"O Brave New World, That Hath Such People In It."
A Texas company has started producing batches of ready-made embryos that single women and infertile couples can order after reviewing detailed information about the race, education, appearance, personality and other characteristics of the egg and sperm donors.
The Abraham Center of Life LLC of San Antonio, the first commercial dealer making embryos in advance for unspecified recipients, was created to help make it easier and more affordable for clients to have babies that match their preferences, according to its founder.
"We're just trying to help people have babies," said Jennalee Ryan, who arranged for an egg donor to start medical treatments to produce a second batch of embryos this week. "For me, that's what this is all about: helping make babies." From Washington Post.
Well folks, there you have it. Margaret Sanger got her way after all! (Founder of Planned Parenthood and Nazi sympathizer and proponent of eugenics)
When the unitive and procreative aspect of the sexual act have been severed this is what it ultimate leads to. Catholicism has been criticized for its immovable stance regarding artificial contraception but now more than ever do we see the wisdom behind this. After artificial contraception became widespread via the Pill, promiscuity, abortion and the commercialization of sex became rampant as predicted by Pope Paul. With the continued separation of sexuality from procreation we have begun to see the fruits of this Malthusian Brave New World.
We have cleverly figured out how to make love without making babies and now we have even more cleverly figured out how to make babies without making love.
The Catholic Catechism on Embryos (Small Humans)
Since it must be treated from conception as a person, the embryo must be defended in its integrity, cared for, and healed, as far as possible, like any other human being.
Prenatal diagnosis is morally licit, "if it respects the life and integrity of the embryo and the human fetus and is directed toward its safe guarding or healing as an individual.... It is gravely opposed to the moral law when this is done with the thought of possibly inducing an abortion, depending upon the results: a diagnosis must not be the equivalent of a death sentence."81
2275 "One must hold as licit procedures carried out on the human embryo which respect the life and integrity of the embryo and do not involve disproportionate risks for it, but are directed toward its healing the improvement of its condition of health, or its individual survival."82 "It is immoral to produce human embryos intended for exploitation as disposable biological material."83 "Certain attempts to influence chromosomic or genetic inheritance are not therapeutic but are aimed at producing human beings selected according to sex or other predetermined qualities. Such manipulations are contrary to the personal dignity of the human being and his integrity and identity"84 which are unique and unrepeatable.
If you are as horrified by this as I was, please contact Miss Ryan (Founder of the Abraham Center of Life) to express your concerns in a charitable fashion:
jennaleeryan@theabrahamcenteroflife.com
posted by Russ Rentler, M.D. | 9:32 AM
14 Comments:
Thanks for the great post, TJ. And Prodigal, your comments are some of the best I've read from you yet. I think approaching the issue from the consumer angle is dead-on. In addition to what has been outlined here, I think these things are going to start moving forward exponentially. Now that the underlying principles have been accepted, I can't see what requests those in charge of these matters could possibly object to. These embryos, it is said, are only potential human beings, not real human beings. Those of the household of faith believe, of course, that embryos are potentially MATURE human beings in their earliest developmental stages. After all, they're not going to develop into frogs or goats. Now it's only a short step in theory, it seems to me, to creating a new race of slaves, perhaps super-soldiers to fight our wars for us. Why should we care what happens to them? After all, they're not human, are they? Who knows, maybe someday they'll get the vote.
In contemplating the origins of this "fertility center," today I have been asking myself all morning, "what has led to this?"
Is it consumerism gone mad? Has the "Have it your way" mentality led us to disrespect ourselves to such a degree that even our own bodies are simply another machine for the production of a consumer product, other human beings?
Is it the contraceptive mentality spun out of control? Has the separation of the unitive and procreative purpose of our human sexuality caused us to consent to being merely procreative machines?
Is this the breakdown and redefinition of the family taken to an extreme? Is family literally becoming what we decide it will be, not only who we will live with, but who we will allow to reside or not in our very wombs?
