I’ve Grown Attached to My Embryos
In vitro fertilization gave Beth Kohl a new perspective on reproductive rights and religion.
Embryo Culture: Making Babies in the Twenty-First Century | Beth Kohl | Farrar, Straus and Giroux
By Julia Thiel November 1, 2007
Beth Kohl used to face down pro-lifers at abortion rights rallies and refuse to back politicians who didn’t prioritize a woman’s right to choose. But after being diagnosed with polycystic ovarian disorder, a leading cause of infertility, ten years ago, what she once considered a purely political issue became a lot more personal.
To have children of their own, Kohl, who’s now 39, and her husband, Gary Feinerman, opted for in vitro fertilization. Kohl underwent the process five times, having close to 20 eggs fertilized and three embryos transferred to her womb during each cycle. As a result they have three children: Sophia, seven, and fraternal twins Anna and Lily, five. In her first book, Embryo Culture: Making Babies in the Twenty-First Century, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in August, Kohl documents the experience, her extensive research into IVF, and how these changed her beliefs.
Kohl, a Winnetka-based freelance writer, was frustrated by what she found when she began looking for info on IVF. “I wish I’d had a regular person’s voice in my head,” she says. “There’s a certain fertility-speak and I found it off-putting.” These days there’s an abundance of blogs and chat rooms devoted to IVF, but some women who frequent them also use a kind of insider language; Kohl says they call their frozen embryos “embies,” give them nicknames like “Frosty,” and generally anthropomorphize them.
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Kohl doesn’t display these tendencies but she does admit to developing a strong attachment and sense of responsibility to her fertilized eggs. Embryo Culture grounds her resulting personal dilemmas within the context of the broader moral and legal questions faced by scientists, doctors, and fertility patients. Unlike some European countries, the U.S. has no federal limits on embryo transfers, for example. When Kohl decided how many embryos to transfer per cycle, she weighed her increased chances for conception against the increased risk of high-order multiples (triplets, quadruplets, etc), which would threaten both her own health and the health of her children. (According to a 2002-’05 national study, IVF patients under 35 had an average of 2.5 embryos transferred per cycle, with 33 percent becoming pregnant with twins and 5.8 percent with triplets or more.)
During her third round of IVF, Kohl realized that if each of the three embryos transferred developed in her womb, she wouldn’t necessarily be able to “selectively reduce” one or two—even if her doctor deemed it necessary. She never had to make that decision, but the experience made her reevaluate her beliefs on reproductive rights and abortion. It “taught me how profound this choice is and that what’s at stake extends far beyond exercising one’s rights or minimizing one’s complications,” she writes. Kohl emphasizes that she hasn’t embraced fetal legal rights and still fully supports keeping abortion legal but says the issue is way more nuanced in her mind now: “I have a new respect for the ability of cells to develop into more complex beings—into, well, children.”
Raised in Milwaukee in a conservative Jewish household, Kohl says her faith in a traditional God and the teachings of her religion have also been deeply shaken. During her first couple cycles of IVF, Kohl believed that if a transferred embryo failed to result in a pregnancy it was God’s will. Now she chalks it up to chance: “If it’s a doctor manipulating my system, fetching Gary’s and my genetic material and combining it to produce fertilized eggs, where is God’s hand?”
And while all branches of Judaism permit IVF in theory, Kohl was bothered by the rationale (or lack thereof) for some of the restrictions it places on the process. Her rabbi told her that as the Talmud recognizes motherhood through birth, if a Jewish couple used a non-Jewish surrogate the baby would technically not be Jewish. When she asked him about the ethics of IVF, he deferred to an ancient textbook. “To have a rabbi tell me that Maimonides had a position on this issue,” says Kohl, “this rabbi who lived before any of this even existed—I just said, ‘What are you talking about?’”
Kohl still takes her own daughters to temple to give them a sense of their roots and culture. During a recent reading and Q and A in her hometown, Kohl’s brother, who was there with her mom, raised his hand and asked, “Do you no longer believe in God?” Kohl says now, “I’d be much more comfortable answering that question in front of the pope, but in front of my mom—I don’t want her to think she failed.” She hemmed and hawed and eventually said she wasn’t sure but that she thought it was healthy to question everything. (Her mom was OK with that.)
Kohl had worried that the way her kids were conceived might complicate things when they inevitably questioned where they came from, but so far it hasn’t been a problem—just the opposite, in fact. Several weeks ago seven-year-old Sophia saw a pregnant woman and asked how the baby had got inside her. Given a very basic explanation of sex, the little girl replied, “Really? That’s horrible! Is that what you and Dada did?”
“No,” Kohl told her, “and that’s what the book is about.”
“Oh, that is such a relief!” said Sophia.
“I’m so glad I wrote that book!” Kohl jokes.
A year ago Kohl decided to undergo another round of IVF. She had already started the hormone therapy necessary for the process when her editor called to say it would be terrible timing to have a newborn when the book was published. Kohl temporarily scrapped the idea. Since then her husband has decided he doesn’t want a fourth child and thinks they should donate their seven leftover embryos to science. Kohl, who’s theoretically in favor of stem cell research, is struggling with the idea of donating her potential offspring, “whose destiny I feel compelled and duty bound to fulfill.” For now, her embryos remain frozen.
