February 15, 2007

Babies are the new slaves

In talking about the growing practice of using poor women in India as commercial surrogates, where these women are inseminated with sperm from some wealthy Westerner, bear the baby and ship it off to the Western infertile couple after it is born, Dr. John F. Kilner recently got it right:
Human beings ought not to be bought and sold in this way, any more than they should be bought and sold in slavery. That the purchaser is nice and plans to treat the one purchased well does not justify purchasing a slave. Turning human beings into things to be bought is inherently demeaning, as many philosophical outlooks and political systems generally affirm, not to mention various religions including the Christian faith.
It seems like the light is dawning. At least some people are waking up to the new slavery in our midst, a slavery where the slaves are our very own children. We sell them for a price. We buy them for a price. Sure, we buy them in order to love them, but what's the difference? The crucial problem is that they had no choice in the matter. What if they didn't want to be raised by strangers? What if they wanted their real mommy and daddy? No one cares, and apparently neither should they. They should be happy because after all, they have LOVE, right?

Read the article about Indian surrogates here.


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I really like this blog

Veronica Thomas said...

Thank you Joy, yours is great too!