Posted on 06/01/2006 6:55:41 AM PDT by Mr. Silverback
Note: This commentary may not be suitable for young children. Please use parental discretion.
Leann Mischel, a Pennsylvania college professor, was ready to have a second child. And she wanted the new baby to have the same father her son did. The problem was that Mischel had no idea who he was: The father of her son was “Donor 401” at a sperm bank. And the bank had sold out of Donor 401’s genetic material.
But Mischel was in luck. As the Washington Post put it, Carla Schouten, another sperm-bank mother from San Jose, had “the gift of a lifetime for Mischel”—“an extra vial of the father’s sperm chilling in her doctor’s refrigerator.” She gave it to Mischel, who used it to father her second child.
This is a chilling example of the Brave New World of babymaking—one that puts human reproduction into the world of commerce.
Increasingly, men and women are buying and selling eggs and sperm; other women rent out their wombs for a fee. Egg donors with Ivy League educations and sperm donors with doctoral degrees can charge far more for their products. You have to wonder: How long will it be before the most popular “donor fathers” and “egg mothers” decide to cut out the middleman and sell their products on Ebay? And then imagine the child of that transaction—one who finds out that Dad sold his genetic material to a total stranger because she was the highest bidder.
And what about the grandparents? How sad that the parents of men who sell their sperm may have dozens of grandchildren they will never meet. And what if grandparents decide to locate these genetic grandchildren?
There’s also the eugenics element. People who buy genetic products want the best that money can buy. For example, the man who fathered the babies of Leann Mischel and Carla Schouten, and of nine other women, is 6-foot-4, good at sports, has a master’s degree, and is of German descent. It all sounds a bit like the plot of a creepy novel—one that involves neo-Nazis trying to spread the seeds of a new “Master Race.”
What we’re witnessing is the triumph of genetic reductionism, which treats people as little more than the product of their DNA. There is a growing group of scientists, like Steven Pinker at MIT, who promote an alien worldview called evolutionary psychology: that our genes actually program us. In this view, the human body is not a gift from God but a purely physical object, a commodity bought and sold—or cut up for parts, as with embryonic stem-cell research.
But the Bible teaches that humans—far from being mere collections of DNA or reproductive machines—are made in the image of God and that we find our ultimate identity and worth in reflecting our Creator.
Some European countries have banned donor insemination of single women and the anonymous donation of sperm and eggs. And we ought to be doing exactly the same thing here.
This broadcast brings to a close our two-week series about the “War on the Weak.” You need to explain to your neighbors what is at stake in the clash between the biblical worldview and many of the alien worldviews we have been discussing during this series. As is so clear from today’s subject, genetic reductionism, what is at stake here is nothing less than the question of what it means to be human.
This is part ten of ten in the “War on the Weak” series.
When i first read that sentence, for some reason my brain rendered it as "moral infarction," and I'd just like to note that Moral Infarction would be a great name for a band. :-)
I've read that this has happened before. I wish I had a link because I don't remember the outcome..
Insanity.
"You don't need to involve a hogh-priced fertility doctor and his syringe! Cut out the middleman! I'll show up at your door and perform the service free of charge as many times as necessary."
Ever heard the Jim Croce song "Roller Derby Queen?"
I love that song...especially the line about her being "built like a 'frigerator with a head."
He was a master, too bad he went so young.
Estimated improvement is based on average results.
Your mileage may vary...
;)
My favorite is "Box #10." I've got an old LP of his that I drag out every once in a while.
SD
I've been a fan since I was a kid because my Dad loved his stuff. I've got a two CD set that they put out for his 50th birthday that has mare than half of everything he ever recorded--all three mainstream albums and some of the stuff he recorded with his wife before he hit it big.
Have you ever heard his song "Dreamin' Again"? It's one of the most beautiful love songs I've ever heard, and the sense of loss is incredible. That's one of the reasons I respect him so much as a writer--here's a guy who's been happily married for years and he writes this song that sounds like he just had the love of his life rip his heart out of his chest the day before. he was really good at putting himself in other people's shoes. "Don't you know i had a dream last night, and everything was still..."
His first album, Facets, has a cover of Gordon Lightfoot's "Steel Rail Blues" on it. I wonder what that sounds like.
Oh, additional fact:
I looked up the info on his air crash. Turned out the pilot had undiagnosed coronary disease and ran almost three miles from the hotel to the airport. A massive heart attack occurrred during climbout. The day the music died, part II.
I guess I used the word, 'rant', incorrectly. My apologies. I often think of it with a different connotation, as in: "I enjoy a good rant from time to time." (can't tell you who said that, I don't remember); but it comes to mind for me like famous quotes come to most folks.
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Hitler would be proud.
Great tune!
I've been trying to get Doctor Demento to play it. i think it should be shared with the world. :-)
Memorable tune! I wish Roller Derby would come back! ;-)
DISCUSSION ABOUT:
Brave New Babymaking: The Search for Sperm Donor 401
Eugenics at work.
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