Duke basketball brothers were created by IVF... for a very specific reason

Two brothers playing in the NCAA men's basketball tournament for Duke University have made headlines for their skills on the court — but they've also made headlines because of how and why they were conceived.

The twins, Cameron and Cayden Boozer, were created and born to save the life of their older brother, Carmani.

Key Takeaways:

• NBA star Carlos Boozer and his wife Cece discovered that their first child, Carmani, had sickle cell disease; doctors offered abortion, but they refused.

• Carmani had a severe form of the disease, and a bone marrow transplant was the best option for treatment, but neither Carlos nor Cece was a match.

• They chose to undergo in vitro fertilization (IVF) and created 10 embryos. Just two were matches for Carmani, so both were implanted, and Cece gave birth to twins Cameron and Cayden.

• Later, a bone marrow transplant was a success, and Carmani was cured of sickle cell disease.

• While the impulse to do anything to save a child is understandable, the reality is that eight other human beings were intentionally created in addition to the twins, and then were deemed unnecessary.

The Details:

Former Duke player and NBA All-Star Carlos Boozer and his wife Cece Boozer were expecting their first child, Carmani, when genetic testing showed that they both carried the gene for sickle cell disease. This meant that each child conceived would have a 25% chance of having sickle cell disease.

Choosing life for Carmani

Further testing revealed that Carmani did have the condition — a blood disorder which causes irregularly shaped red blood cells. Severe cases can cause significant pain, stroke, and death. Cece said they were "devastated."

Doctors asked them if they wanted to abort their son, but she said "that wasn't an option for us."

Carlos added, "We were so frightened to even bring him into the world, ya know, because we were thinking his life is gonna be terrible. At the end of the day, we said, 'Listen, we got blessed with a child. He is our gift from God; let's have him. And we'll figure the rest of it out along the way."

Carmani was born in 2006, and they knew he was going to have a more serious form of the condition. At two or three months old, he began showing symptoms. His hands swelled and he spiked high fevers; the family took frequent trips to the ER.

Blood Brothers | E60 [FULL EPISODE]

According to ESPN, doctors told his parents that the best thing they could do was help Carmani manage his symptoms, but, as any parent would, they wanted a cure. They researched, and found a doctor who had performed a bone marrow transplant on a patient who was then cured of sickle cell.

It would take a genetic match to carry out that miracle for Carmani, but neither Cece nor Carlos was a match. The most likely genetic match would have to be a sibling. But Carmani didn't have any siblings, and if the couple became pregnant again, there was a one in 12 chance of them having a baby who was both free of sickle cell and a genetic match for Carmani.

"For the wrong reason"

Carlos and Cece ultimately decided to use IVF to create embryos in hopes of finding a match for Carmani.

They took 34 eggs from Cece, and 10 were fertilized... creating 10 new human beings.

They were all tested for sickle cell disease and were also checked to see if they were matches for Carmani. Those who did not meet the criteria would not be chosen.

Two of the embryos did. At the doctor's suggestion, those two embryos were transferred to Cece's uterus, as they were told they had a 60% chance that an embryo would implant. The two embryos — Cameron and Cayden — both implanted.

But both Carlos and Cece had mixed feelings about what they had chosen to do.

"Instead of being a normal pregnant woman who's just excited about this baby and this wonderful gift she's been given, you feel like you're having a baby for the wrong reason," said Cece. "I just felt guilty because it was more out of love for Carmani; it wasn't out of love for them."

Carlos added:

"There were times I thought we did the right thing and there were times I felt we didn't do the right thing. It was, 'We need to have a baby so we can cure Carmani.' That's not how we wanted to have it, but that's how it ended up going down."

The twins were born in 2007.

"The day I saw them and they were here and they were so beautiful and wonderful and I loved them every bit as much as I did him," Cece recalled. "And then I felt even more that they were more special because God had given me them to help Carmani."

The cure

Immediately, doctors took stem cells from their umbilical cords. Carmani then underwent eight days of high-dose chemotherapy to kill off his bone marrow.

There was a 10% chance Carmani would not survive, but an 80% chance of success.

After two days, the stem cells were implanted into Carmani, in hopes they would make the new cells needed to replace all of the blood system. On day 30, a specimen was taken to see if the cells were Carmani's or the donor's. The cells were the donors, and the procedure was deemed a success. Carmani would soon be considered cured of sickle cell.

It was in elementary school when the twins learned why they were created.

Cameron said he was "kind of in shock" because he hadn't realized how sick Carmani had been. But overall, they accepted it.

“I mean, they were only born because I was sick, pretty much,” Carmani teases them. “But they saved my life. That’s what their comeback always is.”

Why It Matters:

After Carmani's diagnosis, his parents set out to save him; no one would expect less. But to save him, however, they decided to intentionally create, and then destroy, the lives of other children, because those children didn't meet the criteria that had been set for them.

Out of all of the embryos they created — all equally human and inherently valuable — only the two that made the cut were allowed to be born, and one of them was only because the doctor insisted on putting both of them in their mother's womb. The others, even those who had sickle cell disease like the child they were trying to save, were denied their lives. And their lives were equally as valuable and precious as the lives of their siblings.

Cece said that she knew people were going to think that how and why they created their twins was wrong. "But I don't, because I have the most beautiful thing in life," she said in a previous interview. "I have my son who's healthy, and I have two more beautiful healthy sons who are running here and happy, and I'm sure have a special place in this world. And they were meant to be here, regardless of how they got here."

Cameron and Cayden, of course, are inherently valuable and worthy of life. Anyone who argues otherwise is wrong.

But there were eight other children, equally valuable and worthy of life, who were denied their lives because they didn't meet the required or desired standards.

The Bottom Line:

There are countless reasons why IVF is wrong — the health risks for women, the health risks for children, and the extreme loss of human life — but that doesn't mean the children created through the process are less important or less worthy of life.

And yet, we cannot forget that their lost siblings were just as worthy of it.