It is said that General Robert E. Lee, as he surveyed the carnage of the battle of Telegraph Hill, spoke the words, “It is well that war is so terrible — we would grow too fond of it.”

War is terrible.

Perhaps that is one reason why during relatively peaceful interludes, but sometimes even in wartime, palliative fantasies are concocted to make armed conflict seem less horrible and the stresses of war more equitably distributed. Civilians, often the most ravaged by war, long to see their hopes and dreams of a perfect society, along with their ways of conducting affairs and mediating conflict, inform the armies of nations. Then peace will reign.

But most often, attempts to make armies resemble the mores and behavior of contemporary civil society amount to chimerical impracticalities and downright denial of reality. It seems the present administration of the U.S.is gripped by a fantasy of “equality” designed to distribute the rigors of combat more equitably between men and women by allowing women to enter combat zones as infantry. Women are to be both as endangered and as heroic as men traditionally have been in wartime.

The West has seen similar fantastical pipe dreams before.

Before and during World War I, the French military was gripped by an illusory vision of heroism. French soldiers were taught to think of themselves as unconquerable because they possessed elan vital. A concept developed by philosopher Henri Bergson, elan vital was a supposed life force imparting a heroic invincibility that would enable French soldiers to conquer the less nobly endowed, retrogressive Huns comprising the German armies.

Buoyed by their fantasy of natural supremacy, the French nobly went forth, garbed in their brilliant red and blue uniforms and wielding their flashing sabers. They met the cold, hard and merciless reality of German machine gunners who methodically picked off rank after rank of inspired Frenchmen who, despite elan vital, fell dead. Illusion eventually bowed before reality. The French changed uniforms and tactics. But not before the fiction the nation’s soldiers were taught to believe in had resulted in countless casualties.

The American military has now been asked to embrace a fantasy equal to or worse than the concept of elan vital.

Today’s adherents of heroic fantasy have decreed the battlefield can be a gender-neutral zone reflective of the Left’s domestic agenda for gender “equality.” The daydream is that women and men can act as interchangeable units on the battlefield. The eradication of the differences between the sexes the Left is seeking to achieve in civilian society is to be applied to the U.S. military, which is now expected to embrace a sort of psychological Lamarckianism that insists men and women can by sheer positive thinking — “I can be anything I want to be”–overcome the natural limitations of the female sex by an act of will.

Today’s version of elan vital, monotonously repeated for at least two generations, is reminiscent of the fatuous Emile Coue’s theories of self-improvement based on optimistic mantra, “Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better.” Ideas similar to Coue’s theories of the transformative abilities of positive thinking were to trickle down to children’s literature in the form of The Little Engine That Could (1930) — “I think I can; I think I can.” In turn, the “I think I can,” motif has now become the ubiquitous mantra repeated continually to little boys and girls: “You can be anything you want to be.”

Including a female GI Joe locked in hand-to-hand combat with hardened male soldiers.

No. Sometimes, you can’t be anything you want to be. Sometimes, you shouldn’t even try.

It is impossible to eliminate the natural differences and natural attraction between the sexes. It is hallucinatory to believe there are not core differences between the way men and women think and act. It is also madness to deny the heightened testosterone levels characterizing men on the battlefield.

For instance, does anyone suppose women will not be assaulted and raped when put side by side with men in a battle zone?

The United States Department of Veterans Affairs has found sexual assaults within our armed services are far more common in war zones. Think of it: women face assault and rape within their own units. Even if the assaults sometimes don’t amount to physical rape, the temptation to trade sexual favors for protection and/or advancement is great. How many women in the military can testify that they are propositioned regularly by men who are their superiors in rank? How many have not been merely propositioned, but have been forced into sexual encounters they don’t want?

There is another reality that contradicts the fantasy: Special tortures await women when in the hands of enemies who regard women as unclean and as infidels who are lower than dogs. Such enemies are highly unlikely to be handing out birth control pills to the women they rape and use as sex slaves — if they allow captured women to remain alive. Women face impregnation and forced abortion or the killing of infants conceived during rape when captured behind enemy lines. Men may face torture and even death, but they do not face what women will inevitably face if captured by implacable misogynists who care nothing about the niceties of the Geneva Conventions.

