Nicole Kidman Thanks “Gestational Carrier”

ChelseaInfertility, IVF, Reproductive Technology4 Comments


Two weeks ago I did a post highlighting Melanie Thernstrom’s ode to surrogacy in which she repeatedly referred to the women who gave birth to her children as “gestational carriers.” That was a first for me and at the time I said:

Sounds like something from a horror cloning movie. Well…maybe that kinda fits after all.

Yesterday I noticed a few fellow bloggers came across this rather creepy term with the news that Nicole Kidman and husband Keith Urban added a second daughter to their family via surrogacy. In a press announcement the couple said that they were “truly blessed” and thanked everyone for their support, “our gestational carrier” in particular.

Said Wesley Smith:

Gestational carriers. Gestational carriers. I am still trying to get my mind around that. It doesn’t even sound human.

I am reminded of Dune’s “axlotl tanks,” which are women who are lobotomized and then their bodies used as gestational carriers for clones. Now, surrogates mothers aren’t lobotomized, of course. But they are being objectified.

And Erin Manning:

“Gestational carrier,” you should note, is just a nicer way of saying “reproductive prostitute.” But it doesn’t change the reality.

I don’t know exactly how new this terminology is, but personally, I think it’s a way to depersonalize the relationship between surrogate and child. Traditionally they are referred to as surrogate “mothers” – which is what a woman who gives birth to a child is, a mother. But that just confuses things, doesn’t it? After all, she’s essentially just an incubator, is she not. She’s not the one who’s going to be losing sleep caring for a newborn baby. It’s not her child!

Oy! As if the act of surrogacy itself isn’t objectifying enough (both for the woman and the child)…

Related:
“They are just the wombs”
Outsourcing Birth
Eggsploitation, Surrogacy and the Business of Making Babies

MLK and Human Rights, the Battle Continues

ChelseaAbortion, Assisted Suicide, Cloning, Embryonic Stem Cell Research, PrayerLeave a Comment

nullToday we remember Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who died fighting (peacefully) for the rights of those who were treated as less than human because of the color of their skin.

Today, the battle for the freedom and the rights of all human beings is far from over and the threats to the dignity of the human person are only getting worse. The past 38 years has seen the legal killing of roughly 53 MILLION children of all racial backgrounds.

But, we’re not just talking about abortion anymore. We’re talking IVF, surrogacy, assisted suicide, destroying embryos for scientific research, and who would have ever thought we’d be seriously talking about human CLONING?!

Let us pray and, like Dr. King, let us never cease to speak out for the dignity and equality of all human life!


Heavenly Father,
the beauty and dignity of human life
was the crowning of your creation.
You further ennobled that life
when your Son became one with us in his incarnation.
Help us to realize the sacredness of human life
and to respect it from the moment of conception
until the last moment at death.
Give us courage to speak with truth
and love and with conviction in defense of life.
Help us to extend the gentle hand of mercy and forgiveness
to those who do not reverence your gift of life.
To all, grant pardon for the times we have failed
to be grateful for your precious gift of life
or to respect it in others.
We ask this in Jesus’ Name.

Amen.
-Prayer for Respect for Life

Black Dignity

ChelseaAbortion, videoLeave a Comment

Impressive: Jill Stanek says this ad ran on BET (Black Entertainment Television) and BET Centric over a span of two weeks:

Despite comprising only 12% of the general population, African Americans account for 37% of all abortions. According to the Guttmacher Institute:

This much is true: In the United States, the abortion rate for black women is almost five times that for white women.

Find out more at BlackDignity.org

Mother Wants to Freeze Own Eggs for Her Infertile Daughter to Use

ChelseaEgg Harvesting, Infertility, IVFLeave a Comment


Oh, my. The UK Daily Mail reports that a woman wants to freeze her own eggs so that her daughter Mackenzie, who is two years old and was born with Turner Syndrome and doesn’t have ovaries, can can use them one day to have babies by IVF. The Daily Mail rightly points out:

If this happened, the ethical implications would be immense.

