As long as the children are part of radical social experiments, then anything goes. Consider this case of madness in which a toddler is being kicked around like a football by not one, not two, not three, but four adults – and an activist judge. And of course it is all OK because these four are homosexuals – a federally protected species.

This is how the story opens: “They set out together to create a much-wanted child. But when baby E was born, his lesbian parents, and the gay couple who donated their sperm, were unprepared for the ‘flood of emotions’ that hit them.

“Although the four had discussed parental responsibilities and visiting arrangements at a ‘baby summit’ before E’s conception, the Family Court heard that in the struggle for ‘ownership’ of the child after his birth, the women stopped the men from seeing him. Justice Linda Dessau had to determine what was in two-year-old E’s best interests.”

The madness simply intensifies: “Stressing that the case was not about the socio-politics of single-sex parents or the definition of a nuclear family, she ruled that the boy should spend time with all four adults. ‘E is the product of a number of fine people,’ she said in a recent judgment. ‘He is entitled to know about them, to know them, and to know their love of him’.”

So much insanity in so few words! What did we just read here? We read of a ‘flood of emotions’. Yep, going on feelings is what this is usually about. Never mind what is right, or what is rational. Just do what feels good. That is the only arbiter nowadays of right and wrong.

Then we have talk of ‘ownership’ of this hapless toddler. The child is a mere commodity in this ugly world of adult selfishness gone mad. A slab of meat being tossed around by incredibly selfish and juvenile adults who are only concerned about their wants, not the well-being of the child.

And of course the learned judge thinks that family definition has nothing to do with anything. Never mind the thousands of studies that prove conclusively that family structure does very much matter for the well-being of the child.

Never mind that a biological mother and father cemented by marriage is the strongest indicator of child stability, well-being and health. Never mind that the research now is basically closed on this most vital of matters. But since when does a PC judiciary really care very much about evidence and facts?

But the real winner is this bizarre remark by the esteemed judge: ‘E is the product of a number of fine people.’ There you go. Today we do not have children who come from a loving mother and father. Instead, we have ‘products’ which are the result of any number of players.

Indeed, we now have committees and teams who are hatching these products. I can’t see how things can get much more depersonalised, demeaning, and inhumane. This is all brave new world lingo, straight out of the worst scenarios found in science fiction novels.

Forget families altogether. Let’s just generate these products in the factories. Indeed, we seem to care far more about battery hens and their egg-laying woes than we do about human beings and the infants they conceive. This is simply another indication that humanity is on the path of no return.

That this judge can so cavalierly and glibly treat this toddler as just some product purchased at K-Mart is reprehensible. But the same goes for these four infantile adults who are far more hung up on their own desires than the good – or otherwise – of this poor child.

The destruction of marriage and family is well under way in Western cultures. And the biggest losers of all are the children who are mere pawns in the cruel games played by PC adults who would rather create their dysfunctional new world than put the interests of children first.

When innocent children become the victims of radical social agendas, then we know without doubt that civilised society is nearing its end.

http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/lifematters/struggle-over-ownership-of-baby-split-gay-parents-20100908-151cr.html

[730 words]

When self becomes God then all other life becomes secondary. Indeed, in the attempt to elevate and deify self, we in fact demonise humankind and declare war on personhood. Dehumanisation and disrespect for human life follows directly from this.

Instant gratification and complete surrender to our every wish and desire have become the hallmarks of modern man. And the ramifications of this are found everywhere. In the area of family life, for example, babies are now considered to be mere commodities, to be designed and disposed of at our whim.

We live in age of designer babies, throwaway marriages and disposable families. What used to keep families, communities and societies together are now sniffed at. Things such as self-sacrifice, forgiveness, patience, the deferral of gratification, and the consideration of others has now taken a back seat to the gorging of self.

A perfect illustration of all this appeared in today’s press. Consider this gut-wrenching and mind-numbing piece about yet another bizarre lawsuit. Here is how one press account presents the story:

“Two Victorian couples are suing doctors for failing to diagnose Down syndrome in their unborn babies, denying them the chance to terminate the pregnancies. The couples are claiming unspecified damages for economic loss, continuing costs of care of the children, and ‘psychiatric injury’. Both say they would have aborted their pregnancies had they been told their children would be born with Down syndrome.”

The story was also covered on the current affairs shows last night. The parents were complaining of how very hard it is to look after these children, and that they really would have rather aborted the babies had they been given the chance. So now they are seeking damages for their “psychiatric injury” and suffering.

These parents want our sympathy – and government money. Sorry, but I cannot give such sympathy, nor agree to such demands for payments. Do special needs children present special challenges and burdens? Yes, absolutely. But guess what, anything worthwhile in life presents obstacles, challenges and hardships.

Indeed, sacrifice is the name of the game if we want to support anything which is valuable and worthwhile. In fact, every single child ever born is a huge handful. They place enormous demands on you for a good twenty years, and continue to do so for as long as they live.

Not only will they cost you at least a quarter of a million dollars between ages 0 to 18, but they will cost you emotionally, physically, psychologically and mentally. Simply to love another person is costly. And children can be the most costly objects of love around.

Of course real love usually discounts or ignores the tremendous costs. Any parent worth his or her salt will gladly make a dozen major sacrifices a day out of love for their offspring. Indeed, simply to love another person will of necessity impose restrictions and limitations on self.

All true love is self-giving, not self-taking. To love another person is to give away part of yourself, to become vulnerable, to take risks, and to be willing to hurt. If you do not want to hurt, then do not love. A parent’s love may be among the world’s greatest love, because it may hurt the most and cost the most. But love happily embraces such hurts, sacrifices and burdens.

As mentioned, those born with physical or mental incapacities are obviously going to be somewhat more of a handful. But they are all still beautiful sons and daughters who deserve to be loved. They do not deserve the guilt trip put upon them by parents who complain about their very existence, their very right to life.

But these two couples are not alone in this. As mentioned, we now live in an age completely given over to selfishness and the deification of self. We are all looking out for number one now, and anything that will inconvenience us, cost us, or weary us, we would rather just jettison.

