Babies are the new slaves

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; February 17, 2007
Veronica Thomas said...: Thank you Joy, yours is great too!; February 19, 2007

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Stop the Baby Trade

Yes, it is a baby trade, like the slave trade of old. Babies have become consumer products, accessories to our lifestyles. They are like pets, those cute and cuddly babies. And like pets, they can be made to your liking. Just buy the sperm at your nearest sperm bank, purchase an egg from your local egg dealer, and rent a surrogate womb. And in 9 months, bring home a baby without a pregnancy, without even a dent in your schedule!

There is supply and there is demand. Babies are disposable: their value and worth depend on being "wanted". As embryos they can receive a life or death sentence based on a screening of their genetic traits. They can be frozen indefinitely, donated for research or simply killed. In the womb they can be "selectively reduced". They belong to whomever they were "intended" for.

Apparently, adults have a "right" to a baby. And before they are born, babies have no rights at all. They can be bought and sold, or traded from person to person.

Even after they are born, some of their natural rights are not recognized or respected. They had better not complain about not having their "natural" or biological parents. If they mind, they are ungrateful. After all, we cuddle them and spoil them and shower them with love - just like our pets.

Well, it's time to stop the baby trade. Infertility is tragic. So is being panhandled by your own genetic parents and being raised by biological strangers. So is being created in a laboratory only to be frozen as "surplus" or screened out and left to die because you are "unwanted".

Children have not consented to these things. Their own parents, their supposed protectors, have allowed these things to happen to them. Adults have selfishly allowed their reproductive urges to trample on the fundamental rights and needs of their own children. But now, as many of these children come of age and we hear their cries of pain, it is time to admit that what reproductive technologies have given to parents, they have also taken away from children.

Sometimes doing the right thing requires a lot of sacrifice. This is one of those times. We need to set aside our adult desires in order to protect children's rights. Let's see babies as human beings who are our equals. Let’s admit that we have no right to harm others to get what we want. Let’s stand up for those who don’t have a signature line on the consent forms, yet who will be forever affected by the decisions taken.

We will find that by protecting the weakest, we are also protecting ourselves. The rights of children are tied to the rights of adults. Children have a right to their own parents; and those parents also have a natural right to know and to educate their own biological children. These natural rights cannot be eliminated, only violated.

Let’s stand up for the natural human rights of children: their right to life from the moment of conception, their right to be carried in the womb of their own biological mother, and their right to know and be raised by their own biological parents.