Test Tube Babies

The world's first successful "test-tube" baby was born in Great Britain by in vitro fertilization (IVF) revolutionized medical treatments for infertility. On July 25, 1978, five-pound 12-ounce baby girl was born; her name was Louise Joy Brown. Dr. Patrick Steptoe and Dr. Robert Edwards had been working on finding an alternative solution for conception since 1966. Drs. Steptoe and Edwards had successfully found a way to fertilize an egg outside a woman's body but they were both concerned by problems after replacing the fertilized egg back into the woman's uterus. By the late seventies all of the pregnancies resulting from their procedure (about 80) had lasted only a few, short weeks. Lesley Brown’s (mother of Louise Brown) pregnancy gave hope to hundreds of thousands of couples not able to conceive. But there was many raised questions, whether this baby was going to be healthy, if the baby has medical problems, did the parents and doctors have a right to play with nature and thus bring it into the world? Doctors also worried that if the baby wasn't normal, would the process be blamed whether or not it was the cause? In a few cases, laboratory mix-ups (misidentified gametes, transfer of wrong embryos) have occurred, leading to legal action against the IVF provider and complex paternity suits. An example is the case of a woman in California who received the embryo of another couple and was notified of this mistake after the birth of her son.
The term "in vitro" is Latin for "in glass," because conception takes place in a laboratory dish. Louise Brown's birth caused an international sensation, with some critics denouncing conception outside the body as immoral. Defects Study in the US found that certain birth defects were significantly more common in infants conceived with IVF, notably septal heart defects, cleft lip with or without cleft palate, esophageal atresia, and anorectal atresia; the mechanism of causality is unclear. The major complication of IVF is the risk of multiple births. This is directly related to the practice of transferring multiple embryos at embryo transfer. Multiple births are related to increased risk of pregnancy loss, obstetrical complications, prematurity, and neonatal morbidity with the potential for long term damage. Strict limits on the number of embryos that may be transferred have been enacted in some countries (e.g. England) to reduce the risk of high-order multiples (triplets or more), but are not universally followed or accepted. Spontaneous splitting of embryos in the womb after transfer can occur, but this is rare and would lead to identical twins. Making test tube babies costs the nation's health care system an average of $60,000 to $110,000 for each successful pregnancy. Typically a single attempt at in vitro fertilization costs $8,000. So even if couples have to go through the process several times, they are unlikely to spend as much as $60,000. But most attempts do not produce children. So researchers set out to find the average cost to society when the occasional successes are balanced against the many failures.
Even though test tube babies was a major scientific breakthrough, some still question whether or not it is good to scientifically mess with nature.
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Did FDR (Franklin Delano Roosevelt) know of, but do nothing to stop the Japanese attacking Pearl Harbor because he wanted the United States to enter WWII? FDR emphatically wanted the United States to enter the war, but knew that he would need the public’s support. To get the public’s support he knew that a crisis like Pearl Harbor would unite the country in an act of revenge and war. Even though to do this he would be sacrificing thousands of men. Some say that FDR, one of the greatest presidents of the United States would never do such a thing, he must not have known about it. And if he did know about it, wouldn’t he try to prevent thousands of deaths from happening?
FDR, the thirty second president, was the only president ever to serve more than two terms in office. He served four terms in office consecutively, but during his fourth term, died at the age of sixty-three of a cerebral hemorrhage (a stroke). He was elected for four terms for a couple of reasons. One reason is because back when FDR was president, it was allowed to run for more than twice for office. And another reason was because he was doing such a great job lifting the United States out of the Great Depression, and through WWII. After FDR died, they pushed through a constitutional Amendment limiting the President to a maximum of two terms.
On October 7, 1940, Lieutenant Commander Arthur H. McCollum, wrote an eight-step action memo which outlined eight different steps the United states could do that he expected would lead to a Japanese attack on the United States. FDR applied these steps directly after receiving them. After all these steps had taken place, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. McCollum also suggested having two divisions of submarines and another division of long-range cruisers deployed to the orient. Pearl Harbor lacked many crucial military needs, such as lack of training facilities, lack of fuel supplies, large-scale ammunition, lack of repair ships, dry-docking and machine shops. With this absence of supplies, Commander in Chief Admiral James O. Richardson, was furious when he was told by President Roosevelt of his plans on keeping the fleet in Hawaiian Waters. Richardson was so furious because he knew the United States vulnerability and problems at Pearl Harbor. The safety of his men and fleet were in danger. A little while after his discussion with President Roosevelt, the president removes him as Commander in Chief. President Roosevelt then appointed Admiral Husband Kimmel. Kimmel was looked down upon because he didn’t consider the safety of his fleet; he simply just took orders from President Roosevelt. Some say that this shows that President Roosevelt knew when and where the Japanese were attacking and that it was his back door into the European war.
Another raised question is, why would President Roosevelt want to enter another World War? This is because he wanted to stop the tyranny of Hitler. President Roosevelt knew that Hitler would not come to the United States and wage war, so in some way he needed to take action.
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