So when we weary of the toaster, we chuck it and get a new one. When the plasma TV begins to play up, we quickly grow tired of it and ditch it for a newer, bigger model. And when the children we bring into the world are not perfect, we look to sue someone.

While we all want the best for our children and for our loved ones, the quest for the perfect baby – or the perfect anything – is a futile and ultimately selfish quest. Life offers no guarantees, and love is developed and enhanced in the furnaces of affliction, hardship and trials.

Such talk of course seems quaint today, even offensive. We expect, and demand, perfection. Designer babies are now a part of this demand for only the best, the most convenient, and the most hassle-free. If we don’t get a free ride through life, we will find someone or something to blame – and to issue a lawsuit against.

Of course the social quest for perfection is not new. It has been around for some time now. Indeed, we have a term for it. It is called eugenics. This is a movement which had its ideological origins in naturalistic Darwinism, and came into complete expression in the Third Reich. It has long been an evil which civilised nations shunned – or should have shunned.

However, while in the past it was fanatical population controllers and Nazi doctors who engaged in eugenics, now unfortunately it is ordinary parents who are doing it. We have fully bought into the lies of the eugenicists. We want to create a perfect race, or at least a bunch of kids who will give us no problems, make no demands on us, and only serve to please us and meet our needs.

In that sense we may not be so very different from the monsters of Nazi Germany. Sure, we are refined, civilised, and cultured now. But recall that Germany in the 1930s was one of the most cultured, well educated, and progressive nations on earth.

Such conditions did not stop their fall into complete darkness. Nor will they prevent us from descending into a similar sort of barbarism. Today it is “small” things like suing a doctor for not giving us a “perfect” baby. Tomorrow it may be the passage of a law demanding that only perfect specimens are allowed to be brought into this world.

The Brave New World scenarios as depicted in a film like Gattaca may soon be upon us. We will not get there in an instant, but piecemeal – one innocuous sounding step at a time. But the bitter and bleak end will nonetheless still be reached.

Unless we take steps to turn things around now.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/two-couples-suing-doctors-for-failing-to-diagnose-down-syndrome/story-e6frf7kx-1225894768423

[1167 words]

I have written elsewhere about some of the many concerns about the new bio-technologies. Bio-medical ethics today has plenty to deal with, and each new development seems to result in new downsides. Many bioethicists view the artificial creation of life to be a Frankenstein monster, open to all sorts of misuse and abuse.

The most recent example of this has to do with in vitro fertilisation (IVF). This is just one of a number of new means whereby we can create life. But just as we are eager to create life, we seem equally eager to destroy life. Both the creation and destruction of human life has taken place in one go according to recent British reports.

As reported in several recent articles in the Sunday Times, there have been around 80 babies a year created by means of IVF who then are being killed in abortions. This is quite incredible. IVF is an expensive and invasive procedure which desperate women undertake to deal with infertility.

Because of their great desire to have children, they will resort to these onerous and difficult procedures in order to have children. Yet amazingly some 80 of these IVF babies are aborted each year. This is how one of the articles begins:

“When Jilly, a successful recruitment consultant, was pressed by her husband to start a family, she gritted her teeth and agreed. In her thirties, she was keen to press ahead with her career but started attending an IVF clinic at the behest of her spouse, 10 years her senior. Last year, after two rounds of fertility treatment, Jilly became pregnant. But the prospect of motherhood filled her with dread and she decided to have an abortion without telling her husband.

“‘I know it sounds terrible, but I didn’t think the pregnancy would happen and, when it did, I knew I didn’t want it,’ she said. ‘It would have destroyed our relationship. I just let him think the IVF hadn’t worked.’ Jilly, who does not want to be identified, is one of a growing number of young women who have chosen to abort foetuses for ‘social’ reasons after fertility treatment.”

The article provides these details: “Figures obtained under freedom of information rules show that an average of 80 abortions are carried out each year after IVF, which can cost about £5,000. Up to half of these involve women aged 18-34. The statistics, compiled by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), also indicate that some of the pregnancies are a result of conceptions funded by the National Health Service.”

While I have elsewhere documented the many dangers and risks associated with IVF, it is simply mind-boggling to realise that some women will go through the ordeal of IVF only to turn around and destroy the newly created life. This is the height of both selfishness and the commodification of life.

We buy a new microwave, decide we don’t like it, and chuck it out on the street with the other rubbish. We buy a new sports car, but soon grow tired of it, and trade it in for a newer model. We buy a new spring outfit, quickly grow dissatisfied with it, and throw it out.

We expect that in a materialistic, consumerist culture. But we should not be doing that with human life. Babies are not mere consumer goods that can be ordered at whim, and disposed of at whim. They are members of the human race that deserve protection and respect. They are not just another commodity to be disposed of when we grow tired of them.

And women who kill their own IVF babies certainly cannot complain about unwanted pregnancies. As Professor Bill Ledger of the HFEA pointed out, “These women can’t be surprised to be pregnant; you can’t have an IVF pregnancy by accident”.

Says the Times, “Ann Furedi, head of BPAS, formerly the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, believes every abortion doctor sees at least one patient a year requesting a termination after IVF treatment. ‘For infertile people, overcoming the problem becomes a goal in itself,’ she said. ‘Sometimes it is only when women get pregnant that they can allow themselves to ask the question about whether it is really what they want’.”

Sorry, but the time to decide whether you want a child or not is before you begin IVF services, not after it has been successfully carried out. This is simply madness compounded in an age of making life, faking life, and taking life.

Fortunately other social commentators see the unmitigated evil in all this. One such concerned thinker is Albert Mohler. Writing in a recent blog he noted some crucial lessons to be learned from all this:

“What does this new scandal say about the human condition? In the first place, it tells us that we are turning ourselves into unabashed idolaters of the self. We are witnessing the elevation of personal autonomy, personal happiness, and personal fulfillment to levels that can only be described as idolatry. These women are seeking abortions just because they have decided they really do not want to be pregnant after all. Their concern is the solitary self above all.

