Youth Defence has welcomed the findings of a new study questioning the effectiveness of in-vitro fertilisation (IVF), and showing that treatments using natural fertility methods have a higher success rate. YD's groundbreaking 2005 report No Exceptions: Why Human Life Deserves Our Respect pointed to the ethical problems arising from IVF treatments, not least of which are that millions of human embryos have been frozen and then destroyed. The report also revealed that IVF treatment was not only costly but had a low success rate - with only one-in-six couples going on to have a baby, and urged legislators to examine natural fertility methods which did not raise ethical problems.

Now just-published research from the University of Utah has confirmed that these natural fertility methods are producing better results than IVF. Researchers from the University of Utah in America found that one in four of the 1,100 couples treated with natural methods in a clinic in Galway had successful pregnancies using natural procreative technology treatment (NPT). This compares with the most recent European success rates of 18.4% for IVF.

The research was published last week in the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine, and is being hailed as a landmark paper by supporters of NPT, as it is the first research into the effectiveness of the method to be published in a peerreviewed medical journal. It also found that the number of multiple births resulting from NPT was significantly lower than using artificial methods, with only 4.6% of women becoming pregnant with more than one child. This compares with multiple birth rates of 34% recorded in a recent American study of couples undergoing assisted reproductive technology (ART). NPT is also a cheaper option - at only one quarter the cost of IVF treatments. The costly nature of artifical fertility methods has made IVF practitioners amongst the wealthiest medical professionals in Britain.

Eoghan de Faoite of Youth Defence said that the study backed up previous findings detailed in the No Exceptions report. "As with stem-cell research, we're seeing that the ethical methods are actually proving more successful. It should be a wake-up call for lawmakers. The unethcial practise of freezing and destroying embryos need to end."

The new research is also likely to attract interest from the Catholic church, which is a strong supporter of natural fertility methods.

Source : truthtv.org



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