Babies are not commodities

In the United States, the practice of buying, selling and filtering babies has entered a new dimension. In an opinion article entitled “Parenting’s essence is lost with innovation” published in The Arizona Republic (www.azcentral.com), Linda Valdez wrote:

In Texas, a place called the Abraham Center of Life offers infertile couples the chance to select embryos after reviewing the profiles of both the egg and sperm donor. Looks, ethnicity and educational background are among the characteristics prospective parents can browse…

People want above-average babies, and technology is ready to oblige, even though society has never answered the big questions about the morality of commercializing babies.

I refer to the above article not as a criticism against maximizing the use of scientific advancement and innovation in reproductive science. I won’t make a sweeping judgment that utilizing scientific and technological advancement when it comes to determining the “quality” of a child that one will give birth to is bad under all circumstances. On the contrary. Pre-natal and post-natal care, including proper diet and nutrition during pregnancy and breastfeeding period, are illustrations of making use of advancement in reproductive health to maximize the chances that a child will be born normal and healthy. Even practices like talking to the baby while still in the womb and listening to music are results of advances in reproductive science.

I am referring to the Ms. Valdez’s opinion piece in the context of buying and selling babies. The debate over the ethics of genetic engineering and filtering aside (I have very strong opinions about those issues too but I’ll write about them another time), the Abraham Center of Life is in fact selling babies. It is more than a mere figure of speech to say that it is much like placing the embryos on a display window — like cakes in a bakeshop — allowing prospective adoptive parents to “view” them and decide which ones they prefer based on the ingredients and how they had been combined.

Supporters of what the Abraham Center of Life is doing are bound to raise issues over whether an embryo is synonymous with a baby. That’s rather like splitting hairs. The embryo is not bought for its status as an embryo but for the qualities that the child it will become will possess. Hence, for all intents and purposes, it is still about buying and selling babies.

According to Ms. Valdez’s article, the Abraham Center of Life is currently being investigated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Why it is the USFDA that is investigating it is beyond me. It should it more appropriate that the practice be investigated by Congress for possible need for new legislation in view of new practices brought about by new advances in science and medicine.

Whether or not there is such as thing as art for art’s sake is debatable. But whether or not there is science for humanity’s sake elicits little debate. For the most part, science, including allied disciplines like medicine and health, has long been a for-profit industry. While there are gems of exceptions in individuals who genuinely care more for people as people than people are source of profits, they are fast becoming a dying breed.

Yet, over and above it all, what right do we really have to pass judgment when people like us outside the scientific circles are acting in similar mercenary ways? It makes me cringe that in some parts of the world where the average couple has access to the products of scientific progress, having a child can be something as impersonal as choosing a pair of shoes.

But then again, in some parts of the world like the Philippines where access to such advanced technology is rare, many are doing the same without the benefits of scientific advancements.

Sometimes, I seriously wonder about what being human really means.

[tags]adoption, parenting, embryo, parenting, Abraham+Center+for+Life, reproductive+medicine, science, reproductive+health[/tags]

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