"Just kill them" is not a solution. [Jay]

Wesley Smith at Second Hand Smoke posted on this article in the Times Online about two British couples that are screening their embryonic children for genetic markers that indicate a dramatically increased chance for an aggressive form of adult onset breast cancer. The desire to make certain that their children are born free of this genetic predisposition is understandable. Read the following:

However, the first patients say that the technology will allow them to spare their children a devastating genetic inheritance. One couple in their twenties, who would only be named as Matthew and Helen, have lost three generations to breast cancer.

I read this and am aware that what is a sentence in a news article to me is a remembrance of repeated pain and struggle and loss to Matthew and Helen. What parent would not want to do all that they could to prevent their child from enduring breast cancer? Who would not want to spare themselves the possible pain of watching their daughter develop a terrible affliction and then endure aggressive medical treatment that can often psychologically define the patient for years to come? Why not stop it early?

Paul Serhal of the University College Hospital as quoted in the article:

Mr Serhal said that objections to screening ignored the harrowing family histories of the patients he is seeking to help, who have a chance to ensure their children avoid similar experiences. “We are talking about a killer that wipes out generation after generation of women,” Mr Serhal said. “You can have a preventive mastectomy, but this is traumatic and mutilating surgery that does not eliminate the risk.
“What we are trying to do here is to prevent this inherited disease from being a possibility in the first place. At least with these people’s children, we can annihilate the gene from the family tree.” Genes have also been identified that raise the risk of conditions such as obesity, heart disease and mental illness. However, more than one gene is usually involved and the HFEA will not currently approve screening for these.

Okay, lets return to the primary question here. What are the unborn? If they are innocent human beings then this article describes a grisly reality being ushered in from the most admirable and understandable sentiments. If they are innocent human beings then Matthew and Helen are actually killing a number of their children as a means of preventing them from enduring a possible future trauma, however likely that trauma is to occur. If they are innocent human beings the British government is sanctioning the destruction of human life to prevent the possible future suffering of that life.

As heartfelt as all of their intentions may be and as grounded as they me be in genuine human emotion, if the unborn are innocent human beings then the practice they are championing is grotesque. I am reminded of a letter written to President Elect Bill Clinton by Ron Weddington, a co-counsel on Roe v. Wade. The letter encouraged the fast tracking of RU-486 through FDA approval. Mr. Weddington encouraged abortion as a solution to poverty in the United States. He wrote this chilling closing to his terrible letter:

“And the poor? Well, maybe if we didn’t have to spend so much on the problems like low birth weight babies and trying to educate children who come to school hungry, we might have some money to help lift up the ones already born, out of their plight.
The biblical exhortation to ‘Be fruitful and multiply,’ was directed toward a small tribe, surrounded by enemies. We are long past that. Our survival depends upon our developing a population where everyone contributes. We don’t need more cannon fodder. We don’t need more parishioners. We don’t need more cheap labor. We don’t need more poor babies.”

These are entirely different scenarios you may argue. You would be wrong. Ron Weddington, Paul Serhal, and many others are advocating the destruction of human life as an answer to serious issues that we confront. When our Executive Director at my CPC was presenting our ministry to the staff of a local church here in Georgia, the pastor asked her, “What are we supposed to do with all of these poor babies then?” A pastor of a church believed that killing innocent human life was a legitimate tactic to confronting poverty? Killing our children is how we intend to eradicate genetic diseases? That is the best solution we have to offer?

If the unborn are not innocent human beings then do what you want. If they are, then killing people is not the proper solution to grave social and medical problems. Remember where that thinking has led us in the past. I understand our desire to not see our children hurt. I pray that my own children do not face disease. I pray that they are strong enough to endure the pain of growing up with mean little friends as well as praying that they are kind to others. I know that heartaches, pains, and sufferings are unavoidable for them. I guess I could just kill them now and spare them and me the pain of enduring it then. If the unborn are innocent human beings, that is exactly what is being recommended by those who champion this procedure.