Sunday, November 6, 2011

Mail Order Babies?

Well, I decided on a bit of a research break so I figured I would share a tid of what is twirling through my head. Book two of the Witan Vid series :Plagues and Promises delves into the realm of genetics. The implications of in vitro fertilization, genetic selection, and human cloning can be debated from all sides. This is not a debate, simply an evaluation of the overwhelming technological jump our society has taken in as little as the last twenty years. 


     Recently I ran across a statistic that implied as many as 80% of women in today's society no longer see marriage as a necessary institution. With the divorce rate averaging 50% custody battles, visitation, child support. All of the experiences that make women cringe at the thought of I DO. What if we had the ability to eliminate half of those conflicts? According to the Center for Genetics and society at http://www.geneticsandsociety.org/section.php?id=82 genetic selection is already being used to create "savior siblings". What if we could separate the human DNA chain enough to build completely perfect children free from disease ? How many women would be willing to create a life from their egg and a genetically engineered sperm created from an essential catalog of features built from multiple donors?


No custody battles. No child support. Just a life. As a society we already have the technology. We also have 14 year old girls being impregnated. Relationships become complicated, children get stuck in the middle. So I suppose the question I pose to you or maybe just to myself is should creation be regulated? With the world population surpassing 8 billion, is it time to say who, when, and how children are brought in this world? Who would decide? 


Regardless of where you stand on the ethical implications of playing with genetics, you have to concede tp the point if we can save a life, we should. But how far is too far?  If you don't know what in vitro entails you can find the details here 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_vitro_fertilisation.  Having held the hand of people from all walks of life, I find  perfect is the lack of ordinary, sometimes the presence of simplicity, and occasionally, just simplicity. If I had to choose the perfect traits of an individual from a catalog they wouldn't be in there. Perfection isn't found in an IQ, hair color, eye color, skin color. That might be aesthetic beauty, but perfect is a motion, an emotion, compassion, sympathy, the spark that is carried in the purest of souls, the light that makes this cold world worth living in. Net worth has nothing to do with bank account numbers. Well that is what is wandering through my head at the moment.
 
What are your thoughts?

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