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atb at 5:40 PM on 11/2/2007
I think this woman is sick and I think that continuing to give any sort of credibility to people who want to have their personal revelations in public is even sicker. She just now realizes that this is messing with morality as well as science?? Give me break! It now becomes painfully clear how it is possible to raise an entire generation of self-absorbed jerks. The parents are responsible! Congratulations, you have just taught your children some valuable lessons: 1) That people don't have "icky" sex to have kids anymore 2) That social responsibility includes some kind of birth control (4 kids? Really? Do you just not care about over-population and waste?) and 3) That it doesn't matter that there are lots of kids in the world waiting to be adopted. No, Mommy and Daddy are selfish rich people who want their own way! Thanks for nothing.
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yeah................ at 2:04 AM on 11/3/2007
so this is the way it is now? this shite is so unnatural and deranged. children are no longer created through human fertilization, but artificial means. kohl seems like a crazy, indecisive woman who can't make about her mind about fetal/reproductive rights.while she wrestles with this moral issue, she continues to use ivf. what a fuqing joke!!!
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dan l at 11:12 AM on 11/3/2007
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She never had to make that decision, but the experience made her reevaluate her beliefs on reproductive rights and abortion. It "taught me how profound this choice is and that what’s at stake extends far beyond exercising one’s rights or minimizing one’s complications," she writes. Kohl emphasizes that she hasn’t embraced fetal legal rights and still fully supports keeping abortion legal but says the issue is way more nuanced in her mind now: "I have a new respect for the ability of cells to develop into more complex beings—into, well, children."
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What? Find out what kind of emotional trouble this woman is having.
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miggs at 2:44 PM on 11/3/2007
are "atb," "yeah," and "dan l" the same overdramatic, ridiculous person? what are you so frickin angry about? i'm glad she put herself out there; i think she's got a very interesting perspective. i see nothing crazy about it at all. i'm more on the pro-life side than she is, but it's heartening to see someone shifting from the language of "choice" as the be-all-end-all of the abortion issue.
I didn't realize this even bears mentioning, but given the innane comments above, i guess it does: i'm very, very glad that modern science has allowed her to bear children. it's an amazing thing that we're not captive to the same limitations we once were.
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K at 7:59 PM on 11/3/2007
Choice is choice!
If you can choose to have an IVF, you should be able to choose to have an "abortion".
If you lose the choice to have an "abortion", then it would make sense to lose the choice to an IVF
(Man has very few rights if any, let's stay away from that term.) and the decision should be made, if not solely by the individual, then at a level lower, certainly, than the Federal Government. You, your partner, Doctor, Clergy, in-laws, siblings ...the list is long... can all influence your decision. But it is yours to make and be aware that there are others that are not content with that answer, they want to make it their decision. And they have conviction...and money.
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R at 7:01 PM on 11/4/2007
As someone who has first hand experience with both infertility and IVF, I applaud Kohl's effort to articulate what a lot of couples go through. Anyone who has gone through the grief and anguish of reproductive failure and/or disease, as in her case, is fully entitled to their feelings and opinions. People who have children easily and naturally never have to deal with the trauma and the extremely profound soul searching that takes place as you wonder if what you are doing is rational, ethical, safe, etc. Infertile couples go through all the stages of grief over the lack of ability to conceive naturally,and then likely get caught in a moral dilemma over things like IVF, freezing your embryos, "reducing," etc. All this is not easy for anyone. Unless you have been there, you should resist the urge to name-call. As for calling her "selfish" for having three children, that argument is asinine; of course one could adopt, but like the vast majority of people trying to become parents, they tried to have their own first, an entirely natural instinct. What moron can't understand that? Many who adopt have exhausted all other ways of having their own children. IVF is one last ray of hope. Castigating a couple for not choosing to adopt is reprehensible-- can you imagine how it feels to exhaust all your options, often over the course of years, and then have to face the possible anguish of a birth mother changing her mind? Or to foster a child only to have the state take it back and give it back to the birth mother? A lot of couples struggling with infertility simply can't deal with more heartbreak, and a lot simply can't afford adoption financially, either; IVF, on the other hand, is frequently affordable if you have decent insurance and live in a state where insurers are mandated to cover at least some infertility treatment. It doesn't seem to me that Kohl is converting to or advocating a staunch pro-life stance, only describing a shift in the way she views a zygote, and that's her goddamn right.
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Y at 7:18 PM on 11/4/2007
I agree- choice is choice. And as someone who has decided to keep my baby at 17 and raise my child as a single mom, I understand the sense of preciousness when it comes to a "fertilized egg." However- we are living in a world that is headed towards environmental disaster if we don't reduce our population. There are also a gazillion unwanted children out there who desperately need homes. I do think it is selfish to embrace the science of IVF and not the science of global warming, waste, and overpopulation. Since I have my "own" child, I don't know/understand the instinct to have one's own genetic offspring. But just because we have instincts doesn't mean we should act on them. Overall, IVF seems very very indulgent. I hope she takes in a couple foster kids to add some balance to her choices.
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Bill Stevens at 10:16 PM on 11/10/2007
Whatever you think of Beth Kohl's views, her book is a delightful read. I laughed outloud regularly at her quirky take on the whole experience. And thanks to her humorous approach, I learned a whole lot about a complex subject while having loads of fun.
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_---- at 9:53 PM on 12/14/2007
I know Beth Kolhs my self and her duaghters are very good.
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L at 6:40 PM on 3/11/2008
I knpw Beth and she has nice daughters.
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