Children Have Rights - Say No to Repro Tech: Noteworthy conference in British Columbia

February 20, 2007

Noteworthy conference in British Columbia - May 2007

It looks like an excellent conference will be taking place in Nanaimo, British Columbia this May, called "Nobody's Child, Everybody's Children: An International Conference on New Reproductive and Genetic Technologies". (By the way, B.C. is above Washington State, for you Americans :-) It should be well worth your travel pennies if you can afford it. I would absolutely love to go to this conference but alas, I just don't have the funds at the moment. I'm going to monitor their website and hope to acquire as much information as possible about what took place at the conference.

The main distinguishing feature of this conference is that it will feature the voices of those who are AGAINST repro tech, as well as those who are for it. It will thus allow for a real, balanced debate. Olivia Pratten will be there - the daughter of a sperm donor whom I featured on an earlier blog entry. her mother Shirley Pratten will also be speaking. By the way, they are looking for more voices of donor conceived offspring for a panel discussion, so if you would like to go, let Olivia know: opratten@mailup.net

Another person who will be speaking is Dr. Jeffrey Nisker, the man who gained fame here in Canada as a pioneer of Pre-Implantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD). As a doctor at the University of Western Ontario, he was the first person in Canada to offer this procedure, which involves testing IVF embryos for various traits (usually genetic or chromosomal abnormalities) and then choosing the "best" ones to implant. However, Dr. Nisker became disillusioned with the procedure and stopped doing it altogether, because the majority of his customers wanted to use PGD for sex selection, not for a serious medical reason.

Another speaker will be Elizabeth Marquardt, who recently finished the excellent report "The Revolution in Parenthood: The Emerging Global Clash Between Adult Rights and Children's Needs". Also read an article by her here: "My Daddy's Name is Donor".

I've made a "poster" for the conference at the top left. Unfortunately the pic is not "click-able" as I don't know how to do that. If anyone does, please let me know. I've put the URL underneath so you can paste and copy.

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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.