posted on March 14, 2004 09:49:35 PM new
A report in this week's Lancet says that ovarian tissue previously frozen was thawed and placed just under the skin in a woman's abdomen. It then grew. Next, it was fertilized. While a fertilized egg has not yet been successfully relocated to a womb for further growth, the scientists involved are optimistic.
"Every time we did this, we were able to take it to a next step," one of the researchers says.1
The seeds of the destruction of Roe v. Wade are also the seeds of the destruction of marriage and family if we do not recognize the challenge. Medical technology may well be a scythe that swings two ways when it comes to family issues.
In the case of Roe, legalizing abortion was founded on the trimester concept. This was a somewhat arbitrary timetable that was invented by the court itself – no one had argued it.
In the first trimester, when the baby had no "viability" – likelihood of living outside the womb – the mother's "privacy" interest trumped the state's interest in having more people born under its banner. In the middle trimester, the interests were about equal. In the final three months, the baby was so likely to live outside the womb that the state's interests outweighed the mother's.
Yet we are approaching a time when fetuses can live outside the womb, and perhaps even be conceived and gestate without ever having been in a womb. The trimester concept is outdated. And the privacy interest that a woman has in what she does with "her own" body may soon look as tiny as a squiggle on a glass slide, since she isn't required to "carry" a baby for nine months. Conservatives may not overturn Roe, but medicine will make Roe irrelevant.
However, this achievement will be a pyrrhic victory. With women able to "bank" ovarian tissue, combine it with someone else's DNA and shop for places to gestate the embryo, our understanding of marriage and parenting will be dismantled. We shouldn't be surprised to see medicine handing us these kinds of options when laws and policies have already severed marriage from reproduction, and reproduction from raising children.
But there's a ray of hope. If parenting becomes so completely a matter of choice, the arguments excusing hapless parents from their obligations disappear. Perhaps laws should require those who intentionally requisition babies to be ready to furnish a mother and father, committed for life to raise the child together. Roe tried to guarantee that every child would be a "wanted" child. New medical techniques will make every parent a wanted parent.
posted on March 15, 2004 04:29:21 AM new
If the states interest becomes as heavy as you are suggesting we will see a big decrease in the population.
Why?
Because the state will set tests for the license to reproduce. First test will be money - you will have to have the income to care for the child in the manner the state sets. And the child will be at constant risk of being taken away if you don't follow the doctor's guidelines for health treatment. For example letting your child become too fat will result in it being removed - as will having a mental problem, a criminal conviction, or just losing your job.
The government will welcome this because with automation and technology population growth is just an expense not an asset. You can bet education will be not just available but required. If the kid is not college material they will basically be a drain on society and unwelcome. I wouldn't be surprised eventually for them to figure out a way to force unwanted people into moving to another country where they would not be a drain on the economey.
posted on March 15, 2004 09:39:10 AM new
If you will study science fiction you will find that the surprising truth is the authors never managed to predict the full depth of change coming.
1984 for example reads like todays headlines except the technology for spying on citizens was sadly underestimated. No single SF author ever saw the possibility of the small computer or the speed with which genetic engineering would progress.
I may hit some predictions and miss others - but the odds are I won't come close to imagining the full range of change coming. So the better bet would be to mock me for being too consevative instead of too radical. I think the next 15 years will see as much change as we saw from 1900 to 1960.
If I were someone who doesn't get out of the house then my expectation would be exactly opposite of what it is - I would think everything is going to stay the same.
If you go out in the world and look you'll see a whirlwind coming. And it doesn't care if you think it's a good idea to have change or not.
I'd have to say your denial that things are changing just because it doesn't fit in with your hopes for the world are much more characteristic of the house bound. Indeed I think you have pulled the drapes and unplugged the phone.