The test-tube baby would be a half-sibling of its birth mother as well as another child of its grandmother. The baby’s father would be fertilising his mother-in-law’s egg. In addition the baby’s aunts and uncles would also be its half-brothers and sisters.

Good God. I sympathize with the fact that she wants to help her daughter, but think about the poor kid(s) that would possibly be created with this confusing family tree. It’s like some kind of technological incest. Said Josephine Quintavalle, of the pressure group Comment on Reproductive Ethics:

‘One has to think of the implications for any hypothetical child born of such inter-generational donation. The complexities of these relationships are often impossible to unravel. Psychologists are already talking about the trauma of genealogical bewilderment, as egg and sperm donation and surrogacy create more and more artificial conceptions.’

It’s not like this is the only way for Mackenzie to have children. Adoption is always an option for childless couples wishing to give love to another human being. Let’s hope, if this woman actually goes through with it, that her daughter ends up having more sense than she does.

I think the most disturbing part about this story is knowing that this would not be the first time a mother has done this. Back in 2007 I posted about a similar story out of Canada.

MTV to Show Some “Skins”

ChelseaPro Life1 Comment

And you thought Gossip Girl was bad. Next week MTV plans to influence entertain our young people with a US rip-off of the UK teen drama “Skins” which features “strong language, drug use and sexual scenes throughout.” On its website MTV is even boasting about how “NSFW” (not safe for work) the show is, with all the “sex- and drug-oriented taboos” it portrays.

NSFW? Try NSFT (teens) or NSFA (anyone)?! After watching a few promo videos for the show I can say that the Parents Television Council has it quite right:

Skins is filled with graphic content involving high-school children, including depictions of teens drinking, smoking marijuana, and using massive quantities of drugs, engaging in violent acts, and having irresponsible sex with each other, with their schoolteachers, and with other adults. Other TV shows, like Gossip Girl, have included some of these activities; but Skins’ depiction of such activities is on a scale never before seen on TV. Skins is so extreme that MTV is rating the program TV-MA – a rating cable has previously reserved for programs like FX’s ultra-violent and quasi-pornographic series Nip/Tuck, which was wholly unsuitable for all but those who crave explicit material.

· Skins is about high-school children. Mixed in with the graphic drug use and sex scenes are storylines about falling in love and problems at school – elements sure to generate interest from teens. The show is being written, in part, by teens. And the Skins cast is actually made up of teenagers, not adult actors playing teens. One cast member is only 15 years old.

· Skins has been extensively marketed to high-school children. Internet sites like Teen.com have carried dozens of promos and stories about the new show. Many of the Internet ad campaigns have shown how Skins blatantly urges children to lie to and defy their parents, and engage in risky and dangerous behavior. MTV may try to claim that this show is intended for adults – but the way the show has been peddled to kids reveals the truth. MTV WANTS your kids to see – and be influenced by — this program!

That last line is no joke. MTV has created a whole interactive website for the show where kids can join the “Skins community“, ask the stars of the show questions and brag about their illicit behavior in a section called “Where it Went Down”:

Leave your mark on where it all happened! Browse and share the places where memories were made – and the scattered pieces of nights you can’t really remember. Post the truth about the biggest parties, heartbreak, friends, sex, and every kind of trouble.

In all honesty, the sex part is not a big surprise to me, this being MTV and all, but I have to admit that I am a bit shocked by the drug use being portrayed. I thought at least we were still trying to keep kids off of mind altering substances. I’m sure there’s probably going to be some kind of negative portrayal of drug use with some main character ODing or something to that effect, but, commenting on one promo for the show which features several of the characters licking a toad in a desperate attempt to get high, a resident MTV blogger says: “To each his own.” That’s not a good sign.

Dear Lord, I never thought I’d look back and actually want to see another cheesy teen-targeted PSA like this again:

Yes, it’s terrible, but, hey, at least they were trying. These days it seems we’ve given up completely.

