The tagline of a recent Pampers commercial states: “Every baby is a little miracle to celebrate, support and protect.” To which Patheos blogger Julia Becker asks: Is it a trite advertising tagline? Or a profound truth?… Should we celebrate babies born to teenagers? Babies born through in vitro fertilization? Is there a way to celebrate the life of every baby … Read More
“Big IVF”
Wesley Smith nails it: Big IVF–for that is what it has become, a rich and politically powerful industry–objectifies human beings and distorts familial and other relationships in the name of making babies. It objectifies women as egg farms and womb leasing merchants. It objectifies embryos as a culling often happens sorting out the fit from the unfit (however that might … Read More
IVF, Frozen ‘Orphans’ and the Wisdom of the Church
The first line of this article on IVF in Canada makes my heart break and my blood boil: Tens of thousands of human embryos hang in cold storage in Canada’s fertility clinics, an unknown number of which are “orphans.” Tens of thousands of tiny human beings, frozen in time. It’s outrage!! And it seems that our neighbors to the North … Read More
Love…Naturally
The following videos present a great overview of the benefits of modern day “NFP” science – the Creighton Model FertilityCare System and NaProTechnology: IVF = circumventive therapy & contraception = suppressive therapy. The Creighton Model FertilityCare System and NaProTechnology actually help identify and treat problems associated with PMS, postpartum depression, infertility, male-infertility, frequent miscarriage and much more! And, as the … Read More
Can We Stop With the “Donation” Nonsense Already?
Here is a CBS Early Show segment aimed at “answering” the ethical and safety concerns about egg donation. Their panel of “specialists” consists of an out-of-work 23 yr. old actress who has decided to “donate” her eggs (but hasn’t done so, yet), Kathy Bernardo of the Northeast Assisted Fertility Group and Dr. Ezekiel Emmanuel, an oncologist and the Head of … Read More
Catechism: Gestational Carriers “Gravely Immoral”
On my post this week about Nicole Kidman’s new baby via “gestational carrier” a reader reminded me that Kidman is Catholic. She and husband Keith Urban are married in the Church, their first daughter is baptized Catholic and according to this Catholic News Service article she once told the Philippine Daily Enquirer, “Catholicism guides me. I certainly have a strong … Read More
Nicole Kidman Thanks “Gestational Carrier”
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 … Read More
Mother Wants to Freeze Own Eggs for Her Infertile Daughter to Use
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 … Read More
Eggsploitation, Surrogacy and the Business of Making Babies
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 … Read More
Seeking a Girl, Couple Has Unborn Twin Boys Killed
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, … Read More