In a study published in the journal Nature Cell Biology, Chinese researchers performed experiments on mice, showing for the first time that a mammal can produce new eggs as an adult that lead to healthy offspring, reports theWashington Post. Scientists from Shanghai Jiao Tong University identified female germ line stem cells in ovaries removed from mice. After coaxing the cells to multiply, they were injected into sterile mice. Some of the cells matured into eggs, and another group of mice was able to produce healthy offspring.

While men produce new sperm daily, for at least 50 years scientists have believed that female mammals are born with all the eggs they will ever have and the supply is depleted over time, leaving them infertile after menopause. The new study raises new possibilities for the treatment of infertility, as freezing stem cells may be more efficient than freezing eggs and there may be ways to stimulate the cells to produce eggs in older women. The cells may also have a use in stem cell research by producing embryonic stem cell lines specific to individual patients.

Several recent studies have suggested that women may generate more eggs during adulthood, but this is the first time scientists have obtained the cells that can produce healthy new eggs from a mammal. "If you are looking to disprove that females cannot make new eggs, this paper proves it. It's a really significant paper," said Harvard Medical School professor Jonathan L. Tilly, who published some of the earlier research. "This is the smoking gun."

Other scientists say more research needs to be done on humans, not mice, and question if the mice used in the experiment were really completely sterilized. "The aging process of the human egg differs fundamentally from that of the mouse egg," said David L. Keefe, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of South Florida. "Except at Disney World, humans are not large mice."

Still, doctors hope that the cells could lead to new procedures someday, especially since treating infertility has become a lucrative, multibillion dollar business. The L.A. Times reports that the competition became so intense at the Huntington Reproductive Center in Pasadena, one of the biggest fertility practices on the West coast, that it has spurred a series of lawsuits. After founder Dr. Joel Batzofin's business grew to make a $5 million yearly profit, his five partners took a secret vote and ousted him from the business. The former partners sued each other in a six year legal battle that led to private detectives posing as patients. A female detective submitted to an ultrasound of her uterus and ovaries, and one of the doctors gave his own sperm sample to a rival doctor, pretending to be a patient, all in an effort to show that Batzofin was violating a non-compete agreement at his new practice. "It's a cutthroat business," said Batzofin. "There is a lot of greed."

But according to another new study published this week, even more women may be turning to fertility treatments, as having a high-powered career has supposedly been linked to lowered fertility. The Times of London reports that University of Utah anthropologist Elizabeth Cashdan found that women with stressful careers experience a hormonal shift that replaces estrogen with male androgens that are associated with strength, stamina, and competitiveness.

Cashdan analyzed the waist to hip ratio (WHR) of women from 37 different populations and cultures, and found the average WHR to be above 0.8. She says that due to a hormonal shift, the women had a more straight-up-and-down figure that is less conducive to child-bearing. Previous studies have found that women with an hourglass figure, with a WHR of 0.7 are the most fertile.

"Although the hormonal profile associated with a high WHR may favour success in some stressful and difficult circumstances where women must work hard, there are well-known costs," said Cashdan. "Women may suffer lower fertility and possibly lower attractiveness to men who may have an innate preference for curviness."

A Possible Step Toward Setting The Biological Clock [The Washington Post]
Fertility Doctors' Competition Spawns Lawsuits [The L.A. Times]
Is Your Career Making You Infertile? [The Times of London]

Recently, surrogate mothers from across America have unfortunately been forced to grapple with this issue. Two companies that paired infertile couples with surrogate mothers, and oversaw the subsequent payments, have stopped paying both their surrogates and egg donors. The money in question was supposedly placed into trusts, which may quite simply no longer exist. One of the firms, SurroGenesis USA, was flooded with complaints from families and responded by sending out an email that read: "We want you all to know that after failing to receive satisfactory answers regarding the holding companies' financial status, and in the interest of protecting those dependent on receipt of funds… we have contacted the authorities and requested an investigation."

For many parents, this is a crushing blow. SurroGenesis' fees include a starting fee of $12,000 and payment to surrogate mothers of at least $18,000. Parents were also asked to pay certain legal fees, and provide money for maternity clothing, medical care and other expenses that add thousands to the bill. The money they gave to SurroGenesis was set up in trust funds administered by the Michael Charles group. SurroGenesis says that the money is now gone, and with it, the life savings of many expectant parents. Not to mention the income of more than a few pregnant women.

The surrogates are now faced with a tough decision. Do they go through with the pregnancy now that they are no longer being paid? Or is it time to abort the fetus and find a new job? Slate's William Saletan explores this issue, and ponders the ethical questions surrounding aborting another couple's child. He writes:

Surrogates aren't mercenaries. But they do need to be paid for their sacrifices. With every week that passes, they endure more of pregnancy's burdens. They submit to exams, tests, and other procedures. They take on serious medical risks. They forgo activities that might harm the fetus. They lose the ability to commute to and work at other jobs. They have bills to pay. At least one abandoned surrogate says she has received an eviction notice.

If you stop paying your surrogate, she needs to quit and find another job, just like any other worker. But surrogacy isn't like any other job. The only way to quit a pregnancy is to abort it.

