The cheerful glee with which IVF and genetic selection technology is presented in the video below is disturbing. Apparently, these people have failed to look beyond themselves and their own wishes and consider the moral ramifications involved in what they’re doing.
By Deacon Frederick Bartels
26 April 2024
What they so joyfully promote is the use of in vitro fertilization (IVF) technology to produce multiple embryos (children) and then genetically scrutinize them so as to weed out potential “defects.” The “best” child is selected for implantation in the womb. He or she will be allowed to go on living. Perhaps others who rank high on the list will be frozen and saved for later. Those who don’t pass muster are quietly given a death sentence by deselecting a check box or tapping the delete key.
This kind of thing has been going on for a long time with IVF. For example, it’s well known that when someone wishes to create a child using this technology, multiple embryos are created by combining sperm and eggs in a lab. Some of these newly conceived children are implanted in the womb. Some are later removed and destroyed through selective abortion. The unused children who were not implanted are either killed and discarded or used for human experimentation, which also kills them. Alternatively, some are placed in cryo-storage and thus relegated to a frozen existence until they are “needed” for some future “purpose.”
Read more about IVF here.
But now a further step has been taken: With the help of smiling entrepreneurs, eager technicians, convenient genetic testing, and an internet connection, parents can now calmly scroll through a list of their children in the comfort of their home while sipping coffee and choose which child they prefer. Then, the unwanted are quietly cast aside.
As if that isn’t bad enough, there’s another angle to consider: What might “selecting” the “best child” lead to in the future?
The Two Tier Society
On the horizon is the “genetically perfect” pitted against the “genetically marginalized.”
Future parents will boast: “We carefully analyzed our embryos with the latest technology. Little Bessy Anne was the best among them, genetically perfect in every way! What about your Johnny? How high was his genetic score?”
“Oh, I do like his brown eyes, but we wanted only blue. And, of course, it had to be a girl!“
Parents or others with the financial resources to birth the “perfect” will guarantee their children high social status. They will be the “intelligent,” the “healthy,” the “prized,” the “pure.” Whereas those who lack these resources will birth children deemed to be “substandard.” This group of people will be considered unworthy, outclassed, incapable of truly exceling in society. It will all too soon boil down to genetic racism.
I can also imagine a day when people will create embryos using IVF, sort them genetically, and raise the “perfect child” in artificial wombs. No need to worry ever again about possible birth defects or the hassle of pregnancy. It will all be nice, neat, and tidy. Sterile. Risk free. Everything will be perfect.
The Natural Moral Law and Divine Revelation
The natural moral law in combination with divine revelation tells us that children have a right to a father and a mother, whose act of marital love brought them into being. That is in fact God’s plan for marriage, children, and family. Children have a right to be conceived in a natural way within the context of a stable marriage between one man and one woman. It is truly good for children to be conceived in that way, whereas it is gravely wrong for lab technicians and technology to replace it by creating them in glass, in vitro. Doing so leads to the objectification of children, viewing them as commodities to be analyzed, selected or deselected, bought or sold.
IVF leads precisely to what we’ve witnessed in the video above. Children are selected as one might select the best product on a grocery store shelf. The only real difference is that instead of products, these are human children.
Deacon Frederick Bartels is a member of the Catholic clergy who serves the Church in the diocese of Pueblo. He holds an MA in Theology and Educational Ministry, is a member of the theology faculty at Catholic International University, and is a Catholic educator, public speaker, and evangelist who strives to infuse culture with the saving principles of the gospel. For more, visit YouTube, iTunes and Twitter.
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