Chosing Our Babies

The Abortion Debate No One Wants to Have. By Patricia E. Bauer: "The abortion debate is not just about a woman's right to choose whether to have a baby; it's also about a woman's right to choose which baby she wants to have."

There is a lot of pressure against parenting in our society.

To be a parent, you first have to overcome the presure of selfishness that defines children as a hindrance at best.

Once the child is concieved, comes the pressure of making sure that the child has no potential dissabilities, or has the right sex.

After birth, comes the pressures of looks and wealth which grow with time and the pressure of socialization performance at school which will define the value of the child based on her ability to conform to the arbitrary tests of "success" imposed by our society.

With the advances in genetic engenering and our growning abilities to expand the range of choice, surely the amount of pressure to use that power will increase at all levels, even to chose features like race, height, eye color, atheletic performance and intelligence.

The potential for the engeniering of a society in which every individual conforms to the specific pattern that is perceived the best, (i.e. The eugenic dream come true) is drawing nearer and nearer to us.

Our choices are bound by our values. When our values are wrong our choices will not be right. Our posmodern society acknowledges no standard to discriminate between right and wrong, but power in the hands of whoever excercises it. (We are back to square minus one "might makes right" in ethics) If we link the implications of these two features of our spiritual situation we may recognize the potential abyss we are approaching fast. (remember Natzi Germany)

We have learned to value the life of a suffering or dissable person as "not worth living" as if we knew what we are talking about.

This is just plain prejudice, based on wrong values.
The mystery of life is much to great for us to pass judgment over which life is or not worth living.

As the article quoted well presents, there is a whole range of life experience that is conveniently left out of the equation by prejudice and pressure. It would be wiser for us to trust the giver of life in our attitudes towards what we are willing to consider a life "worth living" before it is too late and we wake up living or being put to death in a "Brave New World" of our own making.