Saletan prays that the surrogates will continue, selflessly, to go on with the pregnancies. He even suggests that sympathetic readers donate money to the broke surrogates (although since the article was published, this has been changed). Saletan's piece focuses on the moral issues that surround this case, and while he does conclude that it is the surrogate's body, and thus the surrogate's choice, Tracy Clark-Flory at Salon sees the issue as less of a question. Clark-Flory has no doubt that it is up to the surrogate to choose when her pregnancy ends. She writes:

Like Saletan, I would love for these couples — who are victims of crime and should be paid major damages — to get the babies they have been anxiously anticipating, but it simply, painfully isn't their decision. I generally enjoy the kind of philosophical gymnastics that are part of Saletan's routine and, for that matter, any contrarian who can consistently set your brain aflame; I don't enjoy feeling led on by a politically motivated mental exercise, though. When Saletan asks me to picture myself in one of these anomalous and horrific situations, in which another woman is carrying my baby, it makes my heart drop, my stomach churn — and all those other clichés that convey absolute devastation. It doesn't, however, make me reconsider that most fundamental pro-choice principle: It's her body.

As Clark-Flory points out, this is not actually a new ethical question. She argues that Saleman is making the issue about the politics of abortion in general, which is something she wants to avoid. As a pro-choicer, there is no moral ambiguity here, just the simple fact: her body, her choice. She compares this situation to the situation of thousands of fathers who do not want their potential offspring aborted. And as Clark-Flory illustrates, despite the strangeness of the whole debate, it is essentially the same thing.

Fortunately, this philosophical discussion may wind up having no bearing on the lives of the surrogates or the couples that have been screwed over by SurroGenesis. According to Andrew Vozimer, a lawyer involved in the case, so far none of the surrogates have aborted or indicated that they were planning on it.

Money woes reported at firms involved in surrogate births [LA Times]
Fetal Foreclosure [Slate]
Mommy War: Surrogate vs. Bio [Salon]

• PETA has taken some time out from their busy schedule of objectifying women to call McDonald's out on their inhumane method of slaughtering chickens. • Doctors say that the chronic stress caused by the recession may lead to lower testosterone levels among men. • Although Showtime has its fair share of hookers, victims, and doormats, the network is leading the way to better roles for female actors with what CEO Matt Blank calls their "strong women's club:" "You're talking Edie Falco. You're talking Mary-Louise Parker, Elizabeth Perkins, Billy Piper, Toni Collette ... these women are some of the most exceptional talents on television right now." • Click here to watch the latest video from Jay Smooth about Rihanna, Chris Brown, and the greater issue of violence against women. • A woman who was allegedly set on fire by her husband embraced him while she was still burning, and held on until he was also in flames. The couple died in the hospital from their burns on Sunday. • Till-Death-Do-Us-Part.com is a new dating site that is set to be the e-harmony for the terminally ill. • Minister for the Olympics, Tessa Jowell, is pushing a rule change that would allow women to compete in every Olympic sport (currently, there are 40 medal events that are for men only). She also hopes to open synchronized swimming and rhythmic gymnastics to male athletes. • According to the National Pet Owners Survey, there are 88.3 million pet cats living in America, compared with 74.8 million dogs. While more families own dogs than cats, cat owners are more likely to own multiple felines, which has led to the discrepancy in numbers. • A 41-year-old woman has plead guilty to reckless homicide after dragging her 73-year-old husband around their pool, essentially "exercising" him to death. • Sunday's New York Times had this sad story about Romanian mothers leaving their children and homes for better paying jobs abroad. • The latest wave of "paparazzi" in Seoul aren't looking out looking to capture celebs and their spawn, but rather the small crimes of everyday people. Capturing even a minor crime on film- like lighting up near a non-smoking sign- can pay big. •

• Nadya Suleman, the newly-famous mother of 14, has hired an agent. Nadya says she hopes to become a TV childcare expert. • A new study has found that the context in which women recover memories of their childhood sexual abuse can greatly effect the authenticity of those memories. • Authorities in Egypt have been forced to address the rising rates of sexual harassment in Cairo, what was once considered one of the safer mega-cities in the world. • A woman from New Jersey has launched a website, 52Weeks2FindHim.com, to help in her husband hunt. Neenah Pickett has been on several dates with men who contacted her online, but says she rules out anyone who sends her a picture of themselves without their shirt. • Women with higher levels of a hormone produced midway through pregnancy have a higher risk of developing postpartum depression, study says. • A recent study has found that, among high school biology, chemistry, and physics students, there is a noticeable bias against female teachers. • Canadian researchers have developed a new tool to screen for breast cancer, which they believe may help doctors better tailor treatment to individual patients. • Authorities say that a kindergartner found a stash of Oxycontin in her pants that had allegedly been hidden there by her live-in uncle. He is being charged with possession and reckless endangerment. • Screw astrology! In Japan the hot new sham science is blood typing. Matchmakers, kindergartens, and companies are all using blood types to determine compatibility. Unsurprisingly, the theory was first imported to Japan from Nazi race ideologies in the 1930s. • The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and the British Fertility Society have issued a joint statement that warns women against freezing their eggs for "lifestyle reasons" on moral grounds. • Doctors (different ones, we assume) have issued a warning against wearing large earrings because they could potentially damage earlobes, leaving "unsightly" scars. • A trial is scheduled to open Wednesday in a lawsuit filed eight years ago against Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus over animal abuse claims. • A leading biologist has described blushing as one of the "biggest gaps in evolutionary theory." Unable to determine any solid reason for blushing, scientists theorize that it may have been a deterrent against lying, designed to favor the most honest among us. • The now-defunct strip club Scores has left behind a treasure trove of cheap wine, marked down to 97% of its original price. • New research has indicated that a strong jawline is one of the telltale signs that a women will be unfaithful. • In response to the lame damsels in distress that populate romance novels, writer Andrea Pickens has created a trilogy about three kick-ass female spies. • Science has brought us one step closer to our all-women utopia! For the first time, developmental biologists have turned adult cells into egg and sperm cell precursors. • An elderly couple from Washington have passed away after 62 years of marriage, a mere six hours apart. (I haven't seen it yet, but I think there's a Notebook reference to be made here). • Historians have found the diary of a Victorian S&M slave Hannah Cullwick. The 19th-century notebook explicitly documents the sexual relationship between Hannah and her master Arthur Munby. They believe that Hannah turned down the opportunity to become a Victorian lady, preferring instead to continue living as Arthur's slave. • 