“Second, this scandal reminds us that the real issue here is the killing of innocent human life, and not the waste of expensive fertility treatments. The response to this report in some quarters is primarily about money, and not about the sanctity of human life. This fact alone should serve as a warning to us all.

“Third, we must remember in light of this scandal that human dignity does not rest in any sense upon the circumstances of conception, but on the fact that every human being ever conceived is made in God’s image and is a life that is sacred and to be honored, protected, welcomed, and cherished. There are all too many women who conceive by natural means, only to make the decision to abort on the same basis as those described in this report. The scandal of the abortions sought after IVF treatments throws a dramatic light on the scandal of abortion itself. This new scandal just serves to make the murderous reality of abortion even more plain to see.”

Quite right. The advances we are making with all our scientific and medical knowledge is far outstripping any moral and ethical progress. The new medical technologies may open up all sort of dazzling possibilities, but without an informed moral framework with which to judge and assess them, they simply lead to more dehumanisation and depersonalisation.

As Mohler concludes, “One might think that the most welcome place in the world for an unborn child would be the womb of a mother who would be so intent on getting pregnant that she would seek and undergo IVF fertility treatment. It turns out that in a significant number of cases, that assumption is proved wrong. How do we take the measure of that tragedy?”

http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/article7144878.ece
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article7144899.ece
http://www.albertmohler.com/2010/06/09/after-ivf-abortion-what-does-this-say/

[1189 words]

It is as if there is an ironclad law which is now in effect: “Thou shalt not speak ill of this group”. And when anyone does dare to speak out, they are instantly and thoroughly crucified by the MSM and the forces of political correctness. The pressure to conform is relentless, crushing and total.

The group I refer to is of course the militant homosexual lobby. Although very small in number, they seem to have unlimited power to push their agenda anywhere and anytime. And woe betides anyone who even remotely seeks to stand in their way.

Indeed, the blackmail, intimidation and hatred are so great, that often the militant homosexuals get just what they want: an immediate retraction and apology. It takes a very strong and courageous person to resist this homosexual blitzkrieg. Unfortunately it seems that most people are simply not up to the task.

Consider this recent example of the instant crucifixion of a contrarian voice. It is an appalling and pathetic story. It involved a very short-lived voice of sanity. A doctor made some very sensible and incisive comments, but was instantly mauled by the attack dogs of political correctness and the gaystapo.

So what hideous things did he say? What horror came forth from his lips? He simply stated the obvious: tax-payer funded IVF should really be used for those who are biologically infertile, not the socially infertile. Thus single women and lesbians have no right to claim access to IVF and other assisted reproductive technologies.

For this Dr Andrew Pesce, recently elected AMA federal president, was viscously attacked, and forced to withdraw his remarks. The story in today’s Sunday Herald Sun simply makes one’s blood boil. The poor man is mentioned first, and the rest of the article is filled with his critics.

Not one voice was allowed to defend the guy. But at least three people were interviewed to attack the man. This has now become so typical of the MSM. If anyone dares to challenge the sacred beliefs of the homosexual mafia, all hell breaks loose.

The journalists will simply call all their homosexual buddies and get heaps of quotes condemning the offender. But will the media try to get some balance and interview folk from the other side? No way. That would be too close to fairness, balance and objectivity, something which is conspicuous by its absence in today’s MSM.

This is how the press report begins: “Dr Andrew Pesce, elected AMA federal president in May, told the Sunday Herald Sun that IVF should not be a ‘lifestyle choice’ and use of the treatment by same sex couples went against the ‘natural order’. ‘Fertility treatment is there to treat diseases that cause infertility, it shouldn’t be there as a lifestyle choice,’ Dr Pesce said.

“‘For example, single women (who choose IVF) don’t have a disease, they just don’t have a partner. Same-sex couples, they don’t have disease but they are using an option that gets around the natural order of things.’ Dr Pesce later contacted this newspaper and said his comments were ‘clumsy’ and a mistake. He said single women and same sex couples should have access to IVF, but could not give a reason for his earlier remarks.”

And the rest of the article is just one attack after another on this man and his perfectly sensible remarks. But one has to ask how this guy could make a 180 degree turnaround in such a short period of time. The answer seems to be pretty clear. The gaystapo attacks simply became unbearable, and he had to compromise his views and do the PC thing to assuage his enemies and escape the hatred.

But his opponents quoted in the article really seem to be the ones in need of major correction. Homosexual activists trotted out the usual bluff about “discrimination”. And former AMA head and practicing lesbian Dr Kerryn Phelps said his views were “not rational”. Oh really? Just what exactly was irrational about them? They seemed to make perfectly good sense.

Why in the world should anyone be entitled to IVF when they choose a lifestyle which guarantees they will be unable to have kids? Even a poodle presumably knows that in order to have offspring, it needs to mate with an opposite sex canine.

Yet we seem to think that singles and lesbians have some divine right to something which they have deliberately made themselves unavailable for. I might as well chop off my legs and then demand the right to walk, and insist that taxpayers fix me up immediately with a set of prosthetic limbs.

I might as well pluck out my eyes, and then talk about “discrimination” for not being able to see, and demand that taxpayers help me regain my sight. I might as well burn down my home and then loudly shout about how my rights to housing are being violated, and that the state owes me a new one.

I might as well castrate myself, and then shout discrimination, and demand that tax payers fix me up with new reproductive facilities. So excuse me, just who is being irrational here? What the doctor said made absolutely perfect sense. Indeed, what he said was completely truthful.

But in today’s age of PC, truth doesn’t count for anything. It is not truth that these homosexual storm troopers want, it is total and complete subservience to their agenda. Anyone who does not bow down and worship at the altar of homosexual militancy will face their full wrath.

And by the way, I know what that is like. I have been at the receiving end of homosexual “tolerance” for many years now. You should read the hate mail that I get. In the past I have simply deleted all their vicious and nasty attacks.