The experience of the Israelis, a democratic nation that has deployed women to combat zones, is instructive. Phyllis Chesler reported in a symposium on Islamic Terror and Sexual Mutilation:

“Soon after the establishment of the IDF, the removal of all women from front-line positions was decreed. Decisive for this decision was the very real possibility of falling into enemy hands as prisoners of war. It was fair and equitable, it was argued, to demand from women equal sacrifice and risk; but the risk for women prisoners of rape and sexual molestation was infinitely greater than the same risk for men.”

During the same symposium, Dr. David Gutman said:

“During the Israeli War of Independence Jewish fighters, including female soldiers captured by Arab irregulars, were routinely tortured and mutilated in the most obscene ways (by contrast, water-boarding would have furnished a pleasant interlude), and IDF officers warned their troops against being taken alive.”

John Luddy of the Heritage Foundation cites the demoralizing effects on unit cohesion, another vital consideration. Male soldiers who saw their fellow women soldiers mutilated in obscene ways were devastated.
Luddy writes:

“For example, it is a common misperception that Israel allows women in combat units. In fact women have been barred from combat in Israel since 1950, when a review of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War showed how harmful their presence could be. The study revealed that men tried to protect and assist women rather than continue their attack. As a result, they not only put their own lives in greater danger, but also jeopardized the survival of the entire unit. The study further revealed that unit morale was damaged when men saw women killed and maimed on the battlefield.”

But just as importantly, when given combat units are facing each other, one of which has women and the other which has men, the most likely outcome is that the male-only forces will win. After all, war is about winning. Imagine the sheer joy of the SS if they had faced an American battalion made up of men and women — or only women? The ludicrousness of the situation would have been exceeded only by the slaughter. Weakness would have ensured victory by the enemy.

Is weakening our armed forces what is actually desired? We conservatives should never forget the military has long been a target of the Left, who wish to weaken it so it does not present a threat to their goals of a European-style America. It is a badly kept secret that our president dislikes the Armed Forces and would even allow “sequestration” — gutting our military — in order to promote his domestic agenda. What better tactic to complete the emasculation of the finest military in the world than to insist on enforced “equality” between the sexes on the battlefield?

Speaking of emasculation, what happens to the manhood of soldiers who are expected to fight alongside women? What man is going to choose being a soldier if he has to share a foxhole with a female and give up belonging to a band of brothers?

Radical feminists who want their fantasy of so-called “equality” to extend to the battlefield must ask themselves if they are prepared to have universal Selective Service, along with all it implies for all women, not just those who meet the standards and who would choose to be fighters alongside men. What transpires when choice is taken out of the hands of all women? Who, for instance, will take care of all the children if Mom and Dad both head for the battlefields?

None of the above is meant to imply American women have not shown they are capable of much when they serve in the armed services. The core issues concerning women in combat do not indicate women are not as intelligent, as brave and as true as men. Individual women can even sometimes outperform men. They can be just as ferocious when protecting what is precious to them and their country.

No, the core issues concern the innate limitations of and the unique dangers facing soldiers of the female sex as pertains to mixed gender battle units, the battlefield, and capture by the enemy. Even when women have met all the physical standards applying to male soldiers, they remain women and therefore automatically more vulnerable than men. That is why no armies, ancient or modern, ever incorporated women soldiers into their infantry ranks. In fact, the appearance of women on the battlefield would not only be welcomed by our enemies, it would be a fantastical exercise in political correctness that would not only to be uniquely dangerous to women, but might well prove fatal to the readiness and effectiveness of our military and our country.

Those who would conduct wars according to fantasies will lose. The French were on the verge of losing WWI no matter how firmly they believed a mystical endowment of heroism was bestowed on their soldiers by the elixir of “elan vital.” It was when France faced reality and changed her politically-correct assumptions that she began to break her losing streak, with the help of American soldiers — all of whom were men.

It is time to put the axe to the root of the fantasy of “equality” before it irrevocably damages the finest military in the world.

Fay Voshell, selected as one of the Delaware GOP’s “Winning Women” of 2008, is a contributor to American Thinker and National Review Online.  This article is reprinted with permission and originally appeared at American Thinker.