A family acquaintance revealed yesterday that the previously anonymous California woman who gave birth to octuplets on Monday is a 33-year-old single mother who lives with her parents and already has six children (including twins), according to MSNBC. Within hours, the media had tracked down the still unnamed woman's parents and set up camp outside their home. Angela Suleman, the children's grandmother, says her daughter had embryos implanted last year. When she found out she was pregnant with multiples, she was given the option of selectively reducing the number of embryos and she declined. "What do you suggest she should have done? She refused to have them killed," said Suleman. "That is a very painful thing."

Previously, fertility experts had guessed that the octuplets were the result of fertility drugs taken before artificial insemination because, as British gynecologist Peter Bowen puts it, "no doctor in his right mind" would implant eight embryos in a woman's womb. The L.A. Times reports that, under the guidelines of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, U.S. doctors normally would not implant more than two embryos at a time in a woman under the age of 35. But, it appears that there was a doctor who doesn't have the same ethical reservations as Bowen and did not follow the U.S. guidelines. As discussed on Babble yesterday, the birth of the octuplets has caused the media and some OB/GYNs to say that it may be time to reduce the chances that a woman will get pregnant with multiples due to the health risks. Multiples are often born prematurely and are more likely to have cerebral palsy or not survive the first week of life. Women who carry multiples have a greater risk for pre-eclampsia, miscarriage, and hemorrhaging. Because of these risks, Britain recently released new guidelines that only allow IVF doctors to implant one embryo at a time, unless the woman is over 40, in which case they may implant two, and other countries have issued similar restrictions.

All week long, the media has reported on the health risks of having higher-order multiples, but few have directly addressed what the debate really comes down to: who gets to decide what a woman does with her own body. Limiting the number of embryos a woman can carry at a time brings up the same ethical issues as abortion, but it's easier and more comfortable to use the term "selective reduction" and make jokes about breastfeeding eight babies than get into a debate on choice.

But does being pro-choice mean that one should support a woman's right to decide to implant an extremely high number of embryos, even when it may endanger the health of the unborn children? Few would be comfortable with having a law that forced someone to "selectively reduce," but does the responsibility then fall on the doctor to not implant that many embryos in the first place? Doctors quoted in the MSNBC report say that though they are against multiple births, it's not their decision to make. "I don't think it's our job to tell them how many babies they're allowed to have. I am not a policeman for reproduction in the United States," says Dr. Games Grifo, professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the NYU School of Medicine. Says Dr. Jeffrey Steinberg, medical director of Fertility Institutes: "Who am I to say that six is the limit?... There are people who like to have big families."

A report this morning on the new information about the mother of octuplets from Today:

Family: Octuplets' Mother Has 6 Other Children [MSNBC]
Pulling The Plug On Plural Pregnancies [Babble]
Octuplets' Mother Already Has Twins, Four Other Children [L.A. Times]

Newsweek reports that this week, the American Fertility Association (AFA) will hold the first in a series of one-hour conversations about reproductive health with a "Manicures & Martinis" event at a Manhattan nail salon. The event is targeted at women in their 20s and 30s who aren't ready to have children yet. A group of 25 women will be served martinis and alcohol-free "fertilitinis" at the salon as a fertility expert leads a discussion about the reality of the biological clock and risk factors for fertility. "I wanted to create a program that was soft, that was light and that was non-threatening," says the AFA's director of development, Corey Whelan, who adds that the message of the program is "one of hope, not one of doom and gloom." The event is being promoted through social networking sites like Facebook so women can invite their friends in a "girlfriend-to-girlfriend experience."

The first salon event will be run by Dr. Jaime Grifo, program director at the New York University Fertility Center, who says the goal of the program is "not to be paternalistic or dictatorial, it's to be educational so people make decisions consciously rather than unconsciously." Though some say that harping on the threat of infertility is sexist and unfair to single women, others argue that having information on the topic is empowering. Though fertility varies greatly in women, studies show that generally fertility starts to decline in the late 20s and drops of dramatically in the late 30s. Grifo says that while many young women assume they'll have children one day, they don't think about how to get there. "It's so easy to deny and not think about these things and then show up in my office at 44 and say, 'I've tried for two months, what's wrong?'" she says.

