Letters to the Editor
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Surely, there are ways to hire foreign surrogate mothers respectfully and ethically....
No, there aren't. It's inherently unethical and exploitative.
And while we're on the subject, a tangential rant:
Ultimately, the whole "fertility" business is inherently unethical. If you can't have children, that means you can't have children. The universe is trying to tell you something that you don't want to hear. I'm sorry, but life abounds with unpleasant truths. Adopt, or learn to accept that you simply weren't meant to have kids. There are many things that technology shouldn't be trying to fix, and this is one of them.
There are upwards of 6 billion people in the world today - SIX BILLION!! There is no good reason WHATSOEVER that so many people should be alive at the same time. 'Go forth and multiply', says Genesis, but people conveniently forget the rest of the phrase 'and fill the earth' - news flash, folks: IT'S FULL! We don't need more Americans using resources like nobody's business, we don't need more impoverished people forced to strip the land until desertification takes over, there are just too many people on the planet. It's just not right to spend thousands and thousands of dollars to try to make more babies who would otherwise thankfully not have to be born just yet!
Or maybe that bumper sticker is right, and I'm wrong:
Earth First!
We'll strip mine the other planets later!
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No Logic Here, Please
The universe is trying to tell you something that you don't want to hear. I'm sorry, but life abounds with unpleasant truths.
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There are many things that technology shouldn't be trying to fix, and this is one of them.
Eh, this same exact charge has been leveled against everything technology has done. You'll need a much better reason than "the universe is trying to tell you something". That doesn't carry any water at all when "the universe" offers an alternative.
In fairness, you do have another reason handy:
There is no good reason WHATSOEVER that so many people should be alive at the same time.
Okay, population control. That's a reason. But population control through limiting access to fertility treatments? I'm sorry, but that's just dumb. Lots of people complain about China's one-child policy, but at least it has SOME basic element of fairness - one each, rather than luck of the draw.
The few couples who have fertility issues can never make up for the huge productivity of those without fertility issues - or birth control. Limiting access to the former will not work (that sort of thing never does - ref. the drug war, prohibition, abortion, etc., etc.). Further, making birth control easily accessible has been shown to work quite well at stemming the populations which are actually growing.
Notice the "populations which are actually growing" phrase. It's important. The population of people who can afford expensive fertility treatments is NOT growing. In fact, it's shrinking virtually everywhere. Population loss is actually becoming a problem in several developed nations.
Meanwhile, the numbers of the impoverished without access to any sort of reproductive choice are, of course, spiraling out of control for very basic reasons. It is far more proper, efficient, effective, and, well, nice to offer them easy access to reproductive freedom than to deny it in the developed world.
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SB, My Inner Radical Likes Your Words...
...however, I think we need to start with a more gentle approach, starting with the letter writers to The Fix and the editors of Parade Magazine et al. It seems if an Angelina Jolie or a Ewan MacGregor or a Meg Ryan adopts a child they are called “selfish promoters” of their respective careers. We should be lauding them instead of laughing at them. I hope adoption does become glitzy and fabulous, more than the trend of wannabe Paris Hiltons buying designer dogs to die slow deaths in their fake Gucci handbags. (my tangential rant)
Everything needs to be "sex-ed up” in our media saturated world. The institution of adoption could really use a good, savvy p.r. team. Infertility has had its day. It’s been “sexy” for a long time. It’s on every news channel and 20/20 type of show. It’s out of the closet and it’s a-OK with everyone. It's branching out to the third world, and yes, likely putting food on the tables of poor women. But our mind-set needs to change. People want to shower “quintupleted” families with new homes and mini vans, yet children starve every day around the world. Maybe in our evolutionary journey we needed to celebrate the miracle of fertility drugs, yes. It’s been a great innovation for some…. But let’s move to the next level.
As it is now, adoption still has the stigma of something our mothers did 50 years ago on the sly when they couldn’t get pregnant. I’d like to see this re-worked. Sometimes it takes a few beautiful celebrities to make a point. Yes, we can be this shallow, but it's a TV World.
And adoption isn’t perfect either so let’s talk openly about those issues: whites adopting blacks; adoptees contacting birth parents—when possible—and vice versa. (we’ll have to talk about donated eggs and surrogacy the same way, so we might as well get used to it.)
It's not up to the spineless mainstream media to get on the adoption band wagon. It's up to the cleverest of us to come up with an easily digestible hook and/or gimmick or p.r. campaign. Write letters, have car washes…you know the drill.
Millions of children die every year, from disease, starvation and the ravages of war, so Pyrian, what would be the problem of parents in your first world “population loss” countries rescuing a child from the 3rd world? Wouldn’t that be better?
Have you looked at some of the snotty emails in Cary’s column? Some of the letter writers are so bitter that he is actively promoting the new book “Maybe Baby”. But this is what we need: A dialogue. New strategies. A new way of looking at “parenting” or not parenting.
OK, I'm all over the map. But everything seems strangely related...