Last month’s massacre of twenty young children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, prompted much public debate and soul-searching. The results were predictable. The left-liberal position went something like this:

There are too many guns in America, too many crazy people who should not have guns, and too few restrictions on the kinds of firearms that civilians may own. It’s ridiculous to allow civilians to possess military-style assault rifles with large capacity magazines that can kill dozens of innocent human beings in minutes. We need to end our national love affair with firearms and firearm violence and should learn from the Europeans and Japanese, who severely restrict gun ownership for anyone not in the military or government police forces. We also need laws mandating that privately-owned firearms be stored securely so that criminals or unlicensed users can’t get them.

Our mental health system also needs a thorough overhaul. Troubled, at-risk youth are too often left to fend for themselves because their families cannot pay for or access the professional care they need. We need to provide them this care through more outreach programs in schools and community centers that identify children and teens at high risk for self-destructive or socially destructive behavior.

While many found this view compelling, the conservative take on the Newtown horror couldn’t have differed more. It went like this:

Guns will always fall into hands that they shouldn’t, no matter how extensive our gun control laws are. These laws don’t prevent criminals from getting guns, but they disarm law-abiding citizens and render them helpless against deadly criminal attacks. Look at what happened in Norway. A country with very strict gun laws still saw one of the worst gun massacres of all time when the deranged Nordic supremacist Anders Breivik systematically shot and killed over five dozen helpless adolescents on an offshore island where only he possessed a firearm. Only a heavily armed Norwegian SWAT team stopped his attack. The bad guys prey on helpless victims who they know will never shoot back. Only good guys with guns can stop bad guys with guns. To protect our school children we need more armed guards—policemen and suitably trained civilians—who know how to use firearms responsibly and how to defend the helpless and defenseless against homicidal crazies.

We also need to stop the poisonous influence of violent video games and Hollywood movies on developing young minds. Teenage youth can become desensitized to violence through an addiction to games like Grand Theft Auto, Thrill Kill, Postal, and Mortal Kombat. These games reduce people’s sense of empathy and increase their appetite for sadism and aggression. If we really want to tackle the problem of youth violence in America, we should critically examine the perverse messages that our media-saturated culture often sends to young people.

Other claims and arguments were made to bolster both positions. The Supreme Court, for instance, came under attack from both sides—from the right for prohibiting prayer in public schools, from the left for interpreting the Second Amendment to include a right of private gun ownership. The two contrasting views were fleshed out in countless op-ed pieces and news broadcasts with the usual low quality we expect of such media treatment.

The Elephant in the Living Room

Though both sides in this dispute have something sensible to say, they’ve missed an elephant in the room either because of willful blindness to anything politically incorrect or because of a lack of real-world experience. I speak of the problems associated with divorce, family breakup, father absence, and the enormous burdens placed on a single mom who must rear a troubled male child alone.

Adam Lanza was not normal. He suffered from morbid shyness and an inability to connect with his student peers and anyone else—a cold, withdrawn, hollow shell of a person to his classmates, an Asperger’s patient to professional psychologists. Even under the best of circumstances—with a loving, caring, two-parent family consisting of a husband and wife who complemented each other’s strengths and worked together as a team—raising someone like Adam Lanza would be a real challenge.

One can’t say how he might have turned out under different circumstances, but statistics show that having divorced parents, as Lanza did, plus a father who moves out of the household, remarries, and has little contact with his son for long stretches of time, is not the ideal formula for successful childrearing. Yet what sociologists call “family structure issues” were rarely discussed in the media, not even on conservative talk radio where one might have expected them to have a preeminent place. Most Americans, it seems, have so many divorced or single-parent neighbors, friends, and relatives (if they are not themselves divorced or living as single parents) that discussing family structure is simply too painful and too sensitive to be taken up in any honest or candid manner.

While we may never be able to explain fully what caused Lanza’s murderous rampage, the best speculation to date involves, besides mental health problems and gun availability, the challenges faced by a single mom trying to raise a deeply troubled youth. A Fox News reporter gathered from the Lanzas’ neighbors and others who knew the family situation that Lanza likely killed his mother because he thought that she loved the students and teachers of Sandy Hook School more than she loved him. Lanza knew that his mother planned to have him committed to conservatorship, and perceived her court petition as an effort to send him away. This enraged him to the extent that he killed first-graders who may have worked with his mother in the past year, and the school’s principal and psychologist, who were his mother’s good friends.