I think that I will now start to save them, and maybe turn it all into a book. This might help others to know just what we are dealing with here. These people can be a particularly nasty piece of work. It appears that Dr Pesce quickly found this out. Sadly, he seems to have capitulated without putting up much of a fight.

And with every case of capitulation, the militancy of the other side will simply increase. If you want to know what living in a police state is like, stay tuned. It seems that we will all very quickly find out.

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25867920-662,00.html

[1122 words]

Consider the issue of saviour siblings. This has to do with the deliberate creation of a sibling to provide body parts to an ailing brother or sister. The 2005 film The Island was one chilling portrayal of where this sort of technology is heading.

In the film Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson play characters who stumble upon an elaborate scheme whereby wealthy people have clones made of themselves, so that if any injury or illness occurs, they have a readymade supply of spare body parts, all with the perfect genetic match.

Saviour siblings are not just the stuff of science fiction and Hollywood fantasy. They are now very much reality. Since 2000 the practice has been going on in the US, and the UK became the first nation to officially legalise the practice in 2004.

Popular American fiction writer Jodi Picoult had become so intrigued by the concept of saviour siblings that she penned a best-selling novel about the practice in 2004 entitled My Sister’s Keeper. Hollywood has now got into the act, and a newly released film by the same title is now in our cinemas.

Starring Cameron Diaz and Alec Baldwin, it examines the many dilemmas a family faces when it is learned that a child has a deadly disease. From an early age Kate Fitzgerald has had leukemia. The parents are desperate to find a solution and the suggestion of a donor sibling by their doctor results in the creation of Anna.

She was created to save Kate. That is her reason for existence. First she donates blood, and then in more invasive procedures she donates bone marrow. Now she is asked to donate a kidney. At this point 11-year-old Anna says enough is enough.

She takes legal action, suing her parents for the rights to her own body. In the film the mother is obsessed with saving Kate, and Anna and other family members are given short shrift by her. And a wild twist at the end of the book/film provides a climax to the story – although it is a climax that not everyone is happy with.

But the many ethical issues raises in the book and the film go to the heart of some of the major bioethical debates taking place today. Many questions are raised here. Do people have a right to use other people as means to an end, even if it is a good end (to save life)? Do we have some inherent right to live forever?

Should children be created for the sole purpose of helping others? Just because modern science can do something, should it be allowed to? Is it right to kill, in order to save others? (Many embryos are created in the process: the best is selected while the remaining ones are destroyed.)

Just how much are we playing God as we advance even further with the new biotechnologies? This book and film certainly help to raise these many important questions. What they do not do is help us with any clear answers.

This is in large part due to the worldview of the authors. If this life is all there is, and there is nothing beyond the grave, then sure, the urgency of the situation becomes even greater, and people will be willing to take desperate measures in desperate times.

But as Charles Colson reminds us, there is another worldview, one which sees this life as just a preliminary existence, leading on to a much more permanent world. Says Colson, “Unlike the character of Sara in the film, Christians do not have to pin their hope to a savior sibling. Even in death, they have a real Savior, one whose triumph overcomes the grave. That very real Savior willingly gave his life so that as we grieve – even the death of a child – we do not do so as those without hope.”

Of course a Christian will grieve as much as a non-Christian when a beloved child is suffering. But he will also know that there is always hope, and that this temporary life, while often a vale of tears, is not the end of the story. For those who place their trust in Christ, the ultimate saviour sibling, we can and do have a future.

Admittedly, how a believer should respond in a similar situation is still not easy to determine. Many tough questions must be carefully thought through and prayed through. So while we can thank novelists and filmmakers for helping to frame the questions, we will have to look elsewhere for some of the answers.

http://www.breakpoint.org/commentaries/11982-building-a-baby-to-save-a-child
http://www.breakpoint.org/features-columns/articles/11871-my-sisters-savior

[811 words]

But today everyone wants a slice of the rights pie. And today very few are talking about things like duty, obligation or responsibility. In an age of entitlements, everyone expects that they should be treated like a king, with nothing denied or withheld.

Even worse, many of these so-called rights have simply been pulled out of a hat. Such rights never existed before, but have been artificially created by a generation which demands total fulfilment, constant gratification, and instant satisfaction. Also of great concern is the fact that many of these rights being demanded by adults entail the diminished rights of children.

One of the most basic and fundamental of rights a child has is the right to be raised by his or her own biological parents. That right is being stripped away as selfish adults demand alternate relationships recognition, such as same-sex marriage, and unfettered access to assisted reproductive technologies (ART).

Right now there is a dizzying array of ways to manufacture a baby, most involving anything but a biological mum and dad. In some of these new reproductive technologies there might be just one biological parent, and sometimes none. And often a number of players can be involved, whether a sperm donor, surrogate mum, or any number of others. Thus a child can often be raised by a team or a committee, rather than a loving mother and father.

Consider the case of IVF, and how older women are demanding the right to ART. For various reasons, more and more women are putting off child birth until it is far too late, and their biological clocks have well and truly run down.

Often these women have bought the feminist myth that the only fulfilled woman is a career woman, and that getting a good job and successful career should be the first priority for every woman, and only afterwards should children be considered.

Many millions of women have gone down this path, only to discover that climbing the corporate ladder is not all that fulfilling after all, and that those maternal instincts are just too strong to resist. So they turn to IVF and other forms of ART, hoping to make up for lost time. Thus we have heard all sorts of horror stories in the media lately.

Indeed, only days ago a story emerged concerning a 72-year-old British woman seeking to conceive. One press account puts it this way: “At the age of 72, she is old enough to know better. But it seems Jenny Brown cannot be deflected from her determination to give birth. Miss Brown, who has never had a long-term relationship, has already spent £30,000 in the United States and Italy trying to conceive and is now prepared to travel abroad again to clinics that still offer IVF treatment to women her age.”

She has gone through all this expense and grief of enduring six courses of IVF, and she is still going at it. Other cases of elderly women trying to do the same –some successfully – have made the headlines. Consider the case of a 52-year-old Adelaide women who had triplets through IVF. And there is the case of a 65-year-old Indian woman, who, along with her 68-year-old husband, had a baby through IVF. More recently, a 63-year-old British woman underwent infertility treatment. Or consider the 66-year-old Romanian woman who had twins through ART. While one of the girls died, chances are the other girl in her formative adolescence and will have a wheel-chair bound mother, if she is alive at all.

