Connect with us

Opinion

Judge orders 2-year-old IVF baby to be given to biological parents despite being raised by birth mom

Published

9 minute read

From LifeSiteNews

By Nancy Flanders

With the rising popularity of IVF, egg donation, sperm donation, and surrogacy, Americans have been fed the marketing line that biology isn’t what makes a family. Yet in cases like Sophia’s, it becomes obvious that biology certainly matters when the adults say it matters.

According to Haaretz, an Israeli court on Sunday ordered that, following a lengthy legal battle over an IVF mix-up, a woman who gave birth to a daughter and raised her for two years must now give the girl to her biological parents.

The woman and her partner underwent IVF treatment at Assuta Medical Center in Rishon Letzion, but as she neared the end of her pregnancy, she underwent testing after it was discovered that the preborn baby had medical concerns. During that testing, it was revealed that the baby she was carrying had no biological connection to her or her partner. She had been implanted with someone else’s embryo.

report on the situation found that the error was likely due to the heavy workload staff are facing at the fertility clinic following the government’s decision to move fertility treatments to private hospital settings – a move considered a financial benefit to the Health Ministry, hospitals, and doctors, but one that put patients at risk of errors.

Now, two years later, a judge has ordered the woman to hand the child, Sophia, who has a heart condition and developmental delays, over to her biological parents.

Benefits vs. damage

Judge Oved Elias of the Rishon Letzion Family Court said the girl should be given to her biological parents on the recommendation of Dr. Daniel Gottlieb, a psychologist appointed to the case, but against an affidavit from Welfare Ministry social workers and the head of Israel’s Child Protective Service. That affidavit advised that the girl should remain with the woman who gave birth to her, and her partner who have been raising her.

Elias determined that being given to her biological parents was in the child’s best interest because they are her natural parents. “The benefits that will arise from handing the girl over to her genetic parents and her life with them overcome the damage that will be caused by disconnecting her from the parents who have been raising her. The benefits of life with the genetic parents are, among others, in her future identity, connecting her to the family’s genealogy, a shared family story, and matching psychologies and family values,” he said.

He’s not wrong. Research has shown that children who live in a home with their married, biological parents are healthier both physically and mentally.

However, the removal of the child from the only parents she has known both inside and outside of the womb is likely to cause significant trauma. Studies have shown that taking babies from their birth mothers – whether they are biologically related or not – causes immense trauma for the child and can permanently alter her adult brain function later in life. While adoption seeks to heal the trauma that results when a birth mother feels unable to raise her child and lovingly selects a family to raise her baby, artificial reproductive technologies (such as surrogacy) deliberately create a trauma, with a child knowingly created and intended to be separated from his or her birth mother.

Birth parents and biological parents speak out

“Given that there was a major error in the IVF process, and given that, with cooperation and in a planned, monitored way it can be rectified with minimum harm, I cannot accept the stance that what’s done is done,” the judge wrote.

The birth parents argued that the biological parents do not know how to care for the child and her health needs properly, and that the situation should be left as is because “the family unit embraces the baby.”

“As a mother, I don’t understand how they can tear my daughter from me after I birthed her with blood, sweat, and tears? She is the fruit of my womb and I’ve been raising her for more than two years. As far as I’m concerned, I’ll wait until justice is done at the High Court of Justice,” said Sophia’s birth mother, who feels as though she’s been reduced to the status of a surrogate.

“I am Sophia’s mother, and she is a sweet girl who only months ago underwent a third life-threatening surgery. I’m not a womb for rent, and with all my grief for the woman who gave the egg, she didn’t make the child. I was implanted with the embryo, carried her, and gave birth to her, and I will not allow my daughter to be uprooted from me. It’s inhumane. I won’t lend a hand in risking my daughter’s life.”

Sophia’s biological parents, however, said that Elias’ decision “rectified” the mistake made by the IVF clinic. That mistake was determined to be that both women were at the clinic at the same time and had been called back for an embryo transfer in the wrong order.

“She is coming home to live with the family she was supposed to be born into. Everything was done to try to protect her privacy and allow her to be raised in peace. We are overjoyed and waiting for the moment we will finally be able to hug our daughter and be hugged by her, which is something we’ve been waiting for for so long,” they said.

Sophia’s birth parents have appealed the decision to the District Court.

Sophia’s case shines a light on the potentially serious harms of IVF and sperm and egg donation. The fertility industry treats children like commodities to be created and destroyed at will with adults as the clients, making decisions that are in the adults’ best interest, not the child’s. With the rising popularity of IVF, egg donation, sperm donation, and surrogacy, Americans have been fed the marketing line that biology isn’t what makes a family. Yet in cases like Sophia’s, it becomes obvious that biology certainly matters when the adults say it matters.

“[…] #BigFertility routinely implants someone else’s biological children into an intended mother or surrogate via donor sperm, egg, or embryos,” said Katie Breckenridge of the organization Them Before Us. “When adults choose to separate a child from their biological parents at conception, we shower those adults with congratulations and often call it ‘progress.’ Only when it’s a case of an IVF mix up is it a problem that babies go home with genetic strangers. In other words, biology matters only when adults want it to matter.”

Reprinted with permission from Live Action.

Todayville is a digital media and technology company. We profile unique stories and events in our community. Register and promote your community event for free.

Follow Author

Daily Caller

AI Needs Natural Gas To Survive

Published on

 

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By David Blackmon

As recent studies project a big rise in power generation demand from the big datacenters that are proliferating around the United States, the big question continues to focus in on what forms of generation will rise to meet the new demand. Most datacenters have plans to initially interconnect into local power grids, but the sheer magnitude of their energy needs threatens to outstrip the ability of grid managers to expand supply fast enough.  