It’s hard to read such an account without feeling great sadness for someone like Nancy Lanza—a single mother with a deeply disturbed male adolescent on her hands and no man in the house to turn to for help or advice. Those who knew her said that she was at her wit’s end and thought she could no longer care for her son by herself. In a saner age, when people understood the palpable harms of “broken homes” and “fatherless boys” (the terms themselves have become quaint if not archaic), the “family structure issue” would have guided reflection on the Lanza killings. But now, since any such discussion of divorce’s harms, especially the harm of not having a father present in the home, would step on too many toes, we focus instead on the safer territory of gun control and our mental health system.

A preview of the current non-discussion was provided almost fifty years ago when Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote his famous report The Negro Family: The Case for National Action. As Moynihan learned, however important the “family structure issue” may be to an understanding of an acute social problem, for many it strikes a raw nerve, the pain of which shuts down all serious discussion. A preoccupation with “racism” and “de-industrialization” were the equivalents in Moynihan’s day of guns and the mental health system today, as topics to raise to avoid the salient but hypersensitive issue of family breakdown.

In his book Fatherless America, David Blankenhorn writes that “across societies, married fatherhood is the single most reliable, and relied upon, prescription for socializing males. As marriage weakens, more and more men become isolated and estranged from their children and from the mother of their children. One result, in turn, is the spread of male violence.” Though we can’t ignore the other contributing factors to the Lanza massacre, this simple truth must be acknowledged in any honest assessment of the Newtown tragedy.

Russell Nieli is a lecturer in politics at Princeton University. This article originally appeared in Public Discourse: Ethics, Law, and the Common Good, the online journal of the Witherspoon Institute of Princeton, NJ on January 2, 2013.  It is reprinted here with permission.

Myriad Genetics, producer of the world’s biggest-selling gene test for breast and ovarian cancers, has become synonymous with corporate greed. In an egregious breach of bioethics, the company refuses to share groundbreaking knowledge that could benefit cancer patients.  Myriad Genetics is deliberately withholding data that could help other scientists to understand cancer genetics on the grounds that the information is “commercially sensitive.”

The healthcare company manufactures the test for determining whether women carry potentially lethal mutations of the two genes linked with inherited forms of breast and ovarian cancer.  It has a monopoly on the tests in theUnited Statesand is beginning to engage in aggressive marketing inEurope.

Professor Martina Cornel, chair of the European Society of Human Genetics policy committee, stated: “We are very concerned that such important data is being withheld from those who need it.  It is vital that progress towards personalized medicine, which holds out so much promise, is not hindered by companies maintaining private genomic databases.”

Adding insult to injury, while Myriad refuses to share its potentially life-saving data, it simultaneously benefits from free access to public databases compiled by other scientists and researchers.  It also gives Myriad a competitive advantage over academic institutions.

Myriad uses its test data to compile a database of other mutations beyond the cancer-causing mutations on the two BRCA genes.  Known as “variants of unknown significance” or VUS, this information is important because it helps physicians correctly interpret the results of a breast cancer test.  This information withholding goes a long way to explaining why Myriad finds only 3% of its tests fall into the VUS unknown category while other testing services report a 20% VUS rate.

What this means in practical terms is summed up by Professor Cornel: “Interpreting the variants of unknown significance that may be found in analyzing the patient’s genome plays an essential part in being able to provide proper counseling and if necessary, preventative or therapeutic guidance.”

Myriad Genetics has been at the center of controversy over gene patenting and the ethical divide between genomic science for public benefit versus private profit.  Myriad founder Mark Skolnick ofUtahUniversityidentified and sequenced the gene involved in inherited forms of breast cancer, currently between 5 and 10% of all cases.  Myriad then applied for patents and control of royalties on any gene tests resulting from the discovery.

Many scientists point out that Myriad/Skolnick could not have made the discovery without the work of others whose results are public.  In the second quarter of 2012 alone, Myriad generated sales of over $105 million from its BRCA analysis test.