While the AFA says the goal of the "Manicures & Martinis" event is not to induce a panic among younger women, in the UK, one Christian group attempted to instill the fear of infertility in even younger women to get them to refuse the HPV vaccine. The Daily Mail reports that the group Christian Voice ran an ad in the magazine New Statesmen that claimed: "Every Government initiative, including the HPV vaccine, will increase [teenage infertility], but as all the targets revolve around pregnancy, no-one in power knows how many young people they are making sterile and nobody cares." Following complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority, the agency investigated and ruled that the group has to pull the ad, since there is no significant scientific evidence that the HPV vaccine causes infertility in teenagers. Christian Voice now claims that their freedom of speech is being limited, since they argue that the HPV vaccine will increase teen sex and cause a surge in STD infections that cause infertility.

The AFA program in New York will discuss the negative effects of STDs, smoking, and substance abuse on fertility, in addition to age. It will also address fertility treatment options such as egg freezing, a procedure that can cost up to $10,000 and is still considered experimental. Though the AFA claims the only goal of the campaign is to educate women, it is funded by the drug company that makes the fertility drug Follistim, a pharmacy that provides fertility prescriptions, and several fertility clinics. But Whelan insists that though the AFA needs funding from these groups, they have not influenced what will be taught in the infertility prevention program. "We're trying to decrease the patient population, not increase it," she says.

Have Another ‘Fertilitini’ [Newsweek]
Watchdog Bans Christian Advert That Claims Cervical Cancer Vaccine Causes Infertility [The Daily Mail]

The study examined completed questionnaires of 80 egg donors from around the U.S. All of the women participating had been paid for donating their eggs, with payments ranging from $1,100 to $7,300. In the questionnaires, two-thirds of women rated their feelings about the entire experience (including the months of no booze, no smoking, no sex) as one hundred percent positive. The other third was not so certain.

The most common negative feelings women reported on the survey were frustration that the donation process was anonymous, and feeling that they had been underpaid (considering the physical side effects reported, which include ovarian cysts, fertility problems and weight gain, its not hard to understand why a woman would feel underpaid receiving $1,100 for the unrestricted access to her fallopian tubes). Seven of the women who responded said that they were still curious to know exactly what happened to their eggs, and whether any children were brought to term with their DNA. Two donors “developed ongoing concerns that a child that they bear and raise might, by chance, meet and develop a relationship with her donor offspring.” Although two women out of eighty can hardly be considered representative of the general population of egg donors, it is interesting that a significant number of respondents aren’t thrilled with their choice.

Another important factor that is often ignored is the economic aspect of the transaction. The survey did ask about the monetary compensation, however, it did not mention any correlation between the happy donors and the well-paid donors. While they reported that some women claim they were not motivated purely by altruistic reasons, and some (the more honest ones?) admit that money was their sole motivation, the article did not provide numbers for these respondents.

In last months Wall Street Journal, “Annie,” a 29-year-old lawyer, said that she chose to donate her eggs not because she needed the money, but because she “thought it was a great thing to do to help people.” Unfortunately, her admirable act did leave her “heartbroken” when the baby conceived with her egg died in utero. The second couple who received her eggs wanted an anonymous arrangement, so Annie does not know whether or not there is a baby on the way. Annie says that although she will probably donate again, being an egg donor "is something to seriously think about, and not just go into for the money. You have to ask yourself, once this process is over and there's this baby out there, how are you going to feel? Think about it — a lot."

Egg Donation: Most Donors Satisfied [CBS]

Related: Women Line Up To Donate Eggs [WSJ]

Earlier: Do Women Really Become Surrogates For Purely Altrustic Reasons?

Birth, a pretty self-explanatory film (it's about how some women climax during childbirth, natch) we've mentioned before, is making its televised debut tonight on 20/20, and a brief article in the Times by Lisa Belkin has inspired 330 comments from impassioned moms either supporting or maligning the doc.

Belkin writes, "Some women will see this film as a declaration of emancipation from the medicalization of childbirth. Others will see it as yet one more way to raise expectations and make new mothers feel inadequate if they do not experience the 'ideal' birth." While that notion seems ridiculous on one level — that women are concerned about measuring up to other women, even while they're pushing out a kid — the comments from the times reveal a ton of judgment, insecurity, and competition from both natural and hospital birth proponents. We've cherrypicked some particularly revealing comments and put them below.

Oh, boy. Looks like some folks are already on the bitter bus! I didn’t have an orgasm during delivery, either (meconium led to pitocin led to epidural for me), but that doesn’t mean it can’t happen. Jealous much?

I’ve given birth three times. One in hospital, one in birthing center, and one at home. All were so painful I lost my voice. Orgasm during child birth seems gross and weird. Not to mention the midwife/ doctor/ nurse/ whatever around while you are giving birth and who would want to have an orgasmic birth with people watching you. Giving birth is hard enough, let along with people around watching you and then expecting you to orgasm while you are in the most insane pain anyone could possibly imagine. How intrusive and bizarre. I can’t even get my mind around it.