I know that it is all of these realities and more. How sad to think that we have degraded and disrespected the gift of our humanity to the point of a mere tool of our own pleasure and consumption.
As our beloved late John Paul II has said:
"Indeed, Christ alone can free man from what enslaves him to evil and selfishness: from the frantic search for material possessions, from the thirst for power and control over others and over things, from the illusion of easy success, from the frenzy of consumerism and hedonism which ultimately destroy the human being."
February 13, 2005
Thanks Pilgrim for the kind words.
We truly are on the verge of a Brave New World and not far from creating a new race of slaves soldiers, or spare body parts.
I pray for the souls of these human brothers and sisters who are suspended in frozen animation. Truly the God of the Universe has sacrificed His life for them as well.
Thanks Proddy!
I sent your comment to Ms. Ryan of the Abraham Center in the hopes that it will generate some thought.
God bless
"We're increasingly treating children like commodities...It's like you're ordering a computer from Dell: You give them the specs, and they put it in the mail. I don't think we should consider mail-order computers and other products the same way we consider children."
- Mark A. Rothstein, bioethicist at University of Louisville, Kentucky
"We find this very troubling...This is essentially making embryos a commodity and using technology to breed them, if you will, for certain traits."
- Steven Ory, president of American Society for Reproductive Medicine
"People have long warned we were moving toward a 'Brave New World...This is just more evidence that we haven't been able to restrain this move towards treating human life like a commodity. This buying and selling of eggs and sperm and now embryos based on IQ points and PhDs and other traits really moves us in the direction of eugenics."
- Robert P. George of Princeton University, serves on President's Council on Bioethics
"The same liberals who demand stem-cell research using human embryos and who blasted the FDA for delaying approval of emergency contraception now accuse the FDA of recklessly approving cloned food."
It's not ok to clone food but certainly Ok to clone humans and approve of the commercialization and sale of humans.
Does this sound like anything familiar to anyone out there? Hello!
America? Where are you ? remember the trafficking of slaves here about 150 years ago?
Taking this further, as the African-American community becomes better informed about cloning technology, a growing concern has surfaced regarding the desirability of cloning material maintaining African-American DNA trait codes. Since our country has not healed itself of bigotry and racism, is it not unreasonable to conclude that social biases within the scientific community, dominated by whites, will influence research to duplicate individuals representing itself. By selective genetic engineering during the cloning process, afro-influenced traits would be replaced with the more desirable anglo-saxon traits. Or, will there be a desire to manufacture cloned individuals for domestic, athletic, and entertainment tasks maintaining the afro-influenced traits, enabling easy identification of the service-class cloned or manufactured individuals?
Great post Tiber & Prod.
This news just sits awful with me, and it hits close to home.
My husband and I have been trying for over a year to conceive a child -- in the conjugal act of love! No, I would NOT go to this compay to buy an embryo that meets my specs.
This is dangerously wrong.
I liked the Mark A. Rothstein quote above.
I've sent an email.
My email bounced back!
This is what I got:
Recipient: jeannleeryan@theabrahamcenteroflife.com
Reason: "The recipient cannot be verified. Please check all recipients of is message to verify they are valid."
Thank you for this post...I'm spreading the word and praying for an end to this spirit of selfishness and ignorance.
In your article the name of the woman is "Jennalee Ryan." The e-mail address for her you have posted there is jeannleeryan@theabrahamcenteroflife.com
I suspect that "jennaleeryan" is correct rather than "jeannleeryan."
If you truly believe in God and that nothing can go against His Will then you must understand that whatever happens is indeed His Will and is for the betterment of all souls.
If you think that things that pass in the World happen without His will
then it is you who have a mistaken interpretation of his message not them who listen to him
For Billy Z -
your alternative doesn't encompass the whole structure.
nothing happens, of course, without God letting them happen - in respect of our liberty (even of demons's liberty).
But this doesn't mean He agrees with the content of such happenings. This means we are not to stay and watch some lunatics cloning humans etc. In fact some things must come, but, nevertheless, we must resist
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