These children will be raised by someone more like a grandparent, in terms of age, than a parent. How will an energetic youngster be properly looked after by parents getting too old to physically keep up with them? And the later that parenthood begins, the greater the chance the child will experience the death of a parent.

Indeed, what triggered this article in the first place was a story in today’s media. It is an incredible story. Here is how the story goes: “A Spanish woman who deceived a US fertility clinic about her age and become the oldest woman to give birth has died at 69, leaving behind two-year-old twins, newspapers reported on Wednesday. Maria del Carmen Bousada gave birth in December 2006 after telling a clinic in Los Angeles that she was 55, the facility’s maximum age for single women receiving in-vitro fertilisation. Guinness World Records said the 66-year-old was the oldest woman on record to give birth and the case ignited fierce debate over how much responsibility fertility clinics have over their patients.”

How bizarre. How selfish. This seems to be all about just one thing: the selfish desires of adults, with no thought taken for the wellbeing of the children so conceived. These twins now have no mother, presumably they have no father. So what will come of them? This woman had her jollies for a few years, and is now gone from the scene. But these twins have the rest of their lives to live out, without the two most important people they could ever know and love.

But in an age of rights, the only person we are expected to be concerned about is our self. Who gives a rip about anyone else? As long as all my selfish whims, desires and wants are catered to, who cares how much others might suffer as a result of my selfishness?

This is the logical outcome of a society which is fixated on rights – many of them bogus – but does not know the meaning of the terms ‘responsibilities’ or ‘duties’. In such a misguided world, people are going to suffer. And the ones who are going to suffer the most are the children.

Any society that can create such an environment as that is a society that needs to be put out of its misery, before it causes any more harm and damage.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1199527/This-woman-72-spent-30-000-courses-IVF–shes-STILL-trying-baby.html
http://www.theage.com.au/world/woman-who-deceived-fertility-clinic-to-give-birth-to-twins-dies-20090716-dlrb.html

[1052 words]

The first news item has to do with a call for Australian women to be allowed to sell their eggs for medical research. One news account says this: “Women could make money by selling their eggs for stem cell research under a proposal by one of the pioneers of Australia’s stem cell regulations. Under present laws it is illegal for women to be paid to donate their eggs to medical research, but the University of Melbourne’s Professor Loane Skene says the regulations need to be overturned to find new cures.”

We have of course heard this for some decades now: let’s kill human embryos at an early stage in the hopes of finding some medical cures for other people. It is a convoluted logic and ethic: let’s kill some human beings in the hopes of possibly saving other human beings.

But it is old news in another sense. Scientific breakthroughs involving pluripotent adult stem cells have really resulted in embryonic stem cell therapy becoming redundant. Indeed, induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells) are now where all the action is, and the need for using embryos is now passé.

Moreover, the process of retrieving eggs is an invasive procedure which puts the health of women at risk. To put pressure on women to undergo such risky procedures simply to earn a few quid is irresponsible medicine.

Indeed, the whole idea of selling body parts is grotesque. In tough economic times such as the present, the temptation to make some money on the side by selling eggs or other body parts will lead to the exploitation of many women, especially the poor. This is clearly unethical medicine.

The other story involves the creation of human sperm. This is how one news report covered the story: “Scientists claim to have created human sperm for the first time, in a breakthrough they say could lead to new treatment for male infertility. The sperm was said to have been grown in a laboratory in Newcastle, England, from human embryonic stem cells. Led by Professor Karim Nayernia, researchers developed a method of growing early-stage sperm from the stem cells by using retinoic acid, a vitamin A derivative, and found that about 20 per cent of the cells produced sperm. The breakthrough came when some cells continued to grow, elongating and growing a tail that caused them to move, and forming recognisable sperm cells.”

A number of problems come to mind, including the obvious: if scientists can now manufacture sperm, that simply makes males even more redundant than they already are. The social result is similar to what we get with parthenogenesis, or procreation by one sex alone. This might be good for amoebas, but it is not good for human beings, and certainly not good for the children who come about by such a process. Children need fathers, not just sperm manufacturers and donors.

And we again have the same problem concerning ethical research. The use of embryonic stem cells is predicated on the prior destruction of the embryo. If we really need to create sperm, this too can be done by means of adult stem cells. Once again we are creating life only to destroy, in some vague hope of potentially helping other human beings one day.

One commentator has expressed these concerns: “Although this sperm has not been used to fertilise a human egg, the nightmare is simply that we now stand on the brink of a new era, in which the whole business of bearing children has nothing to do with a biological mother and father. For example, the cells of a lesbian could be used to create sperm with which to fertilise her partner’s egg. In an even more extreme scenario, a woman could, in theory, one day be both mother and father to her own child. The possibilities are mind-boggling.”

And the risks are high: “Moreover, the health risks are enormous. Although live baby mice were produced using the artificially created ‘sperm’, the unfortunate offspring were far from healthy, suffering from various growth and respiratory problems. These caveats notwithstanding, there is no denying that the genie is well and truly out of the bottle and we must now ask ourselves where this technology could one day take us.”

As is so often the case, biotechnologies are far outpacing the necessary ethical and social reflection needed with these new technologies. Just because we can do something does not mean that we should do something. Pushing full speed ahead in these areas without proper reflection and community consultation is a very dangerous path to be on.

The brave new world of biotechnology has certainly been a mixed blessing. Some good may have been achieved, but always the downsides are significant. And the biggest of these downsides is the dehumanisation and depersonalisation that seems to inevitably result from much of these technologies.