“Pray That the Scales Fall From Our Nation’s Eyes”

ChelseaAbortion, Pregnancy, UltrasoundLeave a Comment

baby-copeland.jpgLast week I got an email from a friend after she saw the ultrasound of her first child (pictured here). I think what she had to say is important and she kindly allowed me to share it with you all.

Dear Friends,

Yesterday was my birthday. I spent it at the doctor’s office with my husband, my mom and my sister-in-law getting a 4-D ultrasound of sweet Baby Copeland. Yesterday I was excited and happy to see my little one.

But today I’m angry. I saw my baby smile. React. Cringe. Swat. Move. Wink. I saw his precious face, which will change little in the next three months. I saw a baby. A human. A 28-week old fetus (little one). I feel him in my stomach jump and kick and punch and get the hiccups. And I’m angry because it is still legal to walk into an abortion mill and have him killed.

Today I’m broken hearted for all the babies that were not conceived by parents that understand this logical truth, parents that are blind to the reality of what’s happening in the womb. I know we all fight hard to defend life, but pray with me that this Pro-life month changes hearts, lives and laws. And that one day when sweet Baby Copeland is grown, that legal abortion is a distant memory. And that he’s flabbergasted to learn that he could have been legally aborted in this country throughout all 9 months of gestation, despite these phenomenal technological advances which proved his personhood. Pray that the scales fall from our nation’s eyes.

Love and prayers,

Jill SandersCopeland
Producer,
Life on the Rock

Related: Unborn twins interact with each other as early as 14 weeks

Eggsploitation, Surrogacy and the Business of Making Babies

ChelseaEgg Harvesting, Infertility, IVF, Reproductive Technology, video, WomenLeave a Comment

Celebrities and wealthy columnists paint a smiling, rosy picture normalizing, even championing, egg “donation” and surrogacy, meanwhile the fertility industry has a dirty little secret:

Eggsploitation is a documentary from the Center for Bioethics and Culture.

Regarding surrogacy, the BioPolitical Times blogger Marcy Darnovsky, commenting on last week’s NYT “Twiblings” cover story by Melanie Thernstrom and relating it to a similar first-hand cover story about surrogacy by another wealthy writer, notes:

Both women go to some lengths to find surrogates who are middle class and college educated, because this makes them so much more comfortable about the whole process.
…

But while these two women use their own substantial financial resources to circumvent the typical dynamics of the baby business, most people do not or cannot. That’s why surrogacy is booming in India and other countries where poor women who rent out their wombs routinely sign away their rights – including to decisions about whether to terminate a pregnancy, when they can see their children and have sex with their husbands, and whether to deliver by C-section. In the US, surrogates and egg donors are seldom desperately poor – as Kuczynski writes, this would make them unreliable – but they are invariably poorer than the people who hire them. It’s hard to get around the fact: Surrogacy and egg selling are matters of class and unequal opportunity.

See: Outsourcing Birth

The baby-making industry is a global market that makes many people rich at the exploitation of others. Yet, because of feel-good narratives offered by Thernstrom, John and others, it has been widely accepted with little to no criticism. In fact, it has become so mainstream that it’s even being used to help people without any major fertility problems reproduce. This is not how children should come into the world and this is certainly not how women should be viewed or treated, whether they allow it themselves or not. A woman’s body is a sacred, life-giving vessel, not a baby factory.

More:
The rich are different from you and me: Yes, they hire surrogates
“They are just the wombs”
Pregnancy without Borders: Reproductive Tourism’s Global Reach
Fertility’s Mega-Mall
The Eggsploited: When Two Markets Collide

TOB Tues: Faithfulness Forever

ChelseaLove, Marriage, Theology of the Body, TOB Tuesday, video2 Comments

The words, “I take you as my wife/as my husband,” bear within themselves precisely that perennial and ever unique and unrepeatable “language of the body,” and they place it at the same time in the context of the communion of persons. “I promise to be faithful to you always, in joy and in sorrow, in sickness and in health, and to love you and honor you all the days of my life.” (John Paul II, TOB, 103:5)

Today the idea of a permanent marriage seems outdated, impossible. But that’s because we have lost sight of the fact that marriage is God’s project first, not ours. It is a grace filled adventure of trust:

Is it hard to love one person forever? Sure! That’s why marriage is a sacrament.