The situation is now before the U.S. Supreme Court. On November 30, the Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments on the patentability of human genes.  The case began in May 2009 when the ACLU and the Public Patent Foundation filed a lawsuit charging that patents on the genes, BRCA1 and BRCA2, are unconstitutional and invalid.  The suit correctly charges that the patents stifle diagnostic testing and research that could lead to cures and that they limit women’s options regarding their medical care.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of researchers, genetic counselors, women patients, cancer survivors, breast cancer and women’s health groups, and scientific associations representing 150,000 geneticists, pathologists and laboratory professionals.  In addition to the U.S. Patent Office, the suit was filed against Myriad Genetics and theUniversityofUtah Research Foundation, which hold the patents on the genes.

The lawsuit correctly charges that patents on human genes violate the First Amendment and patent law because genes are “products of nature” and therefore cannot be patented. Anyone with a sense of ethics and morality understands this basic fact of life inherently.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has granted thousands of patents on human genes; in fact, about 20% of our genes are patented.  A gene patent holder has the right to prevent anyone from studying, testing, or even looking at a gene.  As a result, scientific research and genetic testing has been delayed, limited, or even shut down due to concerns about gene patents.

What manner of society are we creating when we decide that private profit is more important than potential medical breakthroughs, scientific knowledge, and people’s health?  As all living things—from plants and animals to human beings and their component parts—are turned into commodities to generate money for the benefit of private business, we descend into a rapacious society bereft of dignity, morality and common decency.

 
Kathleen Sloan is a member of the Board of Directors of the National Organization for Women (NOW), a consultant to the Center for Bioethics and Culture, and the former Program Director of the Council for Responsible Genetics.  This article is reprinted with permission from CBC, 

A three-step process for helping children accept a new sibling

September is commonly a time for new transitions, mostly for our children as they head back to school.  For the past several years, I have written about ways to ease those back-to-school transitions; however, this month I am writing about a different kind of transition, one that is personal and that our family will soon face: a new baby.  This is something we are all eagerly awaiting, but the effect could be greatest felt by our other two children.  Here are some tips that I hope will make this next transition a smooth one for our family and yours:

Before baby: The key to any transition is preparation and setting expectations.  Preparing siblings for a new baby is no different.  As your body begins to change, use the opportunity to talk about what is happening inside you.  There are hundreds of books to help with this. Some of the best have pictures of how the baby is growing each week.  Another way to help children prepare is to get them involved by helping with the nursery or to practice changing or feeding their own baby dolls.  I also recently brought both children to one of my prenatal appointments so they could hear the baby’s heartbeat, which they loved.

After this experience the excitement really escalated, and one morning I found them creating a “countdown chain.”  Each day we take off a link as a visual countdown until the baby comes.  Finally, as the due date approaches, make sure to discuss with them the arrangements while you are in the hospital — who will be with them, when they will see you, and how long you will be gone.

At the hospital: When we went from one child to two, I found there were several key things that helped.  One was not to hold the baby when the other child came into the room.  I would have the baby in the bassinet or have someone else hold him so the first thing I could do for my other child was to welcome her with a hug.  We also had pictures taped to the hospital bed and the baby’s bassinet of the older child so she could see she was always present.  The last thing we did, which was fun and helped especially with younger children, was when they came to visit I had a “surprise” from the new baby, anything from a lollipop to a new book.  Finally, keep the visits short because you are still trying to recover; long visits in a small room can be trying for everyone.

Coming home: Continue to think of ways the older children can be involved, such as helping decorate with balloons and streamers or coloring a welcome home sign.

When you get home, let Dad carry the baby inside so Mom’s arms can be open for the other children.  Depending on how many older siblings there are, get ready to be “chief referee.”  Figure out a system for who will get to help with what (diapers, bath time, feeding) and whose turn it is to hold the baby.  Also, as exhausted as you may feel, make special time for each child. One or both parents should have a planned activity outside the home with each older child.  This should be part of a weekly routine for the sibling and can be a trip to the park, library or music class.

Finally, don’t be afraid to ask for help from family, friends or neighbors.  For me this is much easier said than done, but a new baby can be a stressful time as everyone in the household tries to adjust, so getting help with a carpool or a having a dinner made can make all the difference.

The basic questions raised in all cases where all the attributes of parenthood do not reside in the two biological parents are whether all children (except, perhaps, those who are naturally conceived and born into an opposite-sex marriage) have, first, a right to know who their biological parents are, and, second, where possible to have some reasonable contact with them. 

