On what was once known as All Souls' Day, it might be worth a moment to reflect a bit on the nature of the cause of life and the collateral damage that raises questions about how we use our technology. Even Donald Trump has jumped on the bandwagon in support of IVF. He says he intends to make it free for all who want to use it. I know it could be a campaign promise he does not intend to keep but I will take him at his word. We already know that Kamala Harris is onboard for any additional spending for any purpose except restricting abortion in any way so I think I am safe in presuming she will match his rhetoric here as she has done on the issue of taxing tips. My question is how beneficial this is -- indeed, how beneficial it all is. In other words, at what cost is each life through IVF? From the sons of Bethlehem whom Herod slew to these martyrs who suffer because we also have allowed no value to life, the crosses of our cemeteries represent only one small glimpse of the many who have died because we esteemed the dream and our ability more than the thing itself -- life is precious!
For all the talk about the promise of reproductive technology, the soft underbelly of the success is that for every child conceived, many more are aborted. Whether they are aborted immediately in favor of those deemed more viable, shipped off to the freezer to be forgotten or lost, or aborted in the womb after implantation because the client desires only one baby, the end result of each "success" is death many times over. The marketers have done a great job of focusing on the dream of a baby and hidden the dark secret of the collateral damage to provide that one life. This is, after all, not an accidental cost but an essential one, one well known before the first steps of the procedures are begun. It is costly in dollars and it preys on the vulnerable who have tried everything to conceive naturally and are unable as well as those who treat the child as a purchase and a plaything owed to them. There is little in the process or the many stages of the procedures to detail to the people involved what will actually happen to the fertilized eggs, embryos, and fetuses that are not used, needed, or wanted. They are, as it were, byproducts of IVF and nothing more than medical waste. Is this what we have become as a society, nation, and people? Have we become so callous to the cost of our "dream" that we will allow any cost to the sanctity of life in order to achieve that "dream"?
On All Souls' Day we do not only celebrate the faithful without name and of great number who have lived and died rather anonymously in the Lord (except to Him, of course). No, we also celebrate the great mystery that is God's gift of life -- from the breath breathed into the dust in the hand of God in creation to the breath of life still breathed into the fertilized egg so that everything that child will be is already there from the first moment of that child's existence as a mere fertilized egg. Life is not a puzzle to be unraveled nor is it a problem to be solved. It is a mystery and a gift to which each of us are called to preserve, protect, nurture, and nourish to this mortal life and to everlasting life through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Alexander Schmemann speaks of this: “Every entrance of a new human being into the world and life is a miracle of miracles, a miracle that explodes all routine, for it marks the start of something unending, the start of a unique, unrepeatable human life, the beginning of a new person. And with each birth the world is itself in some sense created anew and given as a gift to this new human being to be his life, his path, his creation.”
I fear that what is missing most is precisely this sense of wonder, the awe before the miracle, the reverence before the mystery, and the faithful stewardship that cares for what God continues to give even to His fallen creation. While Christianity certainly heightens this sense of wonder, awe, reverence, and care, no particular religion is required to look at the nature of life and conclude that this life is not a plaything or a problem but a gift, heritage, and blessing. Until we learn this, we will have foolish talk from left and right that seems intent upon being the highest bidder in a high stakes game of chance with the very thing we cannot afford to take chances with!
No comments:
Post a Comment