Another good post: The Sacrament of Marriage

Seeking a Girl, Couple Has Unborn Twin Boys Killed

ChelseaAbortion, Culture of Death, Eugenics, IVF, Reproductive Technology3 Comments

Good grief! Last week ROSS DOUTHAT wrote a widely circulated column in the NY Times about the “unborn paradox.” How unborn life is so easily discarded on one hand and so desperately wanted on the other. Here we have a perfect example of this paradox in one couple. An Australian couple had the twin boys they were carrying killed because…well, because they were boys. The couple already has three boys, but their daughter died shortly after birth. They are now demanding that science provide them with another baby girl and they will stop at nothing. From the article:

They are both aged in their 30s and have taken their case to a legal tribunal after an independent medical body known as the Patient Review Panel rejected their bid to choose the gender of their next child using IVF.

The couple said they had made the decision to terminate the twin boys but could not continue to have unlimited numbers of children.
…

The unidentified woman conceived her three boys naturally and said she loves her sons but would do anything to have a daughter.

Her husband, who also cannot be identified, said: ‘After what we have been through we think we are due for a bit of luck.

‘We know we definitely won’t be replacing her in any way, but want the chance to have the baby girl we don’t have.’
…

‘We think it’s our right to have a chance to do it. It’s ridiculous that sex selection is illegal, actually.’

Me, me, me! I want! It’s my right! Who cares about the rights of the children we are manufacturing and destroying at will?

And so, friends, this has been another episode of “The Culture of Death” brought to you by The Magesterium of Me – God help us.

Westboro Baptist Church to Picket 9 yr. Old’s Funeral

ChelseaPro Life1 Comment

Christina Greene.jpgAs if losing the life of this beautiful little girl wasn’t hard enough on her family and the Tucson community as a whole, it seems the hate-filled Westboro Baptist Church is planning to picket the funeral of Nine year-old Christina Taylor Green, one of the six victims of Saturday’s shooting in AZ. But the people of Tucson won’t stand for it and they’re fighting back…with peace and love. Via CNN:

Tucson, Arizona (CNN) — Tucson just isn’t that kind of town, says Christin Gilmer.

Gilmer is referring to the actions of Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas, which has made its name protesting the funerals of people who died of AIDS, gay people, soldiers and even Coretta Scott King.

But when the church announced its intention to picket the funeral of a 9-year-old girl — one of six people who died Saturday during the attempted assassination of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords — Gilmer and others put their feet down.

Tucson is a “caring, loving, peaceful community,” according to Gilmer, who said two of the six people killed were friends.

“For something like this to happen in Tucson was a really big shock to us all,” she said. “Our nightmare happened when we saw Westboro Baptist Church was going to picket the funerals.”

They’re planning an “angel action” — with 8- by 10-foot “angel wings” worn by participants and used to shield mourners from pickets. The actions were created by Coloradan Romaine Patterson, who was shocked to find the Topeka church and its neon signs outside the 1999 funeral of Matthew Shepherd, a young gay man beaten and left on a fence to die in Laramie, Wyoming.

“We want to surround them, in a nonviolent way, to say that our community is united,” Gilmer said. “We’re a peaceful haven.

Why is Westboro targeting a 9 yr. old?

Westboro Baptist Church, founded by its spiritual leader, Fred Phelps, and run mostly by family members, did not respond to a request for an interview in time for this article. But a flier released by the church about the picket targets the Roman Catholic Church because Christina and her family were members.

“God hates Catholics!” the flier, posted on the church’s “God Hates Fags” website, says. “God calls your religion ‘vain,’ as it’s empty of His truth; you worship idols!”

These people are disgusting. But, let us all, like the good folks in Tucson, respond to them, not with more hate, but with love, peace…and prayer. And let us pray for young Christina Green and all the victims and of Saturday’s shooting and their families.

Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May their souls and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen

Recommended: The Year of Living Anxiously