(printed in the Times of Trenton as "A Better Choice for Help with Infertility" (12/22/08))As per Gregory J. Sullivan, "Conservatives need to rebuild, and any worthwhile rebuilding must begin with a return to an emphasis on the cornerstone of American liberty: namely, the federal principle." At the deepest level of each of us - whether we call ourselves conservatives or progressives - there is an ingrained awe at the magnificence of the human creature. While some anesthetize themselves to this awareness, it remains the cornerstone to which we must call each other back. Absolute respect for each human being is what constitutes the true "line in the sand", over which we must not tred.
Though obscured by many, awareness that each human being is a magnificent work of art has been sensed throughout time and across cultures. Who is not moved to learn of the triumph of human will over adversity? Who but the most anesthetized is not moved by a young child's laughter or tears? As explained by the Judeo-Christian tradition, each of use was made in the very image and likeness of God!
Mr. Sullivan describes some of what has occurred in our time, through our failure to recognize each human life as a magnificent work of art: "The veritable explosion in reproductive technologies - for example, in vitro fertilization - has taken place with no debate about whether their use is a good or bad idea....advances in prenatal testing are increasing rapidly....babies determined to have a genetic deformity are often killed in abortions....The eugenic alternative, toward which we are relentlessly moving at present, is a world of custom-designed offspring valued not for their intrinsic worth but for their genetic superiority."
There are numerous moral objections to IVF, not least of which are its involvement of selective abortions of what seem to be weaker embryos and that "spare" embryos are set aside and frozen. Just in terms of helping infertile married couples to conceive, the Creighton Model FertilityCare System <http://www.fertilitycarefriends.org/> (aka NaPro Technology) boasts far greater success, without resorting to any immoral methodologies. It completely respects the magnificent works of art which is each wife, each husband, and each offspring.
