In Search of the Perfect Baby

Christians who are in favor of birth control as a form of good stewardship should be aware of the fact that the very same arguments they use as an excuse for limiting their families are the same ones used for aborting them. They should also know that their arguments contribute to the building pressure to abort and destroy "imperfect" babies in the name of "good stewardship." Just because we can do something is no argument for deciding whether or not we should do it.

Families with a history of cancers and other inherited diseases may soon be able to ensure their babies do not have the genes responsible by opting for IVF instead of natural conception.

Fertility regulators are considering whether to widen the rules which already allow parents to ensure babies are not born with faulty genes that will inevitably lead to conditions such as cystic fibrosis and Huntington's disease.

This would enable clinics to offer parents the opportunity to prevent their offspring inheriting genes for conditions that may develop later in life, even though not all people with the genes will ever get the disease.

The move is likely to prompts ethical debate for two reasons. First, it might encourage families with no history of fertility problems despite other family health problems to seek IVF. Secondly, it would mean the destruction of embryos capable of forming life with no guarantee that genes they carried would be responsible to later disease.

Will someone please tell these clowns that life is terminal? No one (with only two notable exceptions that I can think of) gets out of it alive. The possibilities of pain, disease, disability, imminent death, economic hardship, and the stunting of parental aspirations and self development are not sufficient argument for denying anyone the chance of life.