Posted on 01/14/2008 9:37:40 AM PST by Mr. Silverback
Note: The following commentary contains sensitive information that may not be suitable for children.
Ordinarily, columnist Judith Warner of the New York Times is not exactly what you would call a friend of the Christian worldview. Yet from her opposing viewpoint, Warner recently came up with a devastating critique of surrogate motherhood. She drives home exactly what we have been saying on this program for some time now: that we are turning children into commodities, which is harmful to everyone involved.
In this case, Warner focuses a much-needed spotlight on the role of poor women in India who are being paid to act as surrogate mothers on behalf of childless Americans. She writes, “Images of pregnant women lying in rows, or sitting lined up, belly after belly, for medical exams look like industrial outsourcing pushed to a nightmarish extreme.”
That’s an image that would make anyone uncomfortable. But why should it? On the surface, everybody benefits from the situation. The wealthy but childless Americans get the babies they have longed for; the Indian women get the money they need. As one such woman, Nandani Patel, told NPR, the money she was paid for being a surrogate mother enabled her and her husband to buy a house that they never could have afforded otherwise.
Then why does the concept of surrogacy cause such revulsion in Warner and others? Warner herself has a difficult time explaining it. Our feelings and ethics related to the subject, she writes, are “murky, ambiguous and confused.”
I would submit that the reason for the revulsion is that we cannot get away from the law written on our hearts, which tells us that the Creator has an intentional design for our families that benefits and protects men, women, and children.
And when we deliberately try to circumvent that design, the frightening truth is that we end up using people: men for their sperm, women for their eggs or their body parts. And sadly, we even use the resulting children for our own gratification. If you doubt it, remember what I said recently about a process called selective reduction. That is a procedure where, as author Liza Mundy described, mothers who were desperate for children actually lie there and watch on a screen while one or more of their implanted embryos are selected out and killed! People want children, yes, but they want them on their own terms.
So as Judith Warner says, the discomfort and confusion that surround surrogacy serve a purpose. They remind us “that there is more to the process of carrying a baby and giving birth to it than being an incubator on legs.” No amount of money or “empowerment” that surrogacy brings to women in need can erase that fundamental truth.
When Warner argues for improving adoption procedures and living conditions for women around the world instead of renting out wombs, she is actually touching on a basic tenet of the Christian worldview, whether she recognizes it or not.
That tenet is that every human life has value and dignity—not because we can use that life to satisfy a need or desire, but because the Creator of all life made us in His image and values us beyond all comprehension.
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Wombs to let 50 cents...
LOL ... the pomposity of this statement just struck me as funny....
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LOL! Very clever!
Pomposity? Huh?
Yeah. When I saw the disclaimer: here we have a written column (yeah, it's more of a transcript), being labeled as unsuitable for children.
It just struck me funny: as if kids are clamoring for their parents to read Chuck's latest offering.... And of course, any kid who does read it, is most likely mature enough for it in any case.
And I had this mental picture of Mr. Colson, standing in some family's kitchen, striking an important-looking pose and saying, oh-so-gravely and in hushed tones, "Mrs. X, your children may not want to hear what I'm about to tell you."
And then ... well, there's nothing in the subject matter itself that would even interest a kid, much less harm one. Why the disclaimer?
So ... pomposity: "having or exhibiting self-importance."
So it all boils down to attitude? Ths subject matter is certainly more worthy of notice. Back in the ‘60s, the flower children had nothing but scorn for bougeois morality. But what happems of you discard it? You get this: an exploitation of human beings that amounts to slavery,an exercise of raw economic power. It was fitting that John Lennon was struck down by a predator since he was the very symbol of this blithe disregard the the world as it is.
No no no.... I actually pretty much agree the article itself. I was just tickled by the disclaimer, which was not justified by the text that followed.
Yeah, now that you mention it, it is The Handmaid’s Tale. You change the married couples from fundamentalist theocrats to professionals who waited too long to try for kids, and change the main character from an American indentured servant to a poor Indian on contract, and it’s the same story.
Great. Now I have that stuck in my head.
It's a warning to give parents time to change the radio station if they want, and it's faithfully transcribed.
“Out on the road today I saw a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac...”
“I’m a man of means by no means...KING OF THE ROAD!”
Used to sing it at karaoke with an Air Force buddy of mine...we were usually the only sober people in the place.
LOL.
Listen, Roger, you’re not helping here.
Could be worse, though. Right before Christmas, I had “I’m Getting Nothing For Christmas” stuck in my head for several days...
Still ... like I said, it just struck me funny.
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