I am also 60 years old. What if there was a genetic screening test for prostate cancer 60 years ago? Would I have been born? As I look at the faces of my grown children, I contemplate that they would never have lived if their father had never been born.
No one knows the length of our lives. Families all across this country suffer the loss of perfectly healthy babies in the first years of life. Other people overcome enormous health obstacles to have extraordinary lives. And still others succumb to breast cancer, prostate cancer or other illnesses, but after long, happy, and productive lives.
There is a horrifying slippery slope here. Where do we draw the line? Again, these babies did not have a debilitating lifelong malady. All they had was a chance of developing an illness. Whats next? Poor eyesight or hearing? How about food allergies?
Better yet, why stop at abnormalities? How about insisting they be taller than average, or have superior abilities? While youre at it, why not also select the eye color and hair color? Dont just fertilize eleven eggs. Fertilize a hundred, choose the single best one, and destroy the rest.
Grotesque.
Yet that is the world we now live in, so our leaders must now take a stand on all such policy issues.
This is similar in one regard to our recent national debate on embryonic stem cell research. For several years the press and liberals pounded the president for opposing the destruction of fertilized embryos like those destroyed by British doctors for scientific research. But earlier this year scientists discovered a method for extracting stem cells from skin cells called somatic cell dedifferentiation. Now scientists can engage in all the research they like without harming anyone.
Thats the potential of medical science. And its the potential ignored by the aforementioned British doctors, and those like them in America.
We are in an era where science enables us to do wonderful things, but also terrible things. Our public policy must protect life, especially the lives of innocent, unborn children.
And we must never deceive ourselves that we do children a favor by ending their lives as they begin.