Somewhere, Hitler is Smiling

Life is treated like a commodity in western society. Thanks to the legalization of abortion, human life at conception is minimized with euphemisms like blastocyte, zygote, and embryo. Pro-abortion supporters learned years ago that dehumanizing an unborn baby in the eyes of the public is easier if you can label the child in neutral medical terms. Well, after 30 years of being tenderized by the relentless government and media supported pro-abortion agenda, Americans are ready to proceed to the next logical step in the desecration of Life: designer children.

According to the BBC, Dr. Jeff Steinberg of the LA Fertility Institutes is offering “would-be parents the chance to select traits like the eye and hair color of their offspring.” (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7918296.stm) Gender selection is also an option. Surprised? Why? If you can choose whether or not a child should live, why should you not also be able to choose what characteristics he/she should possess?

And you thought eugenics ended with Joseph Mengele and Nazi Germany.

Dr. Steinberg, described by the BBC as a pioneer of In Vitro Fertilization, defends the ethics of his procedures by declaring that it can be used for medical reasons as well as cosmetic: “For example, a couple might want to have a baby with a darker complexion to help guard against a skin cancer if they already had a child who had developed a melanoma.” How altruistic of the good doctor!

But despite his philanthropic claims to the contrary, Steinberg reveals his true motives when he argues that medicine has been able to offer these services for years and that “it’s time for everyone to pull their heads out of the sand.” In other words, What can be done, Should be done. Anything short of this is handcuffing science, preventing the evolutionary progress of man toward perfection, toward godhood.

It is this desire for perfection that motivates parents to design their children. Implicit in their motives is the belief that some children are worth more than others. Ultimately, if all children were equally precious it would not matter the sex or hair color of a baby–nor would it matter whether he/she is in perfect health. Sure some parents will argue that out of love they want to protect their child from suffering through life with handicaps, but in reality any parent who would go to the lengths of designing their child is clearly incapable of accepting an imperfect son or daughter.

It will be interesting to see how the liberal feminist community responds to Dr. Steinberg and to designer children in general. Their pro-abortion agenda has boxed them into a corner without a rational means of escape. Since the 1970s feminists have demanded unrestricted access to abortion and have defended a woman’s right to choose as inviolable. “Nobody has the right to tell a woman what to do with her own body” is the rallying cry of the movement. Well, what happens when this designer option is offered to those in nations like China and India where sons are prized over daughters because of the need for manual labor in the countryside? The very same “Freedom of Choice” argument used by feminists to defend abortion will be used to eliminate the birthing of girls around the world. Disgustingly ironic, isn’t it?

Also, supporters of designer children fail to realize, or fail to care, that should developing nations use this option to select sons, the entire gender balance of the human community will be upset. Within a century or two men will outnumber women by millions, drastically reducing the number of child-bearing women on the planet. There is no shortage of sci-fi, horror-film scenarios that could result from this, such as the following:

! Perhaps the gender disparity will reach a critical mass where the authorities will be forced to create life in test tubes in order to compensate for the lack of women. Imagine the number of embryos discarded in the process. Visualize the millions of unparented children being reared by the state.

! Or perhaps the government will respond to the gender disparity by forcing parents to reproduce under harsh restrictions. Couples will be told the number of children they must give birth to and the genders of those children. (China already has a one-child policy, so reproductive restrictions are more than fantasy)

! Perhaps forced reproduction will extend beyond married couples to single men and women as well. Humans will be treated like cattle, with the producing of life given no greater sanctity than pedestrian medical activities like removing tonsils or donating blood.

Think it is unrealistic? Just a century ago the idea of designer children would have sounded ridiculous also.

Paging Dr. Mengele.

Donald Tremblay