The last couple of weeks have been interesting, from the perspective of science and scientific breakthroughs. Not so much because of breakthroughs, but because of the weird, surreal nature of it all.
An unidentified Frenchwoman, aged 47, was artificially inseminated with her brother’s sperm in a scientifically conducted, government sanctioned, in vitro fertilization procedure that makes you wonder if somebody in Britain has turned the asylum over to the lunatics. Indeed, if that isn’t the case, maybe somebody should give it some thought. It would seem that even a lunatic would find something wrong with this picture.
The woman in question had to go to Britain for the procedure, since in France, they don’t interfere with the natural process that dictates when you are too old to have babies, you don’t have them anymore.
Indeed, the only country in Europe where the woman could legally be treated for infertility at her age is Britain.
Moreover, it is the only place where she could locate a doctor who would implant artificially that which God and medical science have long agreed should not occur naturally. News flash: Brothers and sisters aren’t supposed to make babies together.
Of course, one could argue that it isn’t technically incest, should one use the specific wording of Leviticus 18:14: “The nakedness of thy sister, the daughter of thy father, or daughter of thy mother, whether she be born at home, or born abroad, even their nakedness thou shalt not uncover.”
Since it was artificially done, the brother would not necessarily have seen his sister naked, and biblical admonitions about homosexuality and lesbianism have long since been relegated by everybody but reactionary Christians like me to the ash heap, so why not incest?
But it seems to be an unnecessary exercise in hairsplitting. What part of brothers and sisters making babies together is not weird, even to a dedicated atheist?
I suspect even most of those who support the gay rights movement would shy away from incestuous relationships, even though making babies in such relationships is not even an issue. But I could be wrong on that. I’m sure somebody will e-mail me and let me know.
“I do not consider this case to be any different from a woman receiving an egg donated by her sister. It is not incest,” says Gedis Grudzinskas the director of the Bridge Center fertility clinic. The reasoning is that the eggs fertilized by the brother came from a younger woman who was not related.
I defer to their medical degrees, but it doesn’t do a thing for the overall weirdness of it all. The only reason they are using donated eggs is because the woman in question is too old to produce her own. There’s a clue in there somewhere.
The story, which appeared in the Aug. 26 London Times also quotes Paul Serhal of the assisted conception unit at the London University College Hospital. He offered this staggering bit of insight: “My gut feeling is that it is wrong. It is meddling with the normal course of events.”
Well, let’s see. A woman is having her brother’s baby, after she is too old to ovulate naturally herself, using a procedure that bypasses the natural methods of conception, having traveled abroad to the only country nuts enough not to outlaw such madness.
Meddling? Sure. Outside the “normal course” of events? Is there any point at which this doesn’t qualify? Even “weird” seems to be an inadequate adjective to describe this, even in Great Britain, the country that gave us the English language in the first place.
What’s even weirder is that the French regard Britain’s attitude toward human life as immoral. It was France, after all, that allowed an 18-year-old who was deformed at birth to sue his parents a couple of years ago for allowing him to be born in the first place.
In defense of the Crown, Bob Edwards, the doctor who created the world’s first test tube baby back in 1981, told the Times, “In Europe, they seem to get into problems with philosophical and religious concepts, whereas in Britain we are more pragmatic.” Weirdness squared!
Those bastions of religious and philosophical conservatism, Germany and France, have taken their case to the world’s supreme religious and philosophical authority – the United Nations. The U.N. is scheduled to debate the enacting of a global law banning artificial procreation next month. Weirdness cubed! (Can you cube weirdness?)
Talk about the blind leading the blind! (“And He spoke a parable unto them, Can the blind lead the blind? Shall they not both fall into the ditch?” Luke 6:39.)
The guy who dreamed this up is probably the same guy who decided drive up banking machines needed supplemental Braille lettering on the teller keys!
While all this is going on back in the mother countries, here in the colonies, President Bush approved federal funding, albeit limited, for embryonic stem-cell research, opening Pandora’s Box for additional weird science here.
Although he limited research to existing stem cell lines, scientists are already calling for more human embryos to experiment with. Sunday’s New York Times headline screamed; “Researchers Say Embryos in Labs Are Not Available.”
But few in the liberal press here in the colonies picked up a News Telegraph report from the day before reporting a damaged heart that was repaired using adult stem cells, despite the contention of the attending cardiologist who pointed out that, “Even patients with seriously damaged hearts can be treated with their own stem cells. …”
It seems the only science that counts is weird science. It’s interesting. The Nazis, using only radio and newspapers, were able to convince an entire nation that medical experimentation on the untermenschen (“sub-humans,” like Jews and Gypsies) was noble and honorable. To this day, how that could happen in the most cultured country in Europe at the time baffles historians.
Modern science, aided by the sophisticated propaganda machines of the 21st century have convinced the entire planet that its pretty much OK to do the same thing on our own children – as long as we do it before they look like children – and nobody bats an eye.
No wonder the Apostle Paul was so emphatic when he penned this warning about weird science to Timothy, almost 2,000 years ago: “O Timothy, keep that which is committed to your trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called: Which some professing have erred concerning the faith” (1 Tim. 6:20-21).
