Reproduction (Part 2)

Chapter from “Culture Is Not Your Friend: Sex, Death, Drugs & Madness”.

Abortion And The Sanctity Of Life

‘Life is sacred’, I keep hearing. But what exactly is life? My hair follicles have life, the bacteria in my gut and fleas have life. Your steak dinner was alive at one point before ending up on you plate. But I am guessing that by life you mean human life, so let us start there.

When does human life begin?

At conception. Well there it is. Debate over, right? Not so fast. Like I said, my hair follicles are alive. And at the point of conception we are talking about a zygote, a cluster of cells and not a conscious human being. So maybe instead of life, we should be talking about viability.

When it comes to the viability of the foetus, whether or not is has a chance to survive outside the womb, the survival rate before 21 weeks is 0%. At 22 weeks, there is a slight chance of survival (0-10%). At 27 weeks this rate has climbed to over 90%. As for consciousness, that arises somewhere between 24-28 weeks. Which then brings up the question,

“What do we base our abortion decision on – consciousness at 24 weeks, or viability at 22? Do we err on the side of caution and label all pregnancy terminations before 22 weeks as abortions, and all those after that as premature births?” 

There are no fast and easy answers to these questions, and they need to be examined. But one thing is certain – restricting women’s access to abortion is not the answer.

Pregnancy and childbirth is still the most dangerous thing a woman can go through, and with every pregnancy there is a small risk of the mother loosing her life.

There are also several health complications associated with pregnancy and childbirth, which could become chronic. These are not risks that any woman should be forced to accept. Share on X

And as for the sanctity of life, does that not also apply to the pregnant woman? Or do you believe that an unconscious cluster of cells is more valuable than a living, breathing, conscious human?

Selective Abortion

Another facet to the abortion debate, is that of selective abortion. If a foetus is found to have a genetic disorder, disability or deformity, even people who want to have children may decide to terminate their pregnancy.

If the foetus has an illness that gives it a reduced life expectancy and makes it likely to suffer during its short life, the parents may not want to put a child or themselves through that pain. Or they could be worried that the sick child will require more resources and care than the are able to provide.

Sex Selective Abortion

“A 14-year-old schoolboy ran away from home when his parents refused to kill the twin girls born to them rather late in their life – he did not want to shoulder the responsibility of marrying them off later in life!” – The Hindu, May 12, 2001

The outlawed dowry system is still being practised in India, and it puts families with female children under great financial burden. As soon as it was possible to see the sex of the child on ultrasound, there was a sharp rise in the abortion rate of female foetuses. Some of those who were unable to get an abortion even killed their own daughters right after birth.

Now there is a growing unbalance in the number of women to men, and many men are unable to get married. The Indian preference for sons is slowly creating the same gender imbalance as in China, where there are 33 million more men than women.

Multifetal Pregnancy Reduction

Some could get a little too lucky when trying to get pregnant and end up carrying more fetuses than they are able to handle, which could lead them to want a fetal reduction. Not everyone is prepared to be Octomom.

But how do you decide which foetuses should be allowed to grow, and which should be removed? And is this a safe practice?

The practice of Multifetal Pregnancy Reduction (MFPR) is usually a safe one, but as with any medical procedure, there are risks involved, such as the premature termination of the pregnancy or infection.

Sometimes this practice increases the chances of a successful pregnancy, as being pregnant with a large number of foetuses elevates the risk of miscarriage, premature births, low birth weights, stillbirth and disabling health complications in the infants.

As for the selection process, this is usually done by ultrasound evaluation. In recent years the genetic make-up of the foetuses have also been looked at in cases where one or both parents suffer from, or are carriers of a genetic disorder.

Donor Babies

If your child is seriously ill, you will most likely do whatever it takes to make them well again. Maybe even give them a new sibling that has the potential to cure them. Share on X

“Despite what some people claim, this is not designer babies and it shouldn’t be seen as the rules being relaxed. All we are trying to do is help somebody who has a very sick child.” – Dr. Mohammed Taranissi, Assisted Reproduction and Gynaecology Centre, London

But what if the new child does not succeed in its task? Is that an acceptable burden to place upon a child – to cure their ill sibling? If they fail, will you hold it against them? Will they hold it against themselves? Should kids be born for a purpose?

It would be easy to ban the practice outright to avoid answering these questions, but that would be a mistake. In time these may answer themselves, as donor babies have already been born.

In the meanwhile, restricting the rights of the adult parents to reproduce in this way, is probably not the way to go. Making them aware of the potential risks and helping them cope would be a better strategy.

Besides, is it really any worse to be born as a ‘cure’ than as a drunken mistake? To be born for a good reason, instead of being born for no good reason?

Cloning

If your child dies and someone offers you the opportunity to clone them, will you say yes?

Donor babies may be born for a reason, but they are still not asked to be someone other than who they are.

If you clone a child you would be expecting them to be a replacement, and that they can never be. The child would look the same and have the same genes, but they would still not be the same person. Share on X

Experiences and memories make us who we are, not just our genes.

​Humanity 2.0

“We humans are done evolving.” – My old science teacher, who shall remain anonymous.

The process of natural selection is what drives evolution. The traits that make us more likely to survive get passed on to the next generation, and the rest disappear.

We now have the ability to design our own evolution, to create Humanity 2.0. But are we as capable as mother nature at creating a viable species? Share on X

This is not just a question of designer babies, whether or not we should be selecting the traits of our offspring, but also whether the surgical correction of perceived flaws and the increasing popularity of plastic surgery is already changing our destiny.

A few years back, there was a much talked about incident of a man suing his wife for giving him ugly kids. He had married a beautiful woman who he believed would give him attractive children, but later discovered that her beauty was man made when she gave birth to an ugly child.

Although this story is most likely false, it does raise some interesting questions about where we are going as a species. What will happen to us if we keep altering our appearance to suit cultural ideals?

If a child is born today with six toes, genitals that do not conform to the male/female binary, three arms and so on, we correct what we perceive as their flaw. We make them fit into our image of what a human should look like. By doing this we are screwing with our own evolution.

We select mates and reproduce with those whose traits we find attractive. These traits then get passed down to the next generation. If we 'correct' these evolutionary tests, natural selection can not take place in the usual way. Share on X Natural selection will be blinded.

Like my old science teacher, we do seem to think that we are done evolving. But what if we are simply accustomed to a certain look and unable to imagine other possibilities? And because we now have the ability to transform our appearance, we choose to do this instead of accepting what may be evolution doing its job.

© Merlyn Gabriel Miller