Genetics
Did anybody else catch this exercise in human
depravity? Are you equally disturbed by
it? Sorry, the rebroadcast is filled
with one annoying AARP ad after another; but I lived through them, so you can
also survive, if you have a lot of patience.
Let's take this apart.
Step One. Several
embryos are harvested, artificially inseminated, and grown in a "test
tube". In my world and life view,
all of these are already living human beings, with developing human bodies and
human spirits. In other words they are
complete souls, already marked with the image of God. They belong to God, not to us.
Step Two. At a very
early stage a single cell is extracted from each of these living human
beings. Wait a minute, how many cells
are involved? We started with one ---
then two, four, eight, etc. At what
point does this extraction cease to be critical? Certainly, one cell extracted from one cell
will kill the baby. We have to believe
that one cell extracted from two cells will seriously affect the developing
baby. A single cell biopsied from me is
of no apparent consequence. When and how
do we know that this procedure does not cause or introduce flaws all of its
own?
Step three. The
developing babies are statistically evaluated from the samples taken. One baby is selected for implantation into
the mother's womb. Even if all the
others are put into a state of perfectly preserved suspended animation of some
sort or other, they are virtually being murdered. This is not about stopping mother nature from
taking her course (note the pseudo-scientific language used to sell the
program). This is about killing a child,
who belongs only to God.
Step four. The
pseudo-parents/actors wrestle with the ethical/moral issues involved and
emotionally draw the "correct" solution. This is not news reporting. This is a hard sell, disguised as science and
pseudo-goodness. All these conclusions are
drawn by folks who have the ethical/moral sensitivities of a block of concrete:
because it is “scientific” it is necessarily good.
The line has already been crossed. The doctor has conspired, using his creative
technology to invade living human beings; possibly damaging them with his own
procedure; evaluated these babies with complicated computerized statistical
routines; and on his/her own independent unilateral volition, selected one, and
put the rest into an undefinable limbo.
Make no mistake, this is playing God.
This exactly what it means to play God.
This is a conspiracy to commit murder, plain and simple.
The parents have also crossed the line. They have conspired with the doctor to murder
their own children in their mad quest for the perfect child. They agree to select one for life and neglect
the rest.
Ostensibly, this is justifiable, based on the obvious fact
that all of us carry genetic defects.
For the good of humanity, the inferior people are screened out, so that
only an acceptable baby develops. It’s a
good thing, right? We all ought to do
it, right? Wait a minute!
Objection One. We
have not protected babies from undeserved and unfair genetic defects and
diseases. Instead, we have contrived to
murder them because of these same defects and diseases. Moreover, the other babies not suffering with
these defects and diseases are also murdered.
This is no different from the barbaric ancient practice where babies
were placed at the father’s feet. If the
father picked the baby up, he/she lived.
If the father refused to recognize the baby, he/she was left to
die. Fortunately, concerned Christians
stepped in to rescue many of these unwanted babies and raise them as their
own. The only difference is the age of
the baby.
Objection Two. We
have not protected society from the painful care of undeserved and unfair
genetic defects and diseases. Instead,
we risk the introduction of new problems, problems that may not surface for
decades, or centuries. Millennia from
now, a new human defect or disease may very well surface that finds its cause
here, in this procedure. Moreover, the
very things that make us precious as individuals, the characteristics that make
us loveable and loved, have now been screened out, to the detriment of
society. What makes us individually
precious? Is it not the very way that
pathos plays out? If my ancestors died
in painful suffering with cancer, isn’t this the very fact that indelibly implants
and endears them in my memory? This is
the very thing we seek to erase: that which makes life worth living.
Objection Three. This
house of cards is constructed around a so-called, trumped-up, statistical
probability: supposedly a form of breast cancer in the model. This supposed statistical probability is then
generalized into the fact that everybody has genetic defects. Does anyone else see this logical flaw? It is the flaw of excessive generalization. In its reductio ad absurdum it becomes the
genetic design of all human characteristics: the reduction of the human race to
robotically identical non entities, devoid of individuality and lovability. Returning to the original model: Will this
unfortunate woman be less loved because she has a tragic breast cancer? Or will she be loved all the more because of
our memory of her suffering? Would we
like to see this disease eliminated?
Yes! Find another way.
Objection Four. Does this
unfortunate young woman have the right to reject the means that God has chosen
for calling her home to Himself? She has
not escaped death. Nor have her children
escaped death. She, running away from
cancer, ran in front of a speeding vehicle.
He, returning unscathed from combat, was killed by a stray bullet, fired
by accident blocks away. We cannot cheat
death. In attempting to postpone the
inevitable, at what point are we found to be waging war with God? Is life so dear that we will ignore every
other value in order to cling to it?
Objection Five. Who
decides what is imperfect and inferior; or what is neither imperfect nor inferior? Is it the doctor? Is it the parent? Or is it God?
If we assume that human copulation is nothing more than random chance,
breeding, we will draw the wrong conclusion.
Human copulation involves more than a man and a woman. Human copulation is a sacred act involving a
man, a woman, and God Himself.
Objection Six. It won’t
work. The doctor has cleverly disguised
his discussion around the supposed existence of a disease cause by a single
genetic marker, a single recessive defect.
Statistically this means that both parents must have the defect. Bb mating with another Bb will statistically
produce one BB (defect free individual), two Bb (carriers), and one bb (with
the disease), which he calls 50/50. His
math is a little off: its actually 75/25.
If B and B mate, there can be no defect. If B and b mate there can still be no defect
because of the recessive trait. If b and
b mate, the defect will necessarily take place.
Still not 50/50 unless you predetermine and load the B to b population ratio. Only when Bb mates with bb are the results, two
Bb (carriers) and two bb (defects): 50/50. All of this clouds over the fact that very
few, if any diseases depend on a single genetic marker, or if markers merely
render the individual susceptible to a disease, while the actual cause lies
elsewhere. In reality the genetic marker
may merely indicate a susceptibility, not a necessity. Experimentation is usually confounded by
overlapping and inseparable competing causes.
Moreover, in reality, most, if not all diseases have several markers:
now the math becomes unbelievably complex. With as few as eight markers the odds could be
as low as one in 65,536: indicating a susceptibility, not a certainty. This is pseudo-science. Genetics is still too young and too difficult
to draw these conclusions with certainty.
Objection Seven. Public
editorials and news render no service to mankind when their opinions are boldly
presented as sales campaigns and heart rending dramatizations. None of these things is necessarily the
Truth. God holds the Truth, men do
not. It is not only the doctor, and the
parents, who are playing God in this scenario.
The editorial and news teams have done a lot of God playing as
well. They pose themselves as
disinterested parties, but they are far from it; they are advertisers promoting
murder.
Not only are we doomed to fail in this process. We, having conspired, are now saddled with
the guilt of being accessories to the murder of many more babies. In the “digital” test the sample size was one
hundred. I’m here to tell you that if
the necessary digital sample size was one hundred, then the real life sample
size would be on the same order. That
implies roughly ninety-nine babies murdered with every test. This is a decision that only God has the
right to make.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/breeding-out-disease-with-reproductive-genetics/
