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Moral insanity at the sperm bank

From today’s NYT, this headline: “One Sperm Donor, 150 Offspring.” Excerpt: Now, there is growing concern among parents, donors and medical experts about potential negative consequences of having so many children fathered by the same donors, including the possibility that genes for rare diseases could be spread more widely through the population. Some experts are even […]

From today’s NYT, this headline: “One Sperm Donor, 150 Offspring.” Excerpt:

Now, there is growing concern among parents, donors and medical experts about potential negative consequences of having so many children fathered by the same donors, including the possibility that genes for rare diseases could be spread more widely through the population. Some experts are even calling attention to the increased odds of accidental incest between half sisters and half brothers, who often live close to one another.

Who could have foreseen this?! (I ask sarcastically).

This is what happens when you treat the generation of human life as a commodity. If Rick Santorum had been around to point that out when sperm banks were made legal, they would have denounced him as a hater.

UPDATE: I have always believed Santorum was treated unfairly for his (admittedly artless) remarks about same-sex marriage. He bears some of the blame for that because of the crude way he put it (the “man-on-dog” stuff), in trying to follow the apparent logic behind the push for gay marriage to its reductio ad absurdum conclusion, but his philosophical point is not answered by yelling, “That awful man compared gay love to bestiality!” And what is that philosophical point? Simply this: if we treat marriage as something that doesn’t have a fixed essence, but rather as something that we are completely free to redefine to suit our preferences, then where do we draw the line? If all that is required to legitimate marriage is desire and mutual consent, then on what basis do we make any mutually consenting relationship taboo?

I’m not saying there are no good answers to these questions. I am saying that “how dare he!” is not one of them.

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