Breakthrough in fertility treatment
(sz) It’s not quite the seven ages of man, but there is certainly a preoccupation with the exits and entrances of men and women in the papers this morning.
First, the mewling and puking, and the Independent splashes with a photo of twin babies, the first to be conceived in the UK as the result of a pioneering fertility treatment. “A cheap, painless alternative to IVF?” asks the paper.
In Vitro Maturation, the new technique used to make the babies, dispenses with the use of costly fertility drugs, saving up to £1,500 on the normal price of treatment. It is also safer for the one in three women among those seeking fertility treatment who have polycystic ovaries. The babies were conceived using eggs that were removed from their mother’s ovaries while still undeveloped and then matured artificially in the laboratory before being fertilised with their father’s sperm.
Meanwhile, the Times features a large picture of a twelve-week-old foetus on its front page and reports that MPs are planning the most extensive liberalisation of abortion laws for 40 years. The MPs will propose that women should be allowed to seek an abortion on the basis of informed consent - dropping the requirement for two doctors’ signatures - and to perform the second stage of a medical termination at home rather than at a hospital or clinic. more…
From: »The Guardian Unlimited«