Human Life Isn't Trash

An article was recently put out about a surrogate woman asked to abort a fetus because the biological couple found out that the baby had down syndrome. The article discusses the rights of surrogates and couples in such circumstances, but it was the revelation of the treatment of human life that caught my eye. Here are some quotes from the article:

"A bioethicist who has studied the issue extensively argues that contract law should not apply to the transaction, unless human life is to be treated like widgets in a factory. 'Should the rules of commerce apply to the creation of children? No, because children get hurt,' said Juliet Guichon of the University of Calgary. “It’s kind of like stopping the production line: ‘Oh, oh, there’s a flaw.’ It makes sense in a production scenario, but in reproduction it’s a lot more problematic.'"

"Disputes are rare here, but she said it is usually surrogates who end up feeling most aggrieved. She recalled one case where the mother conceived twins, the parents asked for a procedure to reduce the number of fetuses to one, and the whole pregnancy was inadvertently lost."

"'The child is seen by the commissioning parents as a product, and in this case a substandard product because of a genetic condition,' Prof. Baylis said."

Gattaca anyone? Our society sadly reflects in many aspects the belief that children are simply products. We disposed of 1.3 million of them last year in abortions. After all, they were just products, not real living beings. We also reflect the idea that our children must be what we want them to be, they can't have any problems that will make my life difficult and heaven forbid we have two when we only wanted one. After all, it's my choice and my life so I want what I want.

This disgusts me! Children are not products, as the bioethicist stated above. They aren't products on a line that we decide to trash if they don't look right. Not all parents who use a surrogate would abort a fetus if it didn't line up with their expectations. But it is troubling that even some would consider this. It made me wonder if there isn't such a desire in such parents for a child that they have this "perfect" idea of what a child should look like and what their experience should be like. It took a while for us to get pregnant. And if we had discovered that when we did get pregnant our child had a disability, we would have had that child. Any child is a gift from God. To say anything different is a dishonor to children who live today with disabilities. It is saying that they really shouldn't be here. They don't deserve to live.

We need to reclaim the worth of children as a nation! People may disagree with me, but this is why the treatment of infants is number one on my list of issues that are important to me in politics. In the movie The Boys Next Door, a moving moment appears when the social worker, Jack, sees Lucien, a retarded man, speaking of his disability in his imagination. This is what Lucien says at that moment:

"I stand before you a middle-aged man in uncomfortable clothes, a man whose capacity for rational thought is somewhere between a five-year-old and an oyster. I am retarded. I am damaged. I am sick inside from so many years of confusion, utter and profound confusion. I am mystified by faucets and radios and elevators and newspapers and popular songs. I cannot always remember the names of my parents. But I will not go away. And damaged though I may be, I will not wither because I am unique and irreplaceable and a part of you all. Civilizations are judged by the way they treat their most helpless of citizens. I am that citizen and if you turn away from me, you extinguish your own light, deny your own warmth. I am just a simple man, but I simply am a man."

If we are judged by how we treat the most helpless, fetuses, infants, who cannot defend themselves are indeed most helpless. They are not products, but humans, not trash, but valuable living beings and they deserve our protection and help.

Here's the article referenced if you would like to read it and if you want to view the powerful scene from The Boys Next Door, click here.