The Racket of Conception

This morning I heard an hour long interview with Professor Debra L. Spar, Harvard Economist who has written a book on the Fertility and Conception racket in this country called: "Baby Business: How Money, Science, and Politics Drive the Commerce of Conception." "Eggs are being sold; sperm is being sold; wombs and genes and orphans are being sold; and many individuals are profiting handsomely in the process." You can read all about it in Salon.com’s interview with Spar.


I am not easily shocked. I am also aware of how the birds and the bees work (with a BS and BA in both from NDSU). And I have kids.

We did it the old fashioned way.

There were three things in this interview that caused me to shake my head:

The number one cloning request is from parents who have lost a child, particularly older children. They just want to duplicate the lost Teen. This will happen soon on a regular basis and will be very disappointing for the parents. The new baby will look just like the dead child but will be different somehow. “Why can’t you be like your clone?” And will that clone kid ever be spoiled.

Children are being born to be donors. Parents have a child with kidney problems, bone cancer needing a marrow transplant, or a liver problem needing part of a liver. So, grow your own. Hundreds of In-Vitro embryos are produced and the doctor does an analysis of each one until he finds one that is a perfect tissue match for the sick child. That embryo is implanted, baby born and as soon as it is up to a decent tissue bearing age the suitable organs etc are harvested for the ailing sibling. I guess they let the 90% kid live. Such as it is. And, if he or she should develop problems with the remaining kidney we can always just create another donor babe.

There is a thriving market in embryo adoption. Since no one knows what to do with all these unused embryos and since it’s against the law to stem cell them (hooray) they are traded (and sold) to infertile couples, single moms, and lesbians.

There were several other graphic and disturbing issues in this interview and in her book. As a militant pro-life Christian I am deeply disturbed and can’t believe this is going to end up well. The slippery slope just got greased again. Not all progress is progress.