Sunday, March 30, 2008

Dehumanising.

I've just been watching a current affairs show about artificial insemination by donor. Australian women are having to access donations from the U.S. because of the shortage of donors in Australia. It was quite soulless! The intending mother can get information from a sperm bank about the profiles of the available donors. They can decide for example if the want a 'father' for their child who has a PhD or some attribute like being athletic. It is Eugenics. It's like a 1984 scenario in which humans are treated as breeding stock. I know I can't judge everybody else by myself, but does it seem to any other person out there that this is a grotesque parody of what child conception is supposed to be? It represents a relationship between two people who have committed to nurture and care for each other, not an exercise in acquiring designer accessories. Sure, I can see why people might hope their child might not have congenital diseases or be born with severe intellectual disadvantages. But there is something gross about using a human male as a stud service. I keep wondering: it's not for me to judge, but will God bring down judgement on this? It seems He has done that on promiscuous sex, with the epidemic of STD. It seems God's judgement falls on abortion, the killing of the helpless unborn, because it is recognised that women who have aborted may reduce their chances of future pregnancy. And reports persist that there is a link between abortion and breast cancer.
So you can say who am I to judge. But are we humans offending God by assuming the right to do things in a way which abandons His way? Some of the women having AI by donor said they cannot find a relationship. I can't comment on that except to say, that people who I know who remain partnerless may be too fussy. Some men I've heard seem to want a woman who's a cross between Cleopatra, Lady Guinevere and the most glamorous film star they can think of. Some women want a man who combines Sir Lancelot, Adonis and the Rockefellers, so he's got money. Any one less than that is not good enough, and they complain they can't find any one right for them. It's a feature of the age, the people of the western world demand perfection or they'll sue someone. Or at least try and get a benefit without doing what is normally required in turn.
The Bible has been called an owner's manual for living. We get our lives and we receive God's directions for living them. And the more we try to improve on the way God does things, the more of a mess we make.
Perhaps the Second Coming is not far away. But then, we can never actually know.

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