the designer baby boondoggle

By: Abigail Dodds
body of Christ, politics, , , , 7 Comments on the designer baby boondoggle

A fertility clinic in LA has finally gone all the way.  

They are now offering “designer babies,” meaning their clients can request certain traits for their babies like dark skin or blue eyes.  The clinic has not yet delivered on this promise, but is offering it nonetheless. 

I get the feeling that when people hear the term “designer babies” they think that the scientists are somehow doing the designing.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.  There is one Designer and He has no rival.  

Scientists can no more cause a baby to have green eyes than the man on the moon.  They are not creating or giving babies certain genes, they’re not even modifying genes, they’re simply killing off the embryos that have the unwanted genes.

They used to limit this killing to “extra” babies; for instance the couple who makes 10 embryos, but doesn’t want 10 babies, so they only implant 2.  The rest would be killed.  This has  also involved killing off the embryos that had “defects.”  Like the ones with downs syndrome or a likely hood of disease.  

Now scientists search through embryos for the couples (or singles, to be sure) until they get the combination of eyes, nose and health that is desirable for them.  The scientists aren’t designing the baby with the desired traits, they simply screen the embryos until the desired result is found, then kill off the rest.

The BBC reports:

The science is based on a lab technique called preimplantation genetic diagnosis, or PGD.  This involves testing a cell taken from a very early embryo before it is put into the mother’s womb.

Doctors then select an embryo free from rogue genes – or in this case an embryo with the desired physical traits such as blonde hair and blue eyes – to continue the pregnancy, and discard any others.

The Wall Street Journal seems to misunderstand what is actually being done in PGD.  They say:

While PGD has long been used for the medical purpose of averting life-threatening diseases in children, the science behind it has quietly progressed to the point that it could potentially be used to create designer babies.

Let’s be clear.  PGD is not used to “avert life-threatening diseases in children.”  It is the life-threatening disease.  PGD kills the embryos that show any proclivity to imperfection.  So it is not protecting children.  It is protecting parents from the “hardship” of having a child with imperfection.  

Not only that, PGD doesn’t “create” anything.  It eliminates (scientists like to use the word “selects” cause it sounds better).  I can’t believe the way this is being reported.  As though the slippery slope is just beginning with designer babies.  

Wake up!  We already slid down the slope when we started eliminating the embryos with potential “problems.”  I’m riled up.  Can you tell?

an organic confession

By: Abigail Dodds
body of Christ, confessions, everyday, politics, , , 7 Comments on an organic confession

There’s something you should know about me.  

I’m not an organic person.  I mean, I am organic, in the true sense of the word (read: I am derived from living things).  But, I’m not an organic mom (read: one who buys “organic” food, uses cloth diapers, green cleaning supplies, and won’t let anything labeled trans-fat touch her lips).

I may have just lost a chunk of my readers, but I’ll plunge ahead, assuming you are all still hanging with me and give the reasons:

1) Health isn’t my top priority. *gasp*.  I know it sounds weird to write down.  Maybe it’s wrong to feel this way? I’d rather spend the extra time it takes preparing uber-healthy organic food, doing something that is uber-healthy for my soul.  

2) The evidence about food is always changing anyway.  Low-fat used to be the sure-fire way to avoid heart disease, now it’s low-carb.  What if, in a couple years, they discover that all the chemicals organic farmers aren’t putting on the food, really were needed to keep diseased food off the shelves?

3) For me, food isn’t moral, it’s fuel.  I eat food so that I can walk around during the day.  I don’t eat food so that I can achieve perfect health.  (Similarly, I don’t think the earth is “moral.“)

4) It’s expensive.  I think it should be named “big organic,” the same way people say, “big oil.”

5) I don’t believe that eating organic is really going to keep me healthier.  I don’t think I have that kind of control over my health.  If God decides I’m getting cancer, he may use aspartame to do it, or he may use faulty genes, or he may just zap me.  But, either way, when he decides it, it’s happening.  

I have a friend who didn’t breast-feed her kids… on purpose. *double gasp*.  

It’s not because she’s unable.  It’s just a personal choice.  Her three older children are believers who passionately love God and others (her youngest is only 5, so I’m not sure about him:).  One time she told me, with a smile, “No, I didn’t breast-feed them, but they seem to have turned out ok.”  Now, that’s somebody with her priorities straight!

So, now you know.  I’m organically reluctant.  Can we still be friends?

Note: I feel a strong inclination to say that, yes, we do eat a (usually) balanced diet with veggies, etc. My kids don’t drink soda-pop and eat potato chips for supper.

 And for Mr. TommyD’s (my husband) sake, I should also note that he does not share my aversion to all-things organic.

biology and behavior

By: Abigail Dodds
body of Christ, everyday, , 2 Comments on biology and behavior

I found this quote by C.S. Lewis when I was reading an article about the biological basis for behavior on Adrian Warnock’s blog.  I find it to be a very compassionate and ultimately loving take on our biology and bodies and choices.  It’s one more reason to be humble.

“Some of us who seem quite nice people may, in fact, have made so little use of a good heredity and a good upbringing that we are really worse than those whom we regard as fiends.

 Can we be quite so certain how we should have behaved if we had been saddled with the psychological outfit, and then with a bad upbringing, and then with the power, say, of Himmler ? That is why Christians are told not to judge. We see only the results which a man’s choices make out of his raw material. But God does not judge him on the raw material at all, but on what he has done with it.

 Most of a man’s psychological make-up is probably due to his body: when his body dies all that will fall off him, and the real central man, the thing that chose, that made the best or the worst out of this material, will stand naked. All sorts of nice things which we thought our own, but which were really due to a good digestion, will fall off some of us: all sorts of nasty things which were due to complexes or bad health will fall off others. We shall then, for the first time, see every one as he really was. There will be some suprises.”

I believe that having this attitude towards others in the church could transform our relationships.  Instead of being comparison-oriented, one-upping, superior-in-our-own-minds, judging people, we could be, simply, loving.  Slow to judge, slow to think of myself more highly than I ought (I’m preaching to myself here).

What a liberating thing to know that some of our problems and our neighbors’ problems are not solely due to our individual choices.  What a sweet incentive to rely on God all the more.  Works will never get me there, because I am not in final control even of who I am. 

Everything good in me is grace.

Whether grace in upbringing, grace in biology, grace in easy pregnancy, grace in a considerate husband, grace in sweet kids.  Everything good is grace.  I can’t make anything good by my self-wrought trying and works.