Posted on 08/11/2004 6:34:48 AM PDT by NYer
Murder is not a good kind of act. Hence, murder is never justified. But a good kind of act can have evil results. An act of self-defense is a good kind of act, all other things being equal. Therefore, the death or injury of an attacker, as a result of an act of self-defense, is not necessarily unethical. If the act goes beyond what is necessary for self-defense, however, then it is no longer an act of self-defense.
-A8
About a year and $25,000 is all my wife and I will need to spend in order to come home with a cute little Russian orphan boy.
I'm quite relieved that we finally got over the "our own genes" hurdle to adoption.
Domestically, undoubtedly due in part to the prevalence of abortion, there are an average of 3.5 adoptive families for every adoptable child according to Census figures.
This is one of the reasons that my wife and I are adopting from Russia - theres thousands of children over there languishing in orphanages, because adoption is still not terribly socially accepted as I understand it.
Building a family is one of the most personal and emotional undertakings that a couple can undergo, and that is magnified when you're faced with infertility.
We wind up going through the five stages of grief, essentially grieving the loss of the blood descendants we'll never have. It's not quite the same thing as losing a child you already had, but it's a very difficult and painful thing to accept even so. We still had dreams and hopes for the future of our biological children, even if they don't exist yet.
The couple in this article spent $25,000 and two years in Stage 1 - Denial. It's certainly a blessing that they were ultimately able to concieve, but my wife and I had to work through the rest of the stages of grieving when we got through Stage 1 and decided that fertility treatments and the risks to her health were obstacles we no longer wanted to try to overcome. We've been married for 11 years now.
Adoption is just another way of becoming a family. God bless you and your wife on the beautiful new addition to your family! (from one adoptive parent to another).
You are going to have to sit my middle child down and explain that to him when he's 18.
He's the result of in-vitro using a donor egg.
Explain to me how bringing life into the world lessens the value of it.
There is one issue here that is legitimate for discussion: what happens to the other frozen embryos.
There is another not addressed: The morons that implant 6 embryos, have five take, and then 'selectively reduce' to 2 embryos.
The ends do not justify the means, but in-vitro fertilization is as much an act of love as intercourse, as long as the children are sought after in some fashion other than handbag accessories.
Our son from Viet Nam (my wife and I are caucasian)was studying genetics way back when he was in grade school. He was given a science project about eye color, ear lobes, rolled tongues, etc. I was helping him and told him his teacher must be mistaken, because neither Mom nor I had detached ear lobes or brown eyes, there must be some sort of recessive genes for these things.
And then there's the one where my wife had very vivid "memories" of her trip to the hospital to give birth to another child we didn't even meet until she was four.
Maybe we've been blessed with the peace that it doesn't matter where a child comes from because God's given us children both ways. I promise the emotions you feel (both good and bad) are no different.
It's the means that lessen the value of it, not the end result (the child). Nobody is blaming the children that come about for the perilousness posed by in-vitro. When I said 'lessen the value' I meant that human life will be devalued in the same way you see it happening today: let's choose our baby's sex; let's take DNA tests of the fetus and abort it if it is not 'perfect'; let's whip up 10 embryos in a lab and, if one takes, let's flush the rest or harvest their DNA. In-vitro, like it or not, means that human beings are no longer ends in themselves - they are means to "parenthood", and procreation is taken out of the sacrament and into the lab.
You might say "In-vitro doesn't lead to that - bad decisions do." Well, that's true, but so does sex outside of marriage. And to the Catholic Church and its understanding of natural law, that's what in-vitro is. And that's where all its abuses come from - good intentions wrapped up in commodifying technology run by people who don't value life as an end in itself and sold to people who think they know themselves better than God does.
I don't mean to come down hard but that's my understanding of why the Church thinks in-vitro is wrong. For me, it's the pandora's box that's most obviously troubling - science's unfailing pursuit to do whatever it can if it can. They will do whatever they can with human DNA, too, and they will take reproduction outside of the sacramental confines of marriage to do it, too, it goes without saying.
