Future Assisted Reproductive Technologies.

                            In the year 4545
                            ain't gonna need no husband, won't need your wife,
                            you'll pick your son, pick your daughter too,
                            from the bottom of a long black tube ...
                            — Song entitled "In the Year 2525."

       Perverse Fantasies. Many scientists, drunk with the euphoria of treading where no human has dared go before, are plunging headlong into lines of research that would have been unthinkable a few years ago. In addition to arcane knowledge, they have also acquired a dangerous elitist attitude. As one leading researcher arrogantly boasted, "[Scientists] have the right to exercise their professional activities to the limit as lay attitudes struggle to catch up with what scientists can do."[36]
       In other words, ethics and morals, along with judgment, have been sacrificed in order to advance the mad dash for knowledge. This philosophy has destroyed all limits, so that now the only rule is:

       For example, if researchers continue along current lines of inquiry, it will soon be possible for a woman to conceive and bear her own (younger) identical twin sister; it will be possible to allow human embryos to gestate in apes of various species (or even in bovines) in order to bypass the legal barriers now springing up against surrogate motherhood; and it may well soon be possible to fulfill the long-standing homosexual fantasy of male pregnancy.

       Where Are We Being Led? The noted French biologist Dr. Jean Rostand wrote in all seriousness a few years ago that "Here and now Homo Sapiens is in the process of becoming Homo Biologicus, a strange biped that will combine the properties of self-reproduction without males, like the green fly; of fertilizing his female at long distance, like the nautiloid mollusk; of changing sex, like the xiphores; of growing from cuttings, like the earthworm; of replacing his missing parts, like the newt; of developing outside his mother's body, like the kangaroo; and of hibernating, like the hedgehog."[37]
       These are not the mad pipe dreams of some isolated quack. Many leading scientists have advocated the creation of chimeras — part-human and part-animal or plant creatures whose usefulness for various purposes would be enhanced by their new 'qualities.'
       Dr. Robert C. Gesteland, an associate professor of biological sciences at Northwestern University in Illinois, has suggested (1) crossing man with plants, so all we'd need for food would be water and sunlight; (2) developing a servant class of supersmart apes; and (3) best of all, breeding a race of humans only four inches tall, which would lessen pollution and conserve natural resources.

       Watch Out for Leo the Housecat! It's funny how educated people often don't think about the practical aspects of their hopes and dreams. Presumably, if Gesteland's dreams came true, (1) we could pass up a McDonald's and simply graze at the side of the road, (2) we would create and enslave another species, and (3) we would shrink ourselves to the point where pigeons would become our predators and housecats would be comparatively as large as elephants.
       Dr. George Haldane (the late British geneticist) predicted that we might breed a race of legless humanoid mutants with prehensile tails or feet for space travel. Other scientists would like to see women laying eggs that could be hatched or eaten (i.e., use our own young as a food source); human beings with gills to facilitate underwater travel; and people with two sets of arms and hands, one for heavy work, the other for lighter tasks.[38]
       We are already most of the way down Gerald Leach's "Ladder of Unnaturalness." Herds of prime cattle embryos are flown across the Atlantic Ocean in the wombs of female rabbits. Lesbians are now making men superfluous with sperm banks. The exploitation of women as 'wombs-for-hire' is the first step towards parthenogenesis and actual extracorporeal gestation.

       A Straight and Predictable Path. Assisted reproductive technology is following a fairly straightforward and predictable path.
       A century ago scientists invented artificial insemination, which isolated the male gamete from the body. Then came IVF, which isolated both the male and female gametes. Next was embryo transfer, which removes the developing human being from the body entirely for a short time.
       It is easy to project this line of technology to its logical conclusion: Extracorporeal gestation (EG), where technicians conceive a child in a dish (or generate him by parthenogenesis, without sperm) and gestate him entirely outside the mother in an artificial uterus.
       This is not science-fiction fantasy: Intensive research into EG has been ongoing since 1975. Late-term aborted babies have already been kept alive for days in pressurized vessels: The Italian embryologist Daniele Petrucci has kept a female embryo alive for 59 days in an artificial uterus.[39]
       Researchers Dr. Jerry Hall and Dr. Yan-Ling Fen of the Institute for Reproductive Medicine and Genetics in Los Angeles have already achieved parthenogenesis. They have taken mouse eggs and have induced them to duplicate their own set of chromosomes in order to create the number needed to begin cell division. These unfertilized mouse eggs developed into "parthenotes," or pseudo-embryos with a full complement of mouse chromosomes. The researchers transferred 60 of these "parthenotes" into the reproductive tracts of mouse "foster mothers." On the 13th day of gestation, they found that twelve of them had survived and were developmentally normal.
       The next step was parthenogenesis of monkey embryos, achieved by Advanced Cell Technology (ACT) of Worcester, Massachusetts in early 2002. Jose Cibelli, the leader of the research team that accomplished this feat, said that he was "100% certain" that this process would work for human eggs. The study team manipulated the early monkey embryos into producing brain cells, heart cells and other tissues.[40]
       Parthenogenesis is achieved by "tricking" the egg chromosomes into dividing by submerging them in a chemical cocktail, an "artificial sperm," that sends the proper signals to the mouse egg. If this were done to a human egg (and this is already technically possible), the baby that would eventually result would always be female and genetically identical to her mother.[41]

