Fashionable Cannibalism
© 4.28.05 By D. Eric Williams
There is something wrong with Protestantism. Actually there are many things wrong with Protestantism, but the issue that is at the forefront of my mind today is the failure of the Protestant Church to speak out against the trafficking of human eggs, the artificial fertilization of those eggs and the destruction of the resulting human life.1 All of this is done in the name of science of course - and that makes it okay with a lot of people I suppose. As for me I grow physically sick when I think of such a thing.
A recent article in Wired online magazine tells a tale of woe concerning women who sell their eggs. It seems that the National Academies has issued a report stating that women should not be offered money for their eggs. Instead, they should be asked nicely to enter the realm of fashionable cannibalism for the sake of science. Human eggs - purchased or donated - are used to create embryos which are then used in a variety of experiments. These days the focus is on human cloning (a feat the South Koreans claim as routine), primarily in the cause of stem cell research. The National Academy suggests that paying women for their eggs taints the righteous cause of medical research and so the practice should be discontinued.
The women who sell their eggs (for as much as $15,000), typically use hormones to induce "superovulation" so that they may be able to produce many eggs rather than the one or two a month that is normal. As might be expected this can cause a multitude of health complications. The "pro-payment for eggs" reasoning is that if a woman is going to risk her health in order to supply the medical research industry with eggs, she should be well compensated. Reminds me of the deal made between two mothers in besieged and famine racked Samaria many hundreds of years ago; "we'll cook your son for dinner today and mine tomorrow." Trouble was, woman number one hid her son after woman number two cooked her child and shared the gory repast with the first woman (2 Kings 6:24-29). Now-a-days the medical research industry promises mother number two all sorts of miracles if she will only sacrifice her children. Thus far the children are eaten and the miracles have been hidden away. The gods of medical research deem it a fair bargain. The temple prostitutes prefer cold hard cash and the miracles be damned.
When animals are cloned a "normal" test subject results only about 1% of the time. In other words, for every one "success" like Dolly the sheep2, there are 99 sheep so grossly deformed or damaged that they fail to survive beyond the early stages of embryonic development. The same level of "success" is expected with human cloning. In other words, for every human being brought into existence destined to be the object of devilish experiments, 99 are destroyed because their defects make them unsuitable. Devilish and animalistic; researchers in Australia have successfully(?) produced some sort of an animal - human hybrid. This from globalchange.com:
Scientists use pig eggs and human cells in human cloning experiment, avoiding need for human eggs. The pig-human hybrid embryos appeared viable. Similar to human cloning success using cows egg. The scientists say that the pig human embryos could have been implanted in either pig or human wombs. (Ed: I doubt if they would have grown well in pigs). Research disclosed in European patent application. The pig - human work was carried out by Stem Cell Sciences in Australia and Biotransplant in America. Two pig - human embryos were grown to 32 cells stage, in a week. No technical breach in European law because embryos "not 100% human". (See human cloning "human-cow" feature) Daily Telegraph 7 October 2000, Sunday Time 8 October 2000
May God have mercy. No, I take that back. May God's judgment fall upon us all.
We arrived at this place due to the failure of the Protestant Church to stand firm on the sanctity of human sexuality and reproduction. I've mentioned before that "as late as the nineteenth century all of Christendom (not just Roman Catholicism) considered the use of contraceptives a sin." It seemed harmless enough to back away from guarding the sanctity of human reproduction. The Church in America didn't want to seem to Romanish after all. And besides, there were perceived benefits in taking a more liberal stand. Removing sex from the God ordained context of reproduction promised to take irresponsible self gratification to a whole new level.
The degradation of human sexuality leads to the harvesting of human eggs and inhuman experiments on newly conceived persons just as surely as day leads to night. In order for Smith to enjoy his sexuality as he pleases he must ignore the responsibilities that normally attend such use; responsibilities like caring for the children which result from sexual union. It doesn't matter if Smith is married or not. If he does anything to prevent conception while satisfying his sexual needs, he is telling God that he wants the pleasure without the responsibility. The result is an unnatural divide between sex and human reproduction. Human reproduction standing alone becomes a personal individual issue, a medial and scientific issue - even a State issue - rather than the private sexual concern of a man and his wife before God. God intended for sexual pleasure and human reproduction to be wholly entwined. The bottom line is that we can't have it both ways. Either we declare sex as merely "intended for pleasure" or we affirm that sexual pleasure is only part of a far more profound experience.
Well, we're reaping what we have sown. Protestant acceptance of "reproductive rights" has led to arguments about whether a cannibal should be paid for her heathen practice or be expected to sacrifice her offspring for the sake of humanity sans compensation.
It's time for the Protestant Church in America to take a stand against sexual sins of every variety. Obviously the Mainline Protestant Church won't, but the conservative, Bible believing Church certainly should. I know it sounds medieval to the modern ear, or something like that, but it is high time the Bible believing Protestant Church returned to a scripturally sound theology of human sexuality. God says that children are a blessing. He says that the fruit of the womb is a reward. He says that the man with many children is a man of status and authority. Moreover, the reproductive capabilities of Mankind were created for God's glory. And all of that means that the apparatus attending the creation of children must not be tampered with. Certainly the sensual pleasure we experience in sexual intimacy is a God given benefit, but that doesn't somehow give us the right to meddle in the Master's workshop.
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1. Life begins at conception no matter how monstrous the circumstances of that conception.
2. Even Dolly died very young (for a sheep). A post mortem showed that she was suffering from ailments normally associated with much older sheep. The theory is that the cells used to clone Dolly passed on the genetic age of the donor. So now we have something new to replace the old "dog years" standby; Dolly was six when she died - that's 13 in clone years, or something like that.
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