While playing God is a recurring temptation, it is important to bear in mind that probably only God is best qualified to do so.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25749739-421,00.html
http://www.theage.com.au/world/men-superseded-sperm-grown-in-lab-20090708-ddd8.html
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,25752463-5001030,00.html

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Yet life offers no guarantees, so science and technology have long been in the business of offsetting the shortcomings of nature. However, as with most things in life, the benefits must be examined along with the costs. Sometimes a social good can only be mitigated by corresponding harm. Sometimes a certain good may have too many negative consequences.

There are numerous risks and downsides associated with ART which I have documented elsewhere. The children themselves who are created by such techniques also may well suffer in various ways. Thus at the very least, those couples consider using ART should think carefully indeed before embarking upon such procedures.

But here I simply wish to draw your attention to some recent concerns about procedures such as IVF. The latest involves a story from the UK involving a tragic mix-up, and a devastated couple. The Daily Mail provides this headline: “’In ten seconds our world was shattered’: Distraught IVF couple discover their last embryo was given to the wrong woman – and then aborted”.

The story continues: “A couple’s last hopes of having another child have been shattered after an appalling blunder at an NHS fertility clinic led to their final usable embryo being implanted into the wrong patient. The error was made by an overworked trainee doctor who failed to carry out strict checks that require all fertility procedures to be witnessed and verified. The woman who mistakenly received the couple’s embryo was told of the devastating error shortly after it occurred and agreed to have a termination. It was the only remaining embryo of nine the distraught couple had created using IVF. The blunder at IVF Wales, part of Cardiff and Vale NHS Trust, was rated category A, the most serious level, by the Government’s fertility regulator, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA).”

Obviously a number of ethical issues are raised here. It is clear, for example, that these technologies are often running at cross purposes. The same hospital that performs fertility treatment in one room, may well be dealing with contraception, sterilization and abortion in another. On the one hand we want to be fertile, even where it is socially, morally or biologically impossible or undesirable. On the other hand we want the ability to cut off the possibility of new life. This schizoid mentality is all part of a society that has lost its moorings and is confused about the nature of sexuality and reproduction.

But this can only get worse. As we move down the road of sex selection, selective breeding, designer babies, and grand promises of eliminating present disease and weeding out future illnesses, we will more and more make utilitarian decisions about which babies should be allowed to enter the world and which should not. The range of what is acceptable life will continue to narrow, and the pressure will mount to restrict conception and parenthood to that which is socially desirable.

But problems in medical ethics are the least of the concerns for these distraught parents. Their reality is quite obvious: their last child was killed. As the grieving mother said: “I kept thinking, ‘They’ve killed our baby! Killed our baby!’ The hospital offered us private counselling on the spot, but we couldn’t get out of there fast enough. Even our worst fears didn’t prepare us for the devastating news that our embryo had actually been placed in another woman, and that it had to be taken out and destroyed for ‘medical reasons’.”

Many similar problems such as this have occurred over the years, mostly due to human error. Numerous IVF mix-ups have occurred. Sperm, eggs, or embryos, are somewhere along the line mixed up, resulting in the wrong children given to the wrong parents. A recent example took place in Britain when a white couple had black twins following an IVF mix-up. A study later found that this was due to mistakes, overworked staff and poor management. The report found a “catalogue of serious mishaps” at IVF clinics.

And the various medical concerns continue to make news. Also in the UK, a recent study found that IVF twins are at a much greater risk of illness or early death. As the Times reported last month, “Twins born as a result of fertility treatment are at greater risk of serious illness or dying in the first three years of their life than those who are conceived naturally, a study suggests. Siblings born together after in vitro fertilisation (IVF) stay an average of four days longer in hospital after birth and are far more likely to be admitted to a neo-natal intensive care ward. They are more than twice as likely to die just before or just after birth, although the reasons for this are not clear, researchers at the universities of Western Australia and Oxford said.”

As mentioned, the desire for children is normal and deep-seated. But sometimes we must be willing to accept what nature has dealt to us, if the remedy becomes worse that the ‘illness’. Indeed, one can ask if it is even right to speak of infertility as in illness.

One thing is certain, IVF and other forms of ART do nothing to cure the condition. The infertile individual continues to be infertile after the treatment. Perhaps we should put more money into the causes of infertility. Research should be aimed at solving or relieving these problems, instead of pouring money into treating the symptoms. And other options, like adoption, should be explored more fully.

Indeed, one can also ask whether IVF is good medicine. Bioethicist Donald De Marco reminds us that reproductive technologies “represent a deviation from the traditional aims of medicine inasmuch as they treat a desire rather than a disease”.

And as fertility expert Roger Gosden notes, “The desire to bear a child can become obsessive, and the costs of infertility treatment are often heavy. Infertility patients are willing to accept considerable discomfort as they undergo a roller coaster of emotions and medical procedures that would be considered humiliating or even dangerous in other circumstances.”

Commenting on this newest story of IVF mix-ups, Bel Mooney offers some helpful insights: “The toll on her physical and mental health (and that of her husband) has been immense and one wonders what the knock-on effect of that on her existing child will be. After all, Mum is always sick or in tears … Desperate couples on the IVF carousel think: ‘Next time we will be lucky’ and perhaps say silent prayers as the cycle starts once more. As I said earlier, who can blame them?

“Yet it’s impossible not to worry that we have reached an unhealthy state when too many people believe they have a divine right to a child. When you have women in their 50s and 60s living by that misplaced conviction and conceiving babies artificially, something is very wrong. These are fiendishly difficult issues, and any government (and its watchdog) owes it to the public to legislate fairly, to be vigilant, to take responsibility and to warn.

“Many of us have doubts that the HFEA is living up to those standards. But beyond that, perhaps women themselves need to rethink their attitudes to motherhood. I would suggest that any young woman in her twenties, in a serious loving relationship, would be wiser not to postpone trying for a baby. That she should think of fertility as a privilege, not a right. And that – whisper it – childlessness might be a fate which (like so many of the other sorrows which afflict our lives) sometimes has to be accepted.”

Quite so. And this is not mere wishful thinking. I know of infertile couples who have embraced their infertility. Sure, they still ache for a child, but they have learned to accept their lot in life, and have learned to be grateful for the many mercies and blessings they do experience in a less than ideal world.

