What strikes me more than anything about out Brave New World, is our willingness to disregard the well-being of the very children we are trying to create. It is the height to egotism to purposefully create children either in the image we desire or to be used as "spare parts" for research or another child. I find it extremely disturbing. A symptom of a time when we want what we want, when we want it and who cares about how it affects anyone else.
Awhile back Fr. Raymond J. De Souza commented on Britian's House of Commons acceptance of "Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill that would allow the creation of animal-human hybrid embryos; would permit genetic screening of embryos to select so-called "saviour siblings"; and would remove the obligation to consider the role of fathers in artificial reproduction."
Fr. Souza rightly points out that this Bill makes a sharp departure from traditional Western Civilization values that see children as a good in their own right:
It is a hallmark of Western civilization that children are to be seen as good in their own right, persons with rights and dignity entrusted to the care of their parents. This is such a commonplace idea that we do not stop to consider it a great civilizational achievement, but it is.... It was the long painstaking work of centuries --drawing upon both religious and civil resources -- to arrive at the cultural and legal consensus that the child does not exist as an object for the benefit of others, but that the child must be treated as a subject for his own
sake.
This seems like such a no brainer. Fr. Souza is right. Most people probably are unaware of this ethic and therefore cannot see how it has been abandoned. Screening a bunch of sibling embryos for genetic compatibility with a sick older child and tossing the rest, is clearly saying that it is acceptable for one child to be created for the benefit of another and not for his own benefit. Fr. Souza goes on:
The animating spirit behind the West-minster votes this week was quite different -- that new life can be created for the purposes of others, independent of its own interests. The Frankenstein-esque practice of manufacturing animal-human hybrids is solely for the purpose of destroying such embryos for medical research purposes. The desire to create "saviour siblings" is flatly utilitarian -- the new child is conceived for the explicit purpose of providing tissues and organs for his siblings. The decision to no longer require fertility clinics to consider who might be the father of the child is being hailed as a great advance for lesbian couples and single women, but does anyone
pretend that fathers are irrelevant to the best interests of the child?
Many people think these measures are compassionate. I suppose if you only consider researchers, and the parents and siblings it could be seen that way. WHere is the compassion for the human embryo being experimented on? Where is the compassion for the embryos that don't make the genetic cut? Where is the compassion for the young adult who knows he was created in a dish to satisfy his mother's "need"? Where is the compassion for the child who is confused about Father's Day?
I would venture that many people think this has nothing to do with them or their families. They would be wrong. Once one class of humans are seen as desirable biologival material, theh we all do. Fr. Souza says it best:
The conception of a human person principally as an instrument for the satisfaction of others' needs or desires is a radically different way of looking at children. It has been oft-noted that we live in a therapeutic society; the U. K. has now arrived at the point where new
life itself is looked at as a therapy for others.
Now that we see "new life as a therapy for others" when does "older life" become the same?