I used hypno-birthing as a means to overcome the psychological wall developed by all the dramatic stories of pain shared by the women in my life. In my experience, and my husband backs this up, I never described it as painful or cried out, rather as a mix of wanted and unwanted pressure with some moments of pleasure. I do believe that for some women I know there is a sufficient range of experiences to include orgasm if they are able to relax sufficiently which is not easy due, I believe, mostly to the expectation of pain which is self-fulfilling. Watch animals in the wild who aren’t taught what to expect. They don’t cry out in pain. For others its the most painful thing they ever experience. I believe this is mostly due to that expectation combined with the way many hospitals pressure one to push and to see the whole experience as medical and anxiety producing.

My entire pregnancy (planned as a single woman) was perfect, and I knew the birthing would be simple, easy, and definitely pain-free. After all, the word “labor” means hard work, not pain. It’s only “modernized” women (and their partners) who’ve been persuaded by outside sources that there should be pain.

Talk about trivializing an amazing experience. How many orgasms will most women have during their lives? Hopefully hundreds or thousands. How many times does a human being who you’ve been carrying for ten months all of a sudden go from being a concept to a living breathing human being? I mean honestly, is having an orgasm supposed to improve the experience?

I also am rather concerned about this sort of cultural politicization of birth. I agree that needless C-sections are bad; I also am a historian who has read numerous accounts of women and babies dying in childbirth in those wonderful aeons before the medicalization of childbirth. And they still do, in those benighted countries that lack a medical infrastructure. It’s called ‘labor’ for a reason! As a mother of two I do think that women need to be aware of, and capable of choosing, a wide variety of options, but we need to avoid treating those many women who may find a hospital birth more secure as if they are frightened ninnies.

At the risk of being crass, I hope this doesn’t portend some entrepreneur coming out with baby-shaped dildos.

Orgasms During Childbirth? [NYT]

Earlier: Orgasmic Childbirth: We Are Not Making This Up

It reminded me of this passage from the hotly debated Alex Kuczynski piece in the New York Times Mag:

In our experience with the surrogacy industry, no one lingered on the topic of money. We encountered the wink-nod rule: Surrogates would never say they were motivated to carry a child for another couple just for money; they were all motivated by altruism. This gentle hypocrisy allows surrogacy to take place. Without it, both sides would have to acknowledge the deep cultural revulsion against attaching a dollar figure to the creation of a human life.

One could debate whether or not pure altruism exists (I generally lean towards no), and obviously reproductive motivations are multifaceted. But it seems to me that while "doing something good for families" might be a perk of being a surrogate or donating your eggs, the main motivation is money. And hey, according to the Journal, you can get $25,000 for your eggs if you're "100% Jewish with ... High SAT Scores... Attractive, at Healthy Body Weight and Free of Genetic Diseases." If the economy keeps going the way it is, at those prices I may be putting my eggs on the market.

Ova Time: Women Line Up To Donate Eggs — For Money [WSJ]
Her Body, My Baby [NY Times Magazine]

Earlier: Writer, Socialite Explains Her "Mad Desire" For A Baby Through Surrogacy

And that's not all! Of the 50,000 embryos currently being stored in the United States, "Forty-three percent [of the women] did not want the embryos discarded. About 66 percent said they would be likely to donate the embryos for research, but that option was available at only four of the nine clinics in the survey. Twenty percent said they were likely to keep the embryos frozen forever," the Times says.

The cost of keeping embryos frozen is about $200 a year, which isn't much when compared to the cost of IVF treatments, which usually run to tens of thousands of dollars. Someone like Celine Dion, who has candidly spoken about her frozen eggs, obviously doesn't have to concern herself with costs.

Doctors say the major problem is that patients who have their embryos frozen are not given enough options up front. Dr. Anne Lyerly, an OB/GYN at Duke, tells USA Today that the issue of what to do with extra embryos should "absolutely should be raised at the beginning" of fertility treatments, and adds that the storage bill should mention it. And the Times notes that some parents even want unconventional embryo disposals that include "holding a small ceremony during the thawing and disposal of the embryos, or having them placed in the woman’s body at a time in her cycle when she would probably not become pregnant, so that they would die naturally."

All of this is sticky business when it comes to theories of personhood and the choice ramifications that go along with it. According to EurekAlert, This study "reveals previously unexplored concerns that patients have about their embryos, and it comes at a time when several states and even the federal government are attempting to enact legislation that would either assert an embryo is a person, allow abandoned embryos to be adopted by another couple, or allow unused embryos to become 'wards of the state.'" First world problems, people. First world problems.

Parents Torn Over Fate of Frozen Embryos [NY Times]
Céline Dion Candid About Having More Kids [People]
Fertility Patients Unsure What To Do With Leftover Embryos [USA Today]
Largest Study Of Fertility Patients Shows Concerns About Embryo Disposition [EurekAlert]

Earlier: Writer, Socialite Explains Her "Mad Desire" For A Baby Through Surrogacy

Kuczynski talks about the deep pain and secrecy many women face when they are infertile, and "the terrible, wishful math" she tortured herself with each passing month because of her own infertility. Alex wasn't getting any younger and at age 39 enlisted a surrogate to carry her and her husband's baby to term. Kuczynski is self-aware enough to know that paying a ton of money (about $25,000) for a baby-carrier when so many foster children need a good home will be considered by some to be immensely selfish, and this is how she explains her unremitting desire for a biological baby.

