Meet The First ''Test-Tube'' Baby

Louise Brown….Have you ever heard that name? That’s  the miracle baby that was born via  IVF  on 25 July 1978 to Lesley and John brown. Louise  became the very first baby to be conceived through in vitro fertilization or what is commonly known to the media and the general public  as ''test tube baby''. For nine(9) years Her parents had been having problems conceiving owing to certain complications of blocked fallopian tubes.  The procedure was not really done in a ''test tube'',as popularly assumed, but in a petri dish.
 

This procedure was developed by Patrick Steptoe (gynaecologist) and Robert Edwards. And this particular breakthrough earned Edwards a Nobel Prize in medicine in 2010.
 
Her mother, Lesley underwent the procedure on 10 November 1977 and on 25 July 1978, a bouncing baby girl, LOUISE JOY BROWN was born.Place: Oldham General Hospital, England.Louise's sister, Natalie who was also born by same means four years later. Natalie herself became the first IVF baby to give birth –naturally herself. Her daughters name is Casey.

Louise got married in 2004 to Wesley Mullinder and Dr Edwards (the physiologist  that performed the procedure) attended the wedding!
 

She conceived naturally and her son Cameron was born on 20 December 2006.

Since the birth of Louise many couples who have had difficulties  conceiving have had a reason to smile and millions of births have come through this method.However, many ethical issues have been raised regarding the procedure:

•    The most important question was whether this baby was going to be healthy.
•    Had being outside the womb, even for just a couple of days, harmed the egg, what would be the implications? If the baby has medical problems, did the parents and doctors have a right to play with nature and thus bring it into the world?
•    Doctors also worried that if the baby wasn't normal, would the process be blamed whether or not it was the cause?
•    When does life begin? If human life begins at conception, are doctors killing potential humans when they discard fertilized eggs? (Doctors may remove several eggs from the woman and may discard some that have been fertilized which happens.)
•    Is this process a foreshadowing of what is to come? Will there be surrogate mothers? Aldous Huxley made a prediction of the future when he described breeding farms in his book Brave New World. That means the possible use of women as ''baby factories’’
 

This is what the then Pope John Paul 1(Albino Luciani) said concerning the issue:
"Getting down, however, to the act in itself, and good faith aside, the moral problem which is posed is: is extra- uterine fertilization in vitro or in a test tube, licit? I do not find any valid reasons to deviate from this norm, by declaring licit the separation of the transmission of life from the marriage act." 

You can follow Louise on twitter: @louisebrown ( www.twitter.com/louisebrown)