When reproductive technology was new on the scene and being described as “science fiction becoming science fact”, the New Yorker magazine published a cartoon.  It showed a line of adults (sketched in that magazine’s typically pear-shaped format – tiny heads with increasingly large bodies towards the legs) facing the reader, each holding a martini.

In front of the lineup, looking at them with their backs to the reader, a nurse is holding the hand of a very young boy and pointing at the adults.  The nurse says to the boy: ”This is your sperm-donor biological daddy; your egg-donor biological mummy; your gestational surrogate mother; your social mummy; your social daddy; your psychiatrist, to try to sort you out; and your lawyer.”

A current case in the town of Cochrane, Ontario, is one example of the dilemmas that can arise from such separation of the elements of parenthood.

Nicole Lavigne is a lesbian woman living with her partner of fifteen years, Selena Kazimierski.  Ms Lavigne inseminated herself with sperm donated by Rene de Blois, whom she’d known since elementary school.  Ms. Lavigne says that Mr de Blois agreed that he would play no role in the life of Tyler Lavigne, the child who resulted from the sperm donation.  After Tyler was born, Mr. de Blois changed his mind and has gone to court requesting to be recognized as Tyler’s father and given “general and liberal” access rights, accordingly.

Mr. de Blois seeks to have the agreement he signed not to seek such rights set aside, it seems on two bases: that Ms Lavigne “threatens or intimidates” him with the contract; and that she has failed to carry out “her part of their original bargain, by carrying a[nother] child for him”.

One line of analysis of this situation would be in the context of contract law.

Contracts in Ontario, and all other provinces except Quebec, require consideration — “payment” by each party, which can be in the form of a promise — to be binding.  Here that would be, “I’ll give you sperm/a uterus for ‘your’ child, if you’ll give me a uterus/sperm for ‘my’ child.”  Even if the promise were not fulfilled, it would suffice for consideration and, hence, a valid contract.

Coercion or duress to enter a contract can make it voidable.  But coercion or duress arising, as alleged here, from Ms. Lavigne’s relying on the contract would not do so.

Rather, the central question regarding the validity of the contract is whether it is contrary to public policy or public order and good morals, such that it is void.  But, even if the contract were valid, the more personal the performance of its provisions are, as here, the less likely a court is to enforce them.

I suggest, however, that many of us will have an intuitive reaction that there is something wrong in dealing with this situation as governed by a contract that two adults have entered and to which the person most affected, the child, was not a party.

In a 2007 case, Jane Doe v. Alberta, the Alberta Court of Appeal decided along those lines. (Permission to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada was denied, which is an indirect affirmation of the judgment.)

A man and a woman were living together and the woman wanted to have a child and the man did not.  She decided to become pregnant through anonymous artificial insemination. They entered a contract that the man would not have any rights or responsibilities with respect to the child.  The court struck down the contract on the basis the adults could not contract away the child’s rights and the contract was not in the child’s “best interests”.  In the absence of any other “father” in the child’s life, it was in the best interests of the child that the mother’s male partner act as a father to the child.

The basic questions raised in all cases where all the attributes of parenthood do not reside in the two biological parents are whether all children (except, perhaps, those who are naturally conceived and born into an opposite-sex marriage) have, first, a right to know who their biological parents are, and, second, where possible to have some reasonable contact with them.  I propose that the response to both questions should be in the affirmative, unless that is clearly contrary to the “best interests” of a particular child, and that to decide otherwise is a breach of children’s fundamental human rights.

The vast majority of us want to know through whom life travelled to us and, at the least, to “put a face” to those people.  To intentionally destroy a person’s ability to know that – intentionally to make them “genetic orphans” and especially for society to be complicit in doing so – is ethically wrong.

There is enormous controversy over whether a child needs and has a right to a family structure that includes (although may not be limited to) both a mother and a father.  Here again the “best interests” of the child should prevail, not the preferences of adults which would contravene those interests.  In other words, we need child-centred decision-making, not adult-centred decision-making, in cases such as the Cochrane one.

Since reproductive technologies came on the scene, as both individuals and societies, we’ve faced issues unprecedented in human history with respect to children’s parentage and family structure.  On the whole, adult-centred decision-making has prevailed in this regard.  Using the ethical doctrine of “anticipated consent” might help to correct that bias. That doctrine requires us to ask what can we reasonably anticipate a child – for instance, Tyler Lavigne – would consent to if he or she were able to decide. Would he be likely to choose to have his biological father, Rene de Blois, in his life?

