,

here are a couple of interesting facts I found:

July 28, 2005

Eighty-four families have adopted frozen embryos in this country. For some, like those who came to the White House in May, this is at least partly a political act; for others, it's a way to have a pregnancy and a child. But embryo adoption is now a dramatic side story to the intense debate surrounding the estimated 400,000 frozen embryos in the U.S. today.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/07/28/national/main712541.shtml

April 27, 2006

100th 'Snowflake' Baby Born

http://www.family.org/cforum/news/a0040287.cfm

So there are 400,000 frozen embryos in storage and only 100 have born as "snowflake babies" as of April 27, 2006. What is to happen to the other 399,900?

[sinkingfeeling]

17. Please don't try and use logic with Chimpy & the RW wackos! It might

cause * to have to 'work hard'!

[underpants]

18. I posted about the politics of this yesterday

BEFORE I read that article and what it alludes to.

I don't trust ANYTHING coming out of their mouths and automatically look to see how it could best benefit them- experience has taught me that.

[Lasher]

27. Here's what's happening to the rest

Nearly 400,000 In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) embryos are in storage in the U.S., but less than 3 percent has been donated for research. Almost as many has been designated to be discarded each year. Only a fraction of those that do arrive in the labs are suitable for study.

The Power to Divide, National Geographic July 2005 p. 14

Photograph by Yorgos Nikas, M.D.

A mere speck nestled in the eye of a needle, a five-day-old embryo (photographed using an electron microscope) contains controversial stem cells.

Edit for spelling.

[AngryAmish]

19. Yeah, those kids are filth

[Lasher]

20. Do they ever go on sale?

I'd like to buy a couple and put them to work on my farm, but that seems like a pretty steep price to me.

[brook]

26. They have so many of them...

Maybe it would be better marketing than what they have now if they did put them on sale -say at @Whole Foods or Trader Joe's. Next to the organic lamb chops.:sarcasm:

OTH, Won't the rupture - er, 'rapture' include innocent petrie dishes?

[Nite Owl]

25. Shipped by FedEx?

Guess they are the modern equivalent of the stork!

I have no objection to the program but there are so many embryos that are still not used, this doesn't solve the problem of them just being thrown away instead of used for the betterment of lives.