i'm trying to figure this out. does the medicine juliette tests make one (male or female) become able to spontaneously spawn? i just wondered if rachel was actively trying to conceive with a male partner (or sperm donor) or was it like "IMMACULATE" conception?

I was wondering the exact same thing!!

i'm trying to figure this out. does the medicine juliette tests make one (male or female) become able to spontaneously spawn? i just wondered if rachel was actively trying to conceive with a male partner (or sperm donor) or was it like "IMMACULATE" conception?


I'm going to go out on a limb and say this is the part where Juliet's ex was referring to when he was discussing "ethical concerns" when he threatened her. I'm not sure that performing experimental treatment on willing patients is considered an ethical problem. Now, taking sperm from storage and using it in ways the donor never intended would DEFINITELY be considered an ethical problem.

But since she worked at a fertility research facility (didn't she?) and not a sperm bank, I'm going to suggest that what is more likely stored there would be full blown embryos. Using an embryo to fertilize someone without the consent of the embryo "owners" stomps all over ethics and would result in someone losing their medical license quite quickly. Just the sort of stuff worthy of threatening an aspiring doctor.

It is interesting that the original poster used the term "immaculate conception". Remember when Locke's momma told him he was a product of "immaculate conception"? I've maintained all along that Locke was the product of some sort of reproductive experimentation and now we have confirmation that such experimentation is indeed one thing that the Others are involved in.

I'm just sayin'!

I'm not a medical professional, but wouldn't an injection in the belly go to a persons blood stream?

I'm not a medical professional, but wouldn't an injection in the belly go to a persons blood stream?
Yeah, I'd like to hear from any medical professionals here as to what the injections seemed to be. When Juliet took the vials from the lab, there were a lot of them in storage with seeminly identical labels. That suggests to me a drug rather than prepared embryos or sprem donation (which would be injected into the womb another way, if I'm not mistaken.)

My thought is...the said that Juliette got a male mouse pregnant. Obviuously he doesn't have a uterus. But there is an abdominal cavity that can carry a child. This has been proven when a young boy had absorbed his twin during gestation and he was sustaining the life of the child in his abdomen. I don't remember the whole story. But I think what they may be going for here on LOST is that the sister had/has cancer and had her reproductive organs removed. I think the injections might have been to help her sustain a pregnancy without the use of a uterus.

Might be far fetched but that is what I was thinking while watching it. I am interested to see what really happens with this story.

I hate to do this again but the term 'immaculate' conception does not refer to conception without a father. It refers to the conception of Mary who conceieved in the old fashioned way with a dad. The immaculate refers to the belief that she was without original sin.

I honestly can't come up with a term to describe what you are talking about though! I'm sure there is a scientific name for it but it escapes me at the moment.

My thought is...the said that Juliette got a male mouse pregnant. Obviuously he doesn't have a uterus. But there is an abdominal cavity that can carry a child. This has been proven when a young boy had absorbed his twin during gestation and he was sustaining the life of the child in his abdomen. I don't remember the whole story. But I think what they may be going for here on LOST is that the sister had/has cancer and had her reproductive organs removed. I think the injections might have been to help her sustain a pregnancy without the use of a uterus.

Might be far fetched but that is what I was thinking while watching it. I am interested to see what really happens with this story.

I like where this is going. WIth Rachel's head covering and her references to "getting better", I inferred that she had cancer or something. I was wondering how that tied in, so this makes sense to me...

She needn't have had her organs removed. Sometimes Chemo can render a person sterile. It did me...but thankfully I had already had all the kids I was going to have!

Are we sure that the sickness Juliet's sis had was indeed cancer? I kinda assume so, too, but I just wonder if the baldness could have been caused by the fertility treatment itself, or by the same "sickness" that Danielle speaks of killing every member of her team on the island, somehow inflicted upon her by some "off-island Others" because they knew Juliet was a promising researcher and wanted to get her to use her own sister as a guinea pig and then, if the treatment was successful, to recruit her or SOMETHING (just riffing here now). It is just weird that whatever it was that Juliet injected into her sister's abdomen looked exactly the same as what Ethan injected into Claire's abdomen when Claire was pregnant with Aaron...actually, the more I think about this, the more clueless I become because the more dazzling the full spectrum of possibilities becomes.

I'm with Lockefan. We were speculating about the source of Rachel’s illness and wondered if perhaps the shots were making her ill in addition to aiding, somehow, in conception. It simply doesn’t make sense for someone who is actively battling cancer (based on the head scarf/hair loss) to attempt to conceive at the same time. Chemo and pregnancy are a poor match. Maybe the weakness, hair loss, etc. are side effects of the shots Juliet has been giving her, side effects Rachel was willing to endure if she was truly desperate to conceive. Now that she’s pregnant, she won’t need to continue with the shots and will be able to focus on getting healthy.

The hair loss doesn't mean she is actively battling cancer. I've had chemo and it takes the hair a while to grow back in. She may have finished up her last treatment a month ago and be currently in remission and on the road to recovery.

Like I said earlier...Chemo might have killed her ovaries. I'm thinking the medicine was some kind of attempt to jump start them.

i guess my next question is, how & what does the pregnancy of an ill woman relate the pregnancy of a male mouse? juliette must be into some pretty heavy resarch, and i agree, maybe the playing "God" issue of this was what was implicated by the question of ethics.

Could the shot be some sort of amazing miracle drug that makes anyone reproduce? wouldn't one have to have a womb to carry offspring.... weird, right?

I hate to do this again but the term 'immaculate' conception does not refer to conception without a father. It refers to the conception of Mary who conceieved in the old fashioned way with a dad. The immaculate refers to the belief that she was without original sin.

I honestly can't come up with a term to describe what you are talking about though! I'm sure there is a scientific name for it but it escapes me at the moment.

I think the term for self fertilization is autogamy.

My thought is...the said that Juliette got a male mouse pregnant. Obviuously he doesn't have a uterus. But there is an abdominal cavity that can carry a child. This has been proven when a young boy had absorbed his twin during gestation and he was sustaining the life of the child in his abdomen. I don't remember the whole story. But I think what they may be going for here on LOST is that the sister had/has cancer and had her reproductive organs removed. I think the injections might have been to help her sustain a pregnancy without the use of a uterus.

Might be far fetched but that is what I was thinking while watching it. I am interested to see what really happens with this story.

Similar situation in the Stephen King book The Dark Half. TPTB have said they pay homage to King and King has written he's a fan. Interesting little nugget.

fyi: the term immaculate conception in christian dogma does not correlate with a virgin birth. that's a puritan misconception - thinking that sex is too dirty to be referred to as an immaculate process. when christians talk about immaculate conception, it is not the conception of christ, but of his mother mary, who we believe was the only human born without original sin. it's not really germaine to this topic, but it always bothers me when people misuse this term.

I got the impression that Juliet was trying to impregnate her sister with some kind of drug. I think if she was using a sperm donor it wouldn't be viewed as such a huge discovery of science. If she was using a sperm donor, I'll agree with the people who think that her sister is infertile and some new medical technology is seeking to change that.