Margaret Somerville is Samuel Gale Professor of Law and Director of the McGill Centre for Medicine, Ethics & Law and is an international leader in the discussion of complex ethical questions in medicine.  This article is reprinted in full by permission from Mercatornet.

Women’s health and human rights advocates are popping champagne corks all over the country today. Legislation that would have allowed commercial surrogacy in the state of New Jersey, without protections for women who serve as surrogates and no regulation of the fertility industry, was vetoed. Virtually written by surrogacy brokers, the blatant commercial exploitation of women contained in this legislation is staggering.

New Jersey is a bellwether of the surrogacy issue in many respects so this development is a positive portent for those who care about the exploitation of women and about safeguarding women’s health.

In 1988, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled unanimously in the famous Baby M case that surrogacy contracts were in violation of every statute and public policy of the state that dealt with the rights of mothers, the rights of children, and issues dealing with adoption and termination of a mother’s rights. That decision of the Supreme Court had an impact far beyond the borders of New Jersey, influencing not only other states but other countries. It continues to be taught in almost every law school in the country.

Following the New Jersey Supreme Court decision, the governor and the legislature asked the New Jersey Bioethics Commission to study the issue of whether laws should be changed to create a statute that would enable commercial surrogacy. The Commission, comprised of people from both political parties, psychologists, scientists, physicians, attorneys, healthcare providers, and those from other walks of life, held public hearings, created a task force to conduct research and field trips, and held public debates on the policy issues over an 18 month period. After this comprehensive process spanning 3 years, a 171-page report was issued.

The report strongly condemned all forms of surrogacy, including gestational surrogacy. It also noted that all the problems associated with surrogacy where the woman giving birth is genetically related to the child are present with gestational surrogacy in which the woman giving birth has no genetic relationship to the child. The report recommended that the legislature pass a law deterring the practice of surrogacy, including some quasi-criminal sanctions, and imposes rules specifically tailored for the award of custody in those limited instances when deterrence fails.

The legislation vetoed this week was an attempt to sneak under the radar and avoid public scrutiny of its contents. It was introduced and swiftly passed out of committee so that the citizens of New Jersey would not be likely to discover that the legislation went against nearly every recommendation of the Bioethics Commission’s report. This action was also the polar opposite of the careful, non-politicized, detailed review and analysis conducted by the Commission.

Fortunately, advocates for the health and well being of women and children became aware of these nefarious actions and responded immediately. They held a press conference at the state capitol calling on the legislature to defeat this bill, and they contacted all legislators to express their concerns.

Remarkable indeed was the coalition of organizations and individuals who came together in this effort, ranging from pro-choice feminist leaders to the head of New Jersey Right to Life and including a gestational surrogate who condemned the practice and deeply regretted her decision to serve as a surrogate. The coalition remained steadfast after the bill ultimately passed and landed on the governor’s desk, meeting with the governor’s counsels urging a veto.

The major issues associated with surrogacy could fill a book. Among them are:

• — the further commodification of women and their bodies beyond sexual commodification;
• — absence of regulation which turns seemingly private transactions into de facto abusive employment practices;
• — exploitation of poor, low income and financially vulnerable women;
• — the commercialization of reproduction;
• — an invitation to fraud by brokers and clinics without regulation;
• — exploitation of women’s poverty and subordinate status;
• — lack of studies and statistics on the size of the market, the demographic characteristics of surrogates, and the medical, legal and financial risks;
• — and an out of control profit-driven $6 billion fertility industry that preys upon women.

And these do not include the numerous and serious health risks!

Today’s victory is a stark and stunning example of what can be accomplished when politics and other differences are put aside in order to come together around what truly matters: women’s health, prevention of the commodification of women and their bodies, stopping exploitation of women, and recognizing that children’s human rights must be respected and their commodification be opposed.

 
Kathleen Sloan is a Consultant for the Center for Bioethics and Culture, a member of the Board of Directors of the National Organization for Women (NOW), a member of the Board of Directors of the International Coalition for Reproductive Justice, and the former Program Director at the Council for Responsible Genetics.