       Many scientists and doctors, including Dr. Bernard Nathanson, believe an artificial womb will soon be perfected.[42] According to bioethicist Joseph Fletcher, "The womb is a dark and dangerous place, a hazardous environment. We should want our potential children to be where they can be watched and protected as much as possible."[43] Isaac Asimov revealed the anti-life thinking behind this technology when he wrote, "if a woman could extrude the fertilized ovum for development outside the body, she would then be no more the victim of pregnancy than a man is."[44]
       A growing number of prominent pro-abortion scientists have already proposed the ultimate scenario that will be achieved by this line of research. In their ideal society, pregnancy will be abolished and everyone will be surgically sterilized by age 18. Before the sterilization process, however, girls will be superovulated and their eggs "harvested." Boys will masturbate to produce sperm samples. Scientists will carefully gene-map the sperm and eggs (enabled by the recently completed Human Genome Project), and will discard any samples that are subnormal in any way. When there is a projected need for a scientist 20 years down the road, technicians will be conceive and grow one in an artificial uterus. When there is a projected need for a negotiator, they will be grow one. When talented prostitutes are required, scientists will grow them too.[45]
       When reading about these predictions, we must remember that they are not the imaginings of some crackpot conspiracy theorist — they have been outlined in black and white by scientists, gender feminists and thinkers in the forefront of the pro-abortion and assisted reproductive movements.
       Theirs are serious proposals, not just grist for science fiction pulp novels. If it were possible to implement these scenarios today, Fletcher, Asimov, and many others who think that pregnancy is "victimization" would do so without hesitation. This colossal arrogance allows the 'biocrats' to think that they can go God one better. They think that they can improve upon His design by bettering the "hazardous environment" that He created and by 'weeding out' defective children.
       But our God is a jealous God, and whenever man tries to equal Him, there is always a backlash. That's simply the way He designed the universe. You just don't mess with Mother Nature unless you want a bloody nose — or far worse.
       When will we ever learn this lesson?

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Endnotes for “Future Assisted Reproductive Technologies”

[36] Paul Ramsey, Ph.D. "On In-Vitro Fertilization." Human Life Review, Winter 1979, pages 17 to 30.

[37] R.G. Edwards and D.J. Sharpe. "Social Values and Research in Human Embryology." Nature 231:87-91(1971).

[38] Paul Ramsey, Ph.D. "On In-Vitro Fertilization." Human Life Review, Winter 1979, pages 17 to 30.

[39] Donald DeMarco, Ph.D. In My Mother's Womb: The Catholic Church's Defense of Natural Life [Manassas, Virginia: Trinity Communications, 1987].

[40] Advanced Cell Technology Web site at http://www.advancedcell.com/.

[41] Press release entitled "Highlights from the 57th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine: Parthenogenetically Derived Stem Cells From Nerve Cells," downloaded from the Web site of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine at http://www.asrm.org on March 19, 2002.

[42] Tom Paskal. "Tampering with the Machinery of God." Weekend Magazine, September 18, 1971, page 7. Also see Bernard Nathanson, M.D. Aborting America [Garden City, New Jersey: Doubleday Press, 1979], page 282.

[43] Joseph Fletcher. The Ethics of Genetic Control [Garden City, New Jersey: Doubleday Press, 1979], page 103.

[44] Isaac Asimov. "On Designing a Woman." Viva Magazine, November 1973, page 8.

[45] Edward Grossman. "The Obsolescent Mother: A Scenario." Atlantic Magazine, May 1971, page 49; Shulasmith Firestone. The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution [New York: William Morrow, 1972], page 238. See also the proposed public law titled "Reversible Fertility Immunization" in Edgar R. Chasteen. The Case for Compulsory Birth Control [Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1971], back cover. Chasteen's proposed law reads

"As of January 1, 1975, it shall be unlawful for any American family to give birth to more than two children. Any family already having two or more natural children on that date shall not be allowed to give birth to another. Toward this end, it is hereby lawfully determined that all Americans above the age of 10 years will, at least one year prior to the aforementioned date, present himself/herself for reversible immunization against fertility at a local county health department or physician's office. An official "Certificate of Immunization" shall be issued to and in the name of each citizen so treated. Said certification shall be signed by the authorized medical practitioner who administers the immunization, and shall be entered into the official records of the county in which immunization occurred. After marriage, any citizen may present himself/herself at a local county health department or physician's office and obtain a fertility restorer. At the birth of the second child, immunity against fertility shall be readministered to both parents. If the first birth shall be multiple, no other births shall be permitted to that mother, and both parents shall thereupon be re-immunized."