What began as wistful longing in my 20s had blistered into a mad desire that seemed to defy logic. The compulsion to create our own bloodline seemed medieval, and I knew we could enjoy our marriage — our lives — without a child. Yet I couldn’t argue myself out of my desire…Die without having created a life, and die two deaths: the death of yourself, and the death of the immense opportunity that is a child. Not being pregnant suddenly seemed like a public statement, one that left me feeling exposed and vulnerable.

The thing to remember is that, for all women, regardless of socioeconomic status, decisions surrounding fertility are fraught with incredibly deep and often ambivalent emotions. In 50 years we're all going to be gestating babies in free floating artificial uteri anyway, so everyone needs to give other ladies a damn break.

Her Body, My Baby [NY Times Magazine — not online yet]

Earlier: Scientists Predict That Babies Of The Future Will Be Born To Centarians With Artificial Wombs

"You just keep having children. This is how you keep a man," Sylvia, mother of twelve, told Maternowska. "If you don't give [children] to him, he doesn't give [money] to you.... And sometimes even if you do give, you lose anyhow. Life is hard." Women would do anything to keep a man. There was a brisk trade in sexy outfits and wild rumors circulated about love potions, some from voodoo healers, some home-made, including rice and beans cooked in water in which a woman had washed her underwear.

That's a passage about Haiti. Haiti, poorest country in the Western hemisphere…is there enough rice in Haiti to waste on a man who might leave? Or can a woman cook dirt cookies in her underwear water, too? Not uplifting questions, sure, but what exactly did the World Bank so fear from these people that they were willing to endorse the literal dragging of Indian women to sterilization clinics and worse, the measures that in China all too often resulted in forced third-trimester abortions?

Well, eugenicists feared the introduction of the Pill into the First World would cause "the swamping of the Nordic and Anglo-Saxon races by imbeciles, blacks, Asians, and eastern and southern Europeans," and technically, that happened. By the late sixties, books like the Population Bomb had softened that message, focusing on India where the (not improbable) prophesy was that "squalid, teeming slums and mass starvation" would beget "imminent political collapse." Ahhh, political collapse, our generation knows it well! But then what?

Particularly after the Communist takeover of China in 1949, Washington policymakers began to fear the rise of an increasingly resentful—and rapidly proliferating—global population of poor people who were easily susceptible to radical ideas and militaristic leaders. But in the end such people, if they threatened anyone, were mainly a danger to themselves.

As we know from the poor countries in which we've brought about political collapse lately!

Helen Epstein's whole review is worth reading — and the NYRB is worth subscribing to and makes a great gift for dads! — but here's a critical line. As anyone who has ever been in love knows, treating others humanely might come more naturally when you suspect they might have the capacity to hurt you.

The greatest threats to the global climate come from China and the West, where birthrates are extremely low. The future of the planet depends less on the number of babies born in Uganda than on the choices we in the West make, which, at the moment, are not good ones. As recently as 2004, a Japanese study found that when shopping for cars, Americans cared more about the size of the cup holder than fuel efficiency.[10] Our habits may be shifting, but ever so slowly.

The Strange History Of Birth Control? [New York Review Of Books]
Earlier: Is It About Time We Made A "Pregnancy Pact" Of Our Own? [Jezebel]

Related: New Limits To Growth Revive Malthusian Fears [WSJ]
RU-486: Brought To You By John D. Rockefeller [Some weird website I don't think is related to antiabortion zealots]

"For fertilization to take place, sperm must be able to reach the egg and then penetrate its outer layer," the L.A. Times notes. "Sperm that don't move well...may be unable to do so." As "lifestyle"
can be a a factor when "sperm that don't move well," I'm forced to surmise that too much weed renders one's junk unable to do anything but lie on the proverbial couch of one's innards.

Anyway! When couples are having fertility problems, 67% of women seek treatment before their male partners do, and almost half of women surveyed by the IntegraMed company reported that their partners only sought help when pressured. "Both the male and female partner should be worked up simultaneously," Dr. Walsh says. "Men are just as deserving of a comprehensive evaluation." Walsh adds that part of the issue is that women can just go to their gynecologist when facing reproductive problems, whereas men don't have the same kind of go-to doctor with whom they feel comfortable. All the same: if you're having issues with babymaking, make sure to get everyone involved a full medical workup.

Male
Biological Clock 'Ticks Too' [BBC]
Men
Can Be Infertile Too [LAT]

And Italy, (where the birth rate is now about 1.3) isn't the only sumptuous locale where the birth rate is falling drastically short of the 2.1 "replacement rate": Greece and Spain are low on kids, too. But not, somehow, by choice: a European Commission survey found that the average European woman wants 2.36 children — and in Italy the answer was actually higher than average! But here's the catch.

According to Hans-Peter Kohler of the University of Pennsylvania, analysis of recent studies showed that “high fertility was associated with high female labor-force participation . . . and the lowest fertility levels in Europe since the mid-1990s are often found in countries with the lowest female labor-force participation.” In other words, working mothers are having more babies than stay-at-home moms.