This hunger for more affordable, 24/7 baseload capacity is leading to a variety of proposed solutions, including President Donald Trump’s new executive orders focused on reviving the nation’s coal industry, scheduled to be signed Tuesday afternoon. But efforts to restart the permitting of new coal-fired power plants in the US will require additional policy changes, efforts which will take time and could ultimately fail. In the meantime, datacenter developers find themselves having to delay construction and completion dates until firm power supply can be secured. 

Datacenters specific to AI technology require ever-increasing power loads. For instance, a single AI query can consume nearly ten times the power of a traditional internet search, and projections suggest that U.S. data center electricity consumption could double or even triple by 2030, rising from about 4-5% of total U.S. electricity today to as much as 9-12%. Globally, data centers could see usage climb from around 536 terawatt-hours (TWh) in 2025 to over 1,000 TWh by 2030. In January, a report from the American Security Project estimated that datacenters could consume about 12% of all U.S. power supply. 

Obviously, the situation calls for innovative solutions. A pair of big players in the natural gas industry, Liberty Energy and Range Resources, announced on April 8 plans to diversify into the power generation business with the development of a major new natural gas power plant to be located in the Pittsburgh area. Partnering with Imperial Land Corporation (ILC), Liberty and Range will locate the major power generation plant in the Fort Cherry Development District, a Class A industrial park being developed by ILC.   

“The strategic collaboration between Liberty, ILC, and Range will focus on a dedicated power generation facility tailored to meet the energy demands of data centers, industrial facilities, and other high-energy-use businesses in Pennsylvania,” the companies said in a joint release.  

Plans for this new natural gas power project follows closely on the heels of the March 22 announcement for plans to transform the largest coal-fired power plant in Pennsylvania, the Homer City generating station, into a new gas-fired facility. The planned revitalized plant would house 7 natural gas turbines with a combined capacity of 4.5 GW, enough power 3 million homes.  

Both the Homer City station and the Fort Cherry plant will use gas produced out of the Appalachia region’s massive Marcellus Shale formation, the most prolific gas basin in North America. But plans like these by gas companies to invest in their own products for power needs aren’t isolated to Pennsylvania.  

In late January, big Permian Basin oil and gas producer Diamondback Energy told investors that it is seeking equity partners to develop a major gas-fired plan on its own acreage in the region. The facility would primarily supply electricity to data centers, which are expected to proliferate in Texas due to the AI boom, while also providing power for Diamondback’s own field operations. This dual-purpose approach could lower the company’s power costs and create a new revenue stream by selling excess electricity.  

Prospects for expansion of gas generation in the U.S. received a big boost in January when GE Vernova announced plans for a $600 million expansion of its manufacturing capacity for gas turbines and other products in the U.S. GE Vernova is the main supplier of turbines for U.S. power generation needs. The company plans to build 37 gas power turbines in 2025, with a potential increase to over 70 by 2027, to meet rising energy demands. 

The bottom line on these and other recent events is this: Natural gas is quickly becoming the power generation fuel of choice to feed the needs of the expanding datacenter industry through 2035, and potentially beyond. Given that reality, the smart thing to do for these and other companies in the natural gas business is to put down big bets on themselves. 

David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.

Continue Reading

2025 Federal Election

‘Sadistic’ Canadian murderer claiming to be woman denied transfer to female prison

Published on

From LifeSiteNews

By Clare Marie Merkowsky

The logical decision to house the male murderer with men flies in the face of the Liberal Party’s official stance, which is to incarcerate prisoners according to their ‘self-identified’ gender.

A Canadian man who butchered his family and now claims to be a woman will not be allowed to transfer to a female prison.

On April 8, Correctional Services Canada (CSC) announced that Mohamad Al Ballouz, who brutally murdered his wife and two children, will be sent to a men’s prison, despite claiming to be a woman, according to CTV News.

“When there are overriding health and safety concerns, the request is denied and alternatives are put in place to meet the offender’s gender‑related needs at the institution where they are incarcerated,” the CSC statement reads.

Following an assessment of Al Ballouz request, CSC confirmed that he “will be incarcerated in a men’s institution.”

On December 16, Al Ballouz, a 38-year-old from Quebec, was found guilty second-degree murder of his wife Synthia Bussières, first-degree murder of five-year-old Eliam and two-year-old Zac, and one count of attempted arson.

Crown prosecutor Éric Nadeau revealed that the murder took place in September 2022 when Al Ballouz slaughtered his family at their Brossard apartment. He stabbed his wife 23 times before suffocated his children and trying to set the apartment on fire. He then ingested windshield washer fluid, which is believed to have been a suicide attempt.

During the trial, Quebec Superior Justice Eric Downs described Al Ballouz, as having a “sadistic character” and being “deeply narcissistic.” He was sentenced to life imprisonment with no chance of parole for 25 years.

Throughout the trial, Al Ballouz, a biological male, claimed to be a woman and demanded that he be referred to as “Levana,” a change which was made after he was charged for his crimes. Notably, the Canadian Broadcasting Report’s (CBC’s) report of the case refers to the convicted murder as “she” and uses his fake name.

Following his sentencing, the murderer requested to be sent to the Joliette Institution for Women; however, Downs responded that is a decision for Correctional Service Canada.

However, Al Ballouz’s case caused an uproar on social media as many pointed out that putting the murderer in a women’s prison would pose a danger to female inmates.

Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre has condemned the Liberal policy and promised that he would end this practice if elected.

“Surreal: A man who killed his wife and two kids now claims he is a woman to go to a female prison,” he wrote in a December 22 post on X.

“I can’t believe I have to say this: but when I’m PM, there will be no male prisoners in female jails,” Poilievre continued. “Period.”

Continue Reading

Trending

X