A letter on pornography and business ethics written by two prominent public intellectuals—one a Christian, one a Muslim—sent to hotel industry executives July 9, 2012.

We write to ask you to stop offering pornographic movies in your company’s hotels. We make no proposal here to limit your legal freedom, nor do we threaten protests, boycotts, or anything of the sort. We simply ask you to do what is right as a matter of conscience.

We are, respectively, a Christian and a Muslim, but we appeal to you not on the basis of truths revealed in our scriptures but on the basis of a commitment that should be shared by all people of reason and goodwill: a commitment to human dignity and the common good. As teachers and as parents, we seek a society in which young people are encouraged to respect others and themselves—treating no one as an impersonal object or thing. We hope that you share our desire to build such a society.

Pornography is degrading, dehumanizing, and corrupting. It undermines self-respect and respect for others. It reduces persons—creatures bearing profound, inherent, and equal dignity—to the status of objects. It robs a central aspect of our humanity—our sexuality—of its dignity and beauty. It ensnares some in addiction. It deprives others of their sense of self-worth. It teaches our young people to settle for the cheap satisfactions of lust, rather than to do the hard, yet ultimately liberating and fulfilling, work of love.

We recognize that we are asking you to abandon a profitable aspect of your business, but we hope that you will muster the conviction and strength of will to make that sacrifice and to explain it to your stockholders. We urge you to do away with pornography in your hotels because it is morally wrong to seek to profit from the suffering, degradation, or corruption of others. Some might say that you are simply honoring the free choices of your customers. However, you are doing much more than that. You are placing temptation in their path—temptation for the sake of profit. That is unjust. Moreover, the fact that something is chosen freely does not make it right; nor does it ensure that the choice will not be damaging to those who make it or to the larger community where degrading practices and materials flourish.

We beg you to consider the young woman who is depicted as a sexual object in these movies, as nothing but a bundle of raw animal appetites whose sex organs are displayed to the voyeurs of the world and whose body is used in loveless and utterly depersonalized sex acts. Surely we should regard that young woman as we would regard a sister, daughter, or mother. She is a precious member of the human family. You may say that she freely chooses to compromise her dignity in this way, and in some cases that would be true, but that gives you no right to avail yourself of her self-degradation for the sake of financial gain. Would you be willing to profit from her self-degradation if she were your sister? Would you be willing to profit from her self-degradation if she were your own beloved daughter?

Furthermore, we trust that you need no reminding of the fact that something’s being legal does not make it right. For example, denying black men and women and their families access to hotel rooms—and tables in restaurants, as well as other amenities and opportunities—was, for countless shameful years, perfectly legal. In some circumstances, it even made financial sense for hotel owners and operators in racist cultures to engage in segregationist practices even when not compelled by law to do so. However, this was deeply morally wrong. Shame on those who denied their brothers and sisters of color the equal treatment to which they were morally entitled. Shame on you if you hide behind legality to peddle immorality in the pursuit of money.

Our purpose is not to condemn you and your company but to call you to your highest and best self. We have no desire to hurt your business. On the contrary, we want you and your business to succeed financially—for your sake; for the sake of your stockholders, employees, and contract partners; and for the sake of the communities that your hotels serve. We believe that the properly regulated market economy serves the good of all by providing products and services at reasonable prices and by generating prosperity and social mobility. But the market itself cannot provide the moral values that make it a truly humane and just institution. We—owners, managers, employees, customers—must bring those values to the market. There are some things—inhuman things, unjust things, de-humanizing things—that should not be sold. There must be some things that, for the sake of human dignity and the common good, we must refuse to sell—even it if means forgoing profit.

Robert P. George is McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University. Shaykh Hamza Yusuf is co-founder and a member of the faculty of Zaytuna College. Affiliations are provided for identification purposes and do not imply institutional endorsements.

This article originally appeared in Public Discourse: Ethics, Law, and the Common Good, the online journal of the Witherspoon Institute of Princeton, NJ and is reprinted with permission.  Receive Public Discourse by email, become a fan of Public Discourse on Facebook, follow Public Discourse on Twitter, and sign up for the Public Discourse RSS feed.  Support the work of Public Discourse by making a secure donation to The Witherspoon Institute.

Copyright 2012 the Witherspoon Institute. All rights reserved.

The