Perhaps the desire for a child has becomes that much stronger in a world where we expect everything to be handed to us on a silver platter. Living in an age of entitlements simply compounds the problem here. Perhaps it is time we started looking at life in all its fullness as a gift, instead of an entitlement.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1192867/IVF-baby-given-wrong-woman–couples-embryo-aborted.html
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article6328793.ece
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1193033/BEL-MOONEY-My-heart-goes-IVF-couple-child-isnt-divine-right.html

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Ever since the cloning of Dolly the sheep back in 1997, the possibility of human cloning has been widely touted – and warned against. What was once the stuff of science fiction is now set to become reality. Many countries have therefore banned human cloning, but that has not stopped the rogue scientists from racing ahead with this.

One such figure has made the headlines before. Panayiotis Zavos, the Cyprus-born, American-based scientist, received worldwide attention in 2004 when he claimed to have cloned human beings. Of course nothing came of it, so he was soon forgotten.

But the maverick scientist is at it again, claiming that more human clones are on the way. This is how the Daily Mail reports the story: “The fertility doctor who claims to have created cloned human embryos and injected them into women desperate to have children is facing a barrage of criticism. Panayiotis Zavos says he placed 11 embryos, made from adult skin cells, into the wombs of four patients who paid up to £50,000. The women – including one Briton – did not become pregnant. But Dr Zavos, who made similar claims five years ago, is confident that the world’s first cloned baby could be born in as little as a year.”

Whether he actually comes up with the goods this time remains to be seen. But if in fact a human clone does emerge, then we are entering into a very worrying period indeed. There are plenty of reasons why human cloning should never be allowed.

Yet critics might ask, “What’s the big deal? Cloning is no different than identical twins.” True, natural cloning does take place in the case of identical twins. But this is a natural process, resulting in two distinct and unique human beings, each with an individual nature, but with an identical genetic makeup. Moreover, children have a genetic independence of their natural parents. They replicate neither their father nor their mother.

Also, as one genetic expert put it, “Just because something happens in nature, such as identical twins, doesn’t mean we should try to repeat it in the laboratory. Many people are born with handicaps – a missing limb, or perhaps an inability to reason at an average level – yet it would never be ethical to reproduce these events in the laboratory just because they occur naturally in about one in 50 births.”

Consider some important concerns about cloning. We know that the great majority of animal clones have had a very poor run. Dolly, for example, was put down in February 2003, suffering from premature arthritis and lung disease.

Also, scientists have admitted that up to 90 per cent of cloned lambs developed by the South Australian research centre that produced the nation’s first cloned sheep are dying soon after birth. And more recently, Prof Ian Wilmut (Dolly’s creator), has said that a review of all the world’s cloned animals suggests that every one of them is genetically and physically defective. Adding weight to these remarks, research published in Nature Genetics showed the high proportion of abnormalities among cloned animals.

Human cloning will just as likely have a horrendous track record. Ethicist Leon Kass asks, “If the attempts to clone a man result in the production of a defective ‘product,’ who will or should care for it, and what status and rights will it have? If the offspring is subhuman, are we to consider it murder to destroy it? The twin issues of the production and disposition of defectives provide sufficient moral grounds for rebutting any first attempt to clone a man.”

Also, there are all sorts of questions about family and identity which are raised here. As Dr Gillian Lockwood, the head of Midlands Fertility Services put it: “This seems to be the ultimate parental selfishness, to produce a clone of yourself. Even if a healthy child was born, the psychological pressure to grow up into a ‘mini-me’ would be completely intolerable. The dangers are overwhelming.”

Indeed, what will become of relationships? Primarily, what is a clone? Is he or she a child or a sibling to the donor? Is the donor a mother, father, guardian, sibling, representative or what? Would the parents of the donor be the clone’s actual parents? What will clones do to family relationships and definitions? Same-sex unions, IVP, surrogacy and other attempts to redefine families have already altered the social landscape. Clone relationships will only further unravel the family unit.

As philosopher Francis Beckwith says, “Imagine if an infertile couple were to produce a clone of the male partner in order to have a child. This poses some interesting problems. For example, the child/clone would technically be the father’s twin – and therefore a brother – and not the father’s son, because sons are the product of the union of a man’s genetic code with a woman’s.”

Or as one Australian fertility expert notes, “cloning will have serious implications, causing our fundamental sense of kinship to go awry. Cloning is even more genealogically perplexing than egg and sperm donation and surrogacy: lineages shift horizontally rather than flow vertically from generation to generation. . . . Whither the traditional nuclear family of Mum, Dad and the kids? Cloning would render the notion of ‘children’ meaningless, giving us copies of existing people instead, but possible decades after the cells of those people had been frozen.”

Moreover, who will decide who should be cloned? And for what reasons? What standards will guide those doing the cloning? It seems that incredible power will reside in those who have the ability to make such decisions. As C.S. Lewis warned way back in 1947, “if any one age really attains, by eugenics and scientific education, the power to make its descendents what it pleases, all men who live after it are the patients of that power. They are weaker, not stronger. . . . Man’s conquest of Nature, if the dreams of some scientific planners are realized, means the rule of a few hundreds of men over billions upon billions of men”.

Indeed, the issue of cloning raises the question of designer children – creating children specially designed for the purposes and uses of others. As ethicist John Kilner points out, “to allow human cloning is to open the door to a much more frightening enterprise: genetically engineering people without their consent – not for their own benefit, but for the benefit of particular people or society at large. . . . If we allow cloning, we legitimize in principle the entire enterprise of designing children to suit parental or social purposes.”

Performing medical experiments without the consent of those involved has long been regarded as taboo. But in human cloning such lack of consent must of necessity be the case. Says Kass, “Since cloning requires no personal involvement on the part of the person whose genetic material is used, it could easily be used to reproduce living or deceased persons without their consent – a threat to reproductive freedom that has received relatively little attention.”