How can this be? A study released in February of this year by Letizia Mencarini, the demographer from the University of Turin, and three of her colleagues compared the situation of women in Italy and the Netherlands. They found that a greater percentage of Dutch women than Italian women are in the work force but that, at the same time, the fertility rate in the Netherlands is significantly higher (1.73 compared to 1.33). In both countries, people tend to have traditional views about gender roles, but Italian society is considerably more conservative in this regard, and this seems to be a decisive difference. The hypothesis the sociologists set out to test was borne out by the data: women who do more than 75 percent of the housework and child care are less likely to want to have another child than women whose husbands or partners share the load. Put differently, Dutch fathers change more diapers, pick up more kids after soccer practice and clean up the living room more often than Italian fathers; therefore, relative to the population, there are more Dutch babies than Italian babies being born. As Mencarini said, “It’s about how much the man participates in child care.”

In other words:

By this logic, the worst sort of system is one that partly buys into the modern world — expanding educational and employment opportunities for women — but keeps its traditional mind-set. This would seem to define the demographic crisis that Italy, Spain and Greece find themselves in — and, perhaps, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan and other parts of the world.

Put another way, stay away from Catholics, Asia hands and maybe classics majors. Society doesn't want their genes anyway. (Guess who's hereby off the hook?) Go find a Danish boyfriend and move to Italy once you're officially Euro! There's your pregnancy pact.

No Babies? [NYT Mag]

Tiny Voices Defy Child Marriage In Yemen [NYT]

Related: Mayor Plans of "Listening Posts" On Teen Pregnancy [Gloucester Times]

But you know, at the end of the day, they have a kid who had an abortion and I'm sorry, getting an abortion sucks. (I know some of you disagree, but whatever, I maintain it sucks.) And seeing your kid in pain sucks, especially over something like this, so you can see why they got pissed, even if they really shouldn't have dont any of this.

And then there's Cindi. Just trying to undo what would have been a disastrous situation for both kids, a little pushy, thinks she's doing everyone a favor. And now: mugshot all over the news, the target of all manner of righteous ire from the Jesus freak contingent, a year in jail.

But hey, every cloud has a silver lining and yes it is raining down on the Georgia therapist population.

Also: parental notification laws = suck.

Woman Pretended To Be Mom Of Girl Who Got Abortion, Say Officials [Atlanta Journal-Constitution]

My best college friend, the one who got married in Israel, she's apparently breastfeeding. I just got an email about the kid. 10 POUNDS 2 OUNCES?? Oh, phew…C-section. What's so wrong with C-sections anyway? What's so wrong with baby formula? French women supposedly smoke throughout pregnancy so their babies will be smaller. True story. Not that that keeps French men from fucking around on their wives. But the women, they fuck around too. Maybe they have more options what with their preserved vaginas? Maybe it's all just really fucking hard. Maybe this is why dick size is so important, even though it's not, not now anyway. Maybe dying alone is just fine.

Okay, and maybe British men all have really small cocks and that would be the problem here.

"Have you ever fucked a tart who's had a kid?"
"No."
He didn't hear and turned to me mouth ajar. I shook my head." Well I…" He zig-zagged crazily, squeezed between a taxi and a newspaper van, and drifted two-wheeled up queensway.
"Well I fucking have, and it's no joke. Don't know you're there."
…
"Like waving a flag in space.
…
"Their guts flop, too. Jen'll be okay for one, maybe more.
"No fuck."
"I said she could adopt some, but tarts like having babies.
"Their cunts…" He flicked off the heater. "Turn to mush."
"Tits"
We pulled away
"Smell of bad milk. And they hang. Pancake tits."
Really?
"Yur."
"Jungle tits. But I thought, Fuck it. Jen's all right. Firm. And I don't fuck her that much now."

Ring Of Fire [Elle]
The Rachel Papers [Amazon]

See, Stuart Miller made all his employees sign up for that Landmark Forum thing.
The Landmark Forum was the invention of a used-car salesman named Jack Rosenberg who changed his name to Werner Erhard after reading a story on some prominent German dudes in Esquire and got all sorts of self-absorbed seventies philosophical narcissists to sign up for his classes before fleeing to the Caymans in the wake of a 60 Minutes expose, after which he left the Landmark "brand" to his older brother for a rumored $1 but an actual multimillion dollar sum. The Forum all but locks people in rooms and uses a time-honored cult regimen of weird jargon, relentless repetition and food deprivation to get them to spill their innermost secrets/fears/insecurities and and shake off their "victim mentalities" but paradoxically convinces everyone who calls it a cult that the Forum is a huge misunderstood victim of societal prejudice and hate.

46. Accounts of EST seminars describe seemingly religious experiences. For example, a former participant described portions of the course as "filled with moans, sobs, whimpers, and cries…an earsplitting scream…writhing and flailing in the air." Plaintiff Glasgow witnessed very similar reactions when he was forced to attend Landmark sessions.

53. When Plaintiff Glasgow expressed this uneasiness, Defendant Miller's only response was that Landmark is "very much the language of the company"

And bondage was the "bondage" of the company!

and that "all of the company's executives, owners, and board members have benefited from taking multiple landmark seminars."

Upon accepting the promotion to the position of Director of Marketing, he even asked Defendant Miller if he could discontinue the Landmark sessions.At such time, Defendant Miller told him specifically that the Landmark seminars were mandatory for company executives and was all part of being a "team player."

