Such hostility to life itself
In a way, this doesn’t surprise; I seem to recall that when the Church objected to in-vitro fertilization (IVF) technology in the 1970s, one of the objections raised was that it undercut the dignity of the human person, and of human life, essentially by reducing both to little more than a commodity.
And to be perfectly fair, this sort of thing is actually a very natural progression of IVF technology, as well as a very natural progression of the notion that the unborn should be tested for pre-existing conditions in the first place:
Long before Watson and Crick famously uncovered the structure of DNA in 1953, people envisioned with both horror and hope a day when babies could be custom designed — free of inherited disease, yet equipped with superior genes for good looks, intelligence, athleticism, and more. Now the beginnings of that day have finally come.
The Fertility Institutes recently stunned the fertility community by being the first company to boldly offer couples the opportunity to screen their embryos not only for diseases and gender, but also for completely benign characteristics such as eye color, hair color, and complexion. The Fertility Institutes proudly claims this is just the tip of the iceberg, and plans to offer almost any conceivable customization as science makes them available. Even as couples from across the globe are flocking in droves to pay the company their life’s savings for a custom baby, opponents are vilifying the company for shattering moral and ethical boundaries. Like it or not, the era of designer babies is officially here and there is no going back.
One detects a note of vicious triumph in that last statement, a sense of “suck it, you vain moralists!”
This is, plain and simple, the commoditization of life at its earliest state.
And there’s little in the subject worth being triumphant about. All but the most ardently pro-abortion will admit that the idea of selectively aborting babies who may (none of the tests are all that accurate) have genetic abnormalities or pre-existing illnesses does raise several large moral issues. There has always been a very eugenic component to the argument that we should be allowed to abort babies who, in the womb, give indication of the possibility of having e.g. Down’s Syndrome.
But even that pales in comparison to what The Fertility Institutes is doing; we’ve seen periods in history where selection for purely external, phenotypical traits was not only socially acceptable, but the desired norm. I believe we firebombed Hamburg in the most recent large-scale example.
Babies are, first and foremost, human beings; they aren’t automobiles. It’s a strange thing to think that some people view the procreation of the species as being somehow akin to choosing an options package on a new Audi: “blue eyes and brown hair” is now, for them, a decision of the same moral order as “power locks and air conditioning.” Except that what’s being decided upon is not an emotionless object, a lifeless fusion of metals and various polycarbonate materials. What’s being decided upon is another human being — yes, a human being at the very earliest stages of life, but a human being who will be forever impacted by the choices his or her parents made at that early stage.
I can understand the desire of parents to select for specific traits, or against specific illnesses…but I find I cannot sympathize with the desire, as it is a desire principally motivated by selfishness. People abort Down’s Syndrome babies because they don’t want to be burdened with having to raise a child with developmental difficulties — that’s selfish. People want a blue-eyed baby rather than a brown-eyed baby because a recently deceased parent had the most marvelously blue eyes — that’s selfish.
It’s selfish, because it’s not just about one baby, but about all babies who share in the trait being selected against. What does it say about the value of the life of a person who struggles with Down’s Syndrome, that we now practically encourage mothers of similarly afflicted babies to abort?
And because it’s selfish, it is also dangerous, as are all things which sin taints. Notice the language in the article: “The Fertility Institutes proudly claims this is just the tip of the iceberg, and plans to offer almost any conceivable customization as science makes them available.”
Now, we’ve already seen how, in places like India and China, something which was supposedly meant (if the rhetoric is to be believed) to empower and help liberate women — access to abortion — has been turned into something which further oppresses women (female babies get aborted at a much higher rate than male babies, resulting in very skewed birth demographics — as high, I seem to recall seeing in one study, as 1.5 male babies for every 1 female).
We would be deluding ourselves if we thought, even for a moment, that the ability to be even more selective in regard to the traits of the baby would not be similarly abused. Indeed, one can see how the potential for abuse here is actually significantly greater.
God forbid that a genetic predisposition for homosexuality ever be discovered — there would be a virtual pandemic of couples demanding that their child be “engineered” to not be gay.
God forbid that a genetic predisposition for Religion or atheism be discovered — a similar pandemic would be observed as parents demand their child be engineered to be immune to the lures of a/theism.
Don’t think it could come to that, good reader? Read that sentence (above) again, and then answer me: how would we stop it? What criteria could we use? How could we even begin to argue, logically and/or rationally, that while it’s perfectly fine to engineer your child to have blue eyes, it’s simply unacceptable to engineer your child to be heterosexual?
(hat tip)
Steynian 329 « Free Canuckistan! (March 2, 2009, 3:47 pm).
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