People may come up with all sorts of reasons why they believe human cloning should go ahead. But the dangers far outweigh any positives. This is one path we must not go down. Ultimately, human cloning is an attempt to play God, to take over his divine prerogatives. We are trying to evade death, and to seek utopia on earth. As Charles Krauthammer put it, “Cloning is the technology of narcissism, and nothing satisfies narcissism like immortality”.

Or as Cal Thomas has commented, “The descent of man from his once-exalted position as a unique being created in the image of God to an accident in an impersonal universe has been extraordinarily fast. When moral absolutes are sucked out of society, nothing is left to keep medical technology from cutting, probing, experimenting, even killing, except a vague and sentimental disgust.”

http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1172587/Calls-jail-doctor-cloned-dead-girl-Cadys-blood.html#

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Not long ago Spain declared certain animals to have basic human rights. Now Switzerland has gone even further, declaring that plants may well have inherent moral dignity. One writer sets the scene: “A few years ago the Swiss added to their national constitution a provision requiring ‘account to be taken of the dignity of creation when handling animals, plants and other organisms.’ No one knew exactly what it meant, so they asked the Swiss Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology to figure it out. The resulting report, ‘The Dignity of Living Beings with Regard to Plants,’ is enough to short circuit the brain.”

I have before me the said document (see link below). It is indeed a lulu. Let me offer a few choice quotes from the report:

“The only criterion on which all the members could agree, despite their very differing intuitions, was that we should not harm or destroy plants arbitrarily. Whether concrete ways of acting could be derived from this prohibition on the arbitrary handling of plants, and what they might be, remained unclear.”

“The great majority of the ECNH members holds the opinion that prima facie we do not possess unrestricted power over plants. We may not use them just as we please, even if the plant community is not in danger, or if our actions do not endanger the species, or if we are not acting arbitrarily.”

“No member takes the theocentric position.” Theocentrism means, “The basis for this position is the idea of a God who is creator, and therefore the creative ground of all living organisms. What counts for its own sake is God. All organisms count because of their relationship to God.”

“A clear majority takes a biocentric position.” Biocentrism means, “Living organisms should be considered morally for their own sake because they are alive.”

“Not quite half of the members are doubtful, based on current knowledge, that plants are sentient. Conversely, a small group considers it probable that plants are sentient. A group of equal size considers this question unanswerable on the basis of current knowledge, while the smallest minority in the committee considers this question as fundamentally unanswerable.”

“But it could be that plants nevertheless fulfil the necessary conditions for a kind of sentience. Although plants do not have a central nervous system, the question arises of whether sentience necessarily depends on a central nervous system, and whether disturbances have to be perceived consciously.”

“The Committee members unanimously consider an arbitrary harm caused to plants to be morally impermissible. This kind of treatment would include, e.g. decapitation of wild flowers at the roadside without rational reason.”

I think you start to get the drift. These Swiss eggheads actually spent countless hours meditating on the moral status of tulips, and the sentience of sagebrush. Not surprisingly, none of the committee members accepted the theocentric view of things, but most advanced the biocentric view.

This is just more mother earth paganism, gaia worship, and New Age hokum. While Europe is allowing countless millions of unborn babies to be aborted every year, the Eurosecularists are wringing their hands over whether it is morally acceptable to decapitate a dandelion.

One can see a Dandelion Liberation Front opening up soon in major European cities. Mass marches protesting the immoral act of lawn mowing will soon become commonplace. Of course any tree-felling will soon become a capital crime – oops, sorry, they don’t do the death penalty there.

But given the horrors of speciesism and plant genocide, they might be persuaded to reinstate it. After all, if it comes down to a choice between humankind and a bunch of blackberry bushes, those Europeans sure have their priorities straight.

One can see streets and parking lots being dismantled all around Europe. After all, Joni Mitchell once bewailed the fact that we “paved paradise, and put up a parking lot”. So plant liberation movements around the continent will seek to get us back to the garden.

The problem is, the more extreme plant libbers will rule out even being allowed to walk on the grass. We will be forced to remain immobile, for fear of stepping on one poor sentient bit of crabgrass. Indeed, soon the logical call will come to cull human beings so that poor turnips can flourish, and those sentient tomato plants can run free.

Free Willy campaigns will be supplemented by Free Dandy campaigns. One simply wonders why it took those enlightened Europeans so long to realise the precious nature of plant life, and the expendable nature of human beings.

I of course have been having a bit of fun at the expense of some Swiss loony tunes. But there is a very serious side to all this. Indeed, several things can be noted in closing. One, we need to get back to the biblical story line.

The biblical understanding is that only human being have unique dignity and worth, because they are made in the image of God. All of the other created order is to be treated with care and concern, and we are to be good stewards of the rest of creation. But only human beings have souls, only human beings will live forever, and only human beings have been the object of God’s love through the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ.

Two, whenever we jettison God – or in this case, reject theocentrism – we end up worshipping the creature rather than the creator. Paul of course warned about this in Romans 1. It is a sure sign of human autonomy and revolt. But whenever man seeks to elevate the creature to the level of the creator, trouble always occurs.

As Vincent Miceli wrote in his 1971 book, The Gods of Atheism, “Whoever strikes against God strikes down himself. The atheist denying God degrades himself. The atheist exalting himself above God sinks below the level of animate and inanimate beings. Liberation from God is enslavement in creatures. Absolute humanism is the sure road to absolute despotism. Denial of God as truth begets the imprisonment of man in the self-imposed darkness of his own myths.”

Or to quote GKC once again – this time, a sure quote of his, from Orthodoxy: “The secularists have not wrecked divine things; but the secularists have wrecked secular things, if that is any comfort to them. The Titans did not scale heaven; but they laid waste the world.”

Today Switzerland is debating the human rights of dandelions. Who knows what they may be debating tomorrow. But until they – and all of us – start getting back to a bit of theocentrism, and start easing up on all the anthropocentrism, things will only get a heck of a lot worse, and real soon.

http://www.rightwingnews.com/mt331/2008/05/animal_vegetable_or_stupid.php
http://www.ekah.admin.ch/uploads/media/e-Broschure-Wurde-Pflanze-2008.pdf

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