But back to the sex. Basically, Scott Glasgow agreed to sleep in Stuart Miller's bed on business trips if he didn't try anything, but then woke up in the middle of the night to find him caressing his head, which was weird, and he moved to the couch. Then Stuart made him dress in drag for a video presentation that subsequently got aired to clients and held an employee retreat where he showed him his ass during a "team building" exercise. There was a bunch of other creepy stuff and finally Glasgow asked to get his own bed on business trips and Miller accused him of being an "anger addict" and told him that he "and everyone else in the company were afraid to work with him." The lawsuit, for your pleasure, is here (click on any image to enlarge):

So what can we learn from this, besides that growing up gay in a family of Fundamentalist Christians fucks you up? I think that American business, from American Apparel and Abercrombie & Fitch to the massive hedge fund that trader sued for allegations that his boss forced him to take estrogen, is dominated by hucksters and frauds who are very good at selling things that, as Vanessa Grigoriadis said of the Forum itself, essentially "come down to the Nike slogan — 'Just Do It,'" or in the words of one Forum teacher, "LIFE IS EMPTY AND MEANINGLESS, AND IT'S EMPTY AND MEANINGLESS THAT IT'S EMPTY AND MEANINGLESS," which is to say, if you repeat something stupid enough times you can probably make a lot of money selling things as mundane as T-shirts and sperm, and your employees, so confused and cash-hungry from years of being barraged with pointless marketing messages, will probably go along with it.

But Glasgow could have made the whole thing up to settle a score with his ex-boyfriend. In which case he is even more awesome.

Suit Against Sperm Bank Firm Claims Sexual Harassment And Cult-Like Behavior [Village Voice]

Stuart Miller — Prayer Warriors — The TRUE Story of a Gay Son, His Fundamentalist Christian Family, and their Battle For His Soul

Related: Pay Money, Be Happy [New York Magazine]

Trader Lawsuit Reveals Secret To $13 Billion Hedge Fund Riches

Of course, that can also be a double-aged sword: "Those with two full-time nannies say that, since each is aware of what the other is doing, there are times when each one feels unfairly burdened with too much work and thinks the other is slacking. "You have to explain, 'You're here looking after the baby and the house, but she bought groceries and went to the post office to send a certified letter for me, and she got the kids to the tailor and playdate,' says Yael. "You wish they could figure it out on their own, but you have to intervene." Perhaps someone should get a team of McKinsey consultants in to optimize these work flows?

In other cases, too many nannies may mean that children don't learn to do things for themselves. "Sometimes nannies do things the child should be doing, like picking up toys," says Stacy Rosenthal, a West Village resident who works in product development.

Or um alternately like the recession could not arrive soon enough.

And lesbians don't need Roe v. Wade! Feminists, we don't "cut men out of our lives." Sure, after a decade or so of interacting with them on a level that might result in abortion we try to inoculate ourselves against the psychic damage of all the disappointment they might inflict. You'd probably pretend to chalk up all that psychic damage to killing our fetuses, but come on, Rush, where do you think the real threat of emotional attachment lies? The embryo? Or the dude you know just can't handle being a dad? Not that you could handle a kid, but ...you've given it a lot more thought than the dude. Do you have any idea how dudes freak out about pregnancy? I'm sure you've done it in your day! It's not pretty. In fact, it gets old, especially the second or third time — so much you try to avoid it at all (or most) costs — thanks Feminism!

And yeah, it wouldn't happen quite this way if not for feminism, except that it sort of did all the time — hence the old "coat hanger" meme! — and you know, sometimes, you just have to get it over with and pledge not to let it happen a second or third time and move on in trust that not every man you meet says he doesn't think abortion is murder solely because he's planning to cheat on you with his intern in the next twenty years. (And it would be really, really messy if he got her pregnant.)

Hence, I can only assume, the feminist (and sometimes even non-fetalbloodthirsting!) support for Barack Obama, who loves killing babies just as much as Hillary, not just because he's a jerk, but because, you know, he shares in our audacious hope that, one day, we can get past this silly paradigm you created in your head when some feminist didn't want to sleep with you because she had "cut men out of her life." Maybe you just sucked at giving head! Which, incidentally, is a good way to prevent unwanted babykilling.

A Lot Of These Feminists And Women...Think They're Owed [Media Matters]
Abort A Baby, Take A Tylenol [National Review] (This is actually interesting, although I didn't reference it, because as usual, I went off on some ADD-addled tangent; what else is new.)
Roberts And Roe [Atlantic]
Abortion Activists Slam Obama Comment [UPI]

Now, surely the Daily Mail can argue that Lisa Marie's pregnancy may have occasioned her to consume an excess of food — indeed, that she was using pregnancy as an excuse to do so — but the truth is that for some time we have been watching a steady erosion in the customary grace period allotted to a female celebrity's figure maintenance to account for her part in the creation of a new human being. And while both Ms. Barberie-Reynolds and Ms. Presley stand to gain financially from the blurring of the lines between the two forms of weight gain — and that is to ignore the myriad other ways female celebrities have managed to line their own pockets, in addition to those of the celebrity-industrial complex, through the conception (or failure to conceive) children — I am beginning to wonder if the whole thing isn't a little, well, degrading to the very culture of human life the media is supposed to be celebrating when we fetishize fertility/eschew the subject of abortion in all consumer magazines and blockbuster movies/pay seven-figure ransoms for baby pictures.

No, seriously, actually, whatever. It's just this week's sign of the apocalypse etc. etc. But you know.