• On February 3 the UK House of Commons voted to make Britain the first country in the world to offer controversial ‘three-parent’ fertility treatments. This week the House of Lords sealed the deal. On February 24, by a vote of 280 to 48 the House of Lords gave final approval for scientists in the UK to start creating three-parent … Read More
Audio: Three-Parent IVF and Euthanasia Updates
I was on The Mike Allen Show early this morning to talk about the troubling cultural embrace of 3-parent IVF and euthanasia http://www.reflectionsofaparalytic.com/audio/Mike-Allen-show-02-18-2015.m4a (Can’t see the player? Direct link to the episode here.) I didn’t get a chance to mention it on the show, but I encourage you all to sign this petition to stop UK proposals for germline genetic … Read More
Your 2015 Bioethics Challenge
Should you choose to accept it, Zachary Gappa from the Center for a Just Society has a New Year’s challenge for pro-lifers: this new year I beg people to take some time to learn more about bioethics. The stakes are high. Our definitions of life, death, and human dignity are up for grabs, so we must not abdicate our moral duty … Read More
Bioethics 2014: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
The Center for Bioethics and Culture Network has compiled their list for the “Winners and Losers” in bioethics for 2014. Winners include: Kathleen Sloan, board member for the National Organization for Women and a regular consultant for the CBC. Human biotechnology creates strange bedfellows. Although Sloan is a committed abortion rights advocate, she has also lent her voice to campaigns … Read More
The High Cost of “Gender Disappointment”
It’s not what you think. A while back I wrote an article entitled “Reproductive Rights Run Amok“. This is precisely what I was talking about. Headline: I paid $50,000 to have a girl After naturally conceiving and giving birth to three boys Jayne Cornwill and her husband traveled to America and pay fertility doctor Daniel Potter to finally give them … Read More
The Difference Between Begotten and Made
Over at the Register, Rebecca Taylor comments on the recent surrogacy scandal from Thailand involving an Australian couple and a surrogate from Thailand who gave birth to twins, one of whom has Down syndrome. The couple took home the healthy baby girl, leaving the future of her twin brother with DS in jeopardy. The Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano ran an … Read More
Crowd Funding for IVF
According to the NY Post there is a growing trend of people launching GoFundMe campaigns for help purchasing their future children. GoFundMe reports that the total value of donations made to people seeking IVF funding in its “Babies, Kids and Family” category worldwide stands at $1.1 million since its 2010 launch. And those numbers are growing: The amount donated between … Read More
Surrogacy = Human Trafficking?
Christopher White from the Center for Bioethics and Culture Network has a great article in Forbe’s. In it he makes the case that surrogate parenthood for money is a form of human trafficking. He also recently co-authored a piece for the National Review with Jennifer Lahl on Why Gestational Surrogacy is Wrong. They’re both thoughtful pieces for a society that … Read More
#WhatWomenNeed
The “#WhatWomenNeed…for Valentine’s Day” hashtag was kicked off by House Democrats last week. This Monday, Planned Parenthood Cecile Richards got in on the fun by posting a vine video of herself holding up a series of #WhatWomenNeed cue cards that said, among other things, “birth control” and “safe + legal abortions.” Pro-lifers responded with their own #WhatWomenNeed Valentine’s Day pro-life … Read More
Grandma as “Birth Mother” and Children as Science Experiments
As if third party reproduction hasn’t confused the make-up of the family enough already, we now have grandmothers giving birth to their own grandchildren (and also, in some cases, freezing their OWN eggs for their infertile daughters to use later on in life!). The latest: a 58 year old woman in Utah is currently pregnant with her daughter’s child. Said … Read More