By BRIAN CLOWES
(Editor’s Note: Brian Clowes has been director of research and training at Human Life International since 1995. For an electronic copy of chapter 15 of The Facts of Life, “Artificial Reproductive Technologies,” e-mail him at bclowes@hli.org.)
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“We must not fall into the absurd trap of being against everything Hitler was for. It was in no way evil for Hitler to regard mental disease as a scourge on society. . . . Because of Hitler’s use of the term ‘Master Race,’ we should not feel the need to say that we never want to use genetics to make humans more capable than they are today. . . . People say it would be terrible if we made all girls pretty. I think it would be great” — James Watson, one of the directors of the Human Genome Project.
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So far, we have dealt with assisted reproductive technologies as they relate to helping infertile couples conceive and then screen out those resulting preborn children considered “imperfect.”
But behind the hundreds of thousands of such decisions made by men and women all over the world each year is a cadre of researchers who study the benefits and costs of applying ARTs and screening techniques to entire populations — wholesale, if you will.
Although still a minority, a growing number of reproductive scientists and opinion molders are describing visions of what they might accomplish using today’s technology as a base. These visions are amusing because of their science-fiction quality, and frightening because they are an actual objective of rich and influential people.
The difference here is that, instead of focusing their attentions on one baby at a time, the reproductive scientists are extending their vision to entire societies and, ultimately, the whole world. “Planned Planethood” is one of these far-reaching visions, where, as some people predict, “Margaret Sanger’s dream of a ‘race of thoroughbreds’ will finally become a reality.”
These notions may seem far fetched and improbable, and therefore harmless. However, it is important for pro-life activists to know the ultimate goals of the anti-life movements. Showing these goals to others can be a “wake-up call” that helps motivate others fight anti-life proposals that could eventually lead to the oppression inherent in the Culture of Death’s idea of the Brave New World, in whatever form it ultimately takes.
Time begins by summarily dispensing with the family:
“It is reasonable to ask whether there will be a family at all. Given the propensity for divorce, the growing number of adults who choose to remain single, the declining popularity of having children and the evaporation of the time families spend together, another way may eventually evolve. It may be quicker and more efficient to dispense with family-based reproduction. Society could then produce its future generations in institutions that might resemble state sponsored baby hatcheries. . . .”
The most efficient manner in which eugenicists could “cull” unwanted human beings from the population is through the systematic testing of embryos and the elimination of all but the very best.
Currently, the most efficient negative eugenics practice consists of subjecting preborn babies to CVS (chorionic villi sampling), amniocentesis, or other genetic tests past 15 weeks, and aborting those who are considered unfit. From the viewpoint of the eugenicists, this is a messy, emotional, and expensive process that could be greatly streamlined.
The Human Genome Project was a multibillion dollar international scientific research project that was launched in 1990 and completed in 2003. Its objective was to identify and map all of the approximately 22,300 protein-coding human genes by identifying more than three billion base pairs, and then study them and make recommendations as to what should be done with its findings.
This huge undertaking is already bearing fruit that eugenicists see as beautiful. But we may find out that some of this fruit is deadly poisonous to human beings if it is not used with the strictest of controls.
At the onset of the Human Genome Project, Jerry E. Bishop and Michael Waldholz provided a report on its possible utility of the Human Genome Project:
“It is highly likely that within a decade tests for a variety of aberrant genes will be cheap and easy enough to permit testing of large numbers of people. Initially, only those persons who are at risk of inheriting a defective gene might be tested….As the list of known defective genes grows, there will be mounting pressure for mass screening of the population, at least of the newborn population, to pinpoint anyone predisposed to future illnesses. There is ample precedent for such mass genetic screening of newborn infants. . . .”
The science reporters then turn their attention from the implications of the Human Genome Project to the preborn, therefore traveling easily from negative to positive eugenics:
“Indeed, among geneticists involved in Huntington’s disease, there is a quiet, but intense debate over the ethics of aborting any fetus whose disease won’t erupt until later in life. Perhaps by then there will be a cure, or at least treatments to mute the disease’s symptoms, some say. Others argue, however, that abortion for even the slightest of risks is justified. . . .
“It appears highly likely that young couples, possibly those in the next generation, will be able to make choices about the genetic traits of their children that would astonish today’s generation. As the genetic secrets of stature are uncovered, for example, couples would be able, if they desired, to select the height of their children within certain limits. As the gene mapping proceeds, other traits affecting intelligence, athletic, or musical ability, even personality could become matters of parental choice.”
The implications of this projection are staggering. It is theoretically impossible to wipe out a defective gene unless coercion is employed on a massive scale because, without the use of force, there will always be those parents who value human life (no matter what its mental or physical condition) as a gift from God. If such people are allowed to “spawn defective children,” these genes will never be eradicated.
Bishop and Waldholz go on to describe how, in the future, only the rich will be able to select their children’s traits by an extensive program of genetic testing. Thus, the rich would progressively become more and more advantaged over the poor in areas such as intelligence, beauty, and physical prowess — unless, of course, taxpayers were forced to fund it for the poor in the name of an ill-defined “fairness,” just as with abortion. However, this seems unlikely, because the elitists are unlikely to be willing to share the ultimate form of control, which is genetic control.
Many other bioethicists have let their imaginations run amok with the possibilities extended by assisted reproductive techniques, eugenics and bioengineering, all of which have absolutely no moral limits whatever.
Horrible Visions
The late Joseph Fletcher, as always, was front and center with his strange dreams:
“If the greatest good of the greatest number (i.e., the social good) were served by it, it would be justifiable not only to specialize the capacities of people by cloning or by constructive genetic engineering, but also to bio engineer or bio design para humans or ‘modified men’ — as chimeras (part animal) or cyborg androids (part prostheses).
“I would vote for cloning top grade soldiers and scientists, or for supplying them through other genetic means, if they were needed to offset an elitist or tyrannical power plot by other cloners — a truly science-fiction situation, but imaginable. I suspect I would favor making and using man-machine hybrids rather than genetically designed people for dull, unrewarding, or dangerous roles needed nonetheless for the community’s welfare — perhaps the testing of suspected pollution areas or the investigation of threatening volcanoes or snow slides.”
These are typical of the horrible visions being dreamed up for humanity by influential people with no moral limits. These nightmares are the logical destination of a society that has fully succumbed to the lure of situational ethics: Where the limits are set by technology and not by morality, by man and not by God.
This is the future for all mankind if the “Planned Parenthood” movement triumphs. Then James Watson’s dream, quoted above, will have come true: We will have replicated the original error of Adam and Eve, and there will be no love left in the world. As Watson explained:
“Only with the discovery of the double helix and the ensuing genetic revolution have we had grounds for thinking that the powers held traditionally to be the exclusive property of the gods might one day be ours. . . . The two stupidest sentences in the English language are ‘Love thy enemy’ and ‘The meek shall inherit the earth’.”
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