I evil (the devil) can turn good intentions into harmful results and God can turn bad intentions into good things. We'll see what He makes of this.
You automatically lose the debate by invoking Hitler. As if you can draw some perverted moral equivalency between Hitler and IVF.
You sound just like the "if God had wanted us to fly he'd have given us wings" crowd.
The difference between the factions here is that some of us believe God loves us unconditionaly and some of us are afraid of God.
I believe the former is true and I also believe the greatest Mortal sin is to interpret the bible to suit ones ends.
If you read my earlier post, you would have seen that I am blessed to be an adoptive mother. Three miscarriages and two ectopic(tubal) pregnancies convinced me God had other plans for us. Building a family is just as an emotional experience with an adopted child--trust me, I've been there.
"my wife and I are adopting from Russia"
God bless you.
Do you feel the same way about intercourse?
I made an analogy, I did not invoke Hitler. You can't self define the greatest sin, friend, that makes you god. You are interpreting the bible, not I. I am accepting what God has ordained by His Church which speaks infallibly on such issues. You are fallible and very wrong in this case. God does love us unconditionally. That does not mean we are to presume upon His mercy. One can't commit grave sin after grave sin and call it not a sin. That is presumption. We all can be blinded to the truth if we immerse ourselves in grave sin.
So, how then do you and the church feel about adoption?
I have an adopted girl too.
If she was conceived out of wedlock, and I adopt her, is this not violating the same standards you put forward, that we adopted her not for the beauty and miracle of creating a human being, but for the sake of parenthood, and that procreation has been taken out of the sacrament.
You weren't coming down hard by the way, you are just laying out your argument.
I fully agree that science pursues things and does them without questioning whether they should. I'm not sure about whether scientists are the ones best suited to debating the merits of their pursuits.
The A-bomb is the obvious example, right? Did the A-bomb save more lives than it took? So far, maybe.
That'll change if China decides to invade Taiwan probably.
Back on point, we are God's creatures, and we are curious, and we are laden with the talents God gave us.
Oppenheimer brought us both the bomb and nuclear power.
As you say, people kill people, guns don't kill people.
I say that if you restrict scientists from discovery that is achieved in accordance with the laws of God and man, it is up to us to provide the discipline to properly use these discoveries afterward.
Stem-cell research on aborted fetus' - bad
Stem-cell research on adult cells and ambilical cord blood, no problem.
Research on the effects of hypothermia - good.
Nazi's using Jews in those experiments - bad.
The church's deal with Galileo gave us some insight on what would happen if we put the church in charge of what we ought to be studying.
I'm all for the church telling us HOW we ought to be studying, but not what.
Thank you so very much. Yes, it's definitely the hardest thing I've ever endured. It is so good to hear success stories like yours and the others on this thread. We will definitely adopt if our bio-attempts do not work out -- our overriding goal is to become loving parents, with or without a genetic link.
Thank you again.
Thank you for your kind thoughts.
I agree that we do not have the right to correct any medical condition -- cancer or infertility -- by immoral means. The question here is whether IVF is immoral. In my view, creating then abandoning embryos would be immoral -- so we agree on that. I am not convinced, though, that IVF itself is immoral.
"do highly religious people have a disturbing obsession with semen?"
It seems to make them gag.
An interesting answer to my question since I have never condemned IVF. Basically, if I understand you, the answer you have given me is "because I can." What if your IVF kid needs a transplant. According to your logic, you can just clone him and use the other child for spare body parts, because you can because we "have such marvelous medical techniques to preserve life." Of course, that is as ridiculous as you stating that I am questioning you and your wifes' commitment.
What I am understanding about your non-answer is that your overwhelming desire for IVF comes into the realm of being able to say you possess a child of your very own--who has your eyes, your wifes' smile, etc. If that is the case, let me remind you that ALL children are on "loan", so to speak, as my sister was reminded when her daughter died at a young age.
That being said, let me wish you and your wife the very best and much happiness with your new addition.
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