Tina Wren gave birth to a daughter named Emma last month. The mother was twenty-five years old at the time. Her daughter was twenty-four. How is this possible?
Tina and her husband Benjamin married seven years ago, but the couple assumed they could not have biological children because Benjamin has cystic fibrosis, which often results in infertility. They fostered a few children, until Tina’s father suggested embryo adoption.
This is the process by which couples who use in vitro fertilization (IVF) donate unused frozen embryos to other couples. The Wrens went to the National Embryo Donation Center in Knoxville, Tennessee, where they received a donated embryo. It turns out, that embryo had been created through IVF and frozen twenty-four years earlier.
Tina gave birth to the baby she received. She told reporters, “This embryo and I could have been best friends.” As it is, they are now mother and daughter.
If Tina and Benjamin had another way to become pregnant, it seems likely that they would not have chosen this route. But they know that their new daughter is indeed a miracle.
Responding to “unexpected opportunities”
Many of the choices we make aren’t really choices. If we have only one option, it becomes the best option.
For instance, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) will begin making lethal viruses. Dr. Francis Collins, director of the NIH, explained that such research is necessary to “develop strategies and effective countermeasures against rapidly evolving pathogens that pose a threat to public health.” Research involving the influenza virus, severe acute respiratory syndrome (known as SARS), and Middle East respiratory syndrome (or MERS) will now proceed.
The NIH would rather not develop these dangerous pathogens, since they could threaten millions of lives if they are not stored properly or escape from a lab. But the only way to create a cure for such diseases is to understand them, and scientists cannot understand them…
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