What about the babies ...

What else do you do on a blustery Saturday afternoon when you've got an hour to wait ... and don't really like window or regular shopping? Why, get yourself something hot and tall from Starbucks ... grab a chair by the window ... do some people-watching, read a bit from the book you carry with you everywhere ... or pick up the newspaper and see what's going on in the world.

I must admit that I read the newspaper far less than I should ... heck, I read the newspaper less than I thought I would. I remember my mother and father would sit down everyday ... either just before supper or after ... and read every printed word. To this day, I can see the way they each held the paper ... that crinkling paper sound that's unique to the sound of a newspaper page being turned ... how they'd trade sections ... as well as how the paper looked when it had been read piled neatly between them on the floor.

I'd naturally assumed that when I grew up, I would do exactly the same. Somehow the appetite for news never appeared ... and at best, I give articles a cursory, speed-reading glance ... and worse, there is usually not much that really interests me ...

Yesterday, however, I was captivated by an editorial of sorts on artificial insemination ... and maybe because having recently read Micheal Crichton's NeXt ... my mind has been playing with the thoughts and opinions and ideas sparked within that quarter page in Saturday's Globe and Mail ...

What about the babies? ... was the gist of the provocation by the author whom I have disrespected by not remembering.

We live within a time when there are enough babies born of artificial insemination who have matured into adulthood ... and who have enough of a voice ... to force us to answer or at least try to answer the questions, ethics and philosophical points they are voicing ...

What about the babies? ... doctors, donors, mothers ... all consenting adults who understood what they were getting into or doing ... doctors making $ providing mothers with their deepest desire that of being a mother ... donors making a few $ for providing their sperm to enable the doctors to help the mothers to be ... and mothers forking out $$ to grant themselves their deepest desire ... but what about the babies?

These babies were born ... without consent ... without choice ... and with only half a story.

How did we fool ourselves ... what were we told ... what smoke and mirrors were fabricated for us to forget that the babies mattered ... their needs, their questions, their health, their needs, their deepest desires were going to have to be addressed at some point. Did we truly believe that a system of response predicated on "law" and "nondisclosure" ... was going to stop the questions? Did we somehow convince ourselves that somehow these children should simply shut up and simply be happy that they were born?

Human "logic" confounds me. Human want and need and greed still manages to astound me. Human manipulation of nature scares me ...

This is not the first scientific advance that has raced forward without regard of the ethical, philosophical, societal impacts ... without looking at the bigger picture ... and I dare say, it probably won't be the last.

I bitterly laugh at the thought that our morals and justifications with respect to this issue seem to be limited to the protection of the donor ... the doctor and the mother. Once again, what about the babies?

So the donor ... needing money I assume ... sold his sperm in exchange for anonymity. How did we ever see this as ethical? Oh right ... who cared about ethics and morality when there was money to be made? I forgot ...

Back to the editorial in question ... I could feel the bile rising as the justifications and closed doors these "babies" were facing were described: the donor was told no child would ever search him out; countries such as Britain where anonymity is no longer guaranteed have experienced huge donor losses ...

What ever happened to understanding that to every decision, to every action ... there is a consequence ... exchange of dollars notwithstanding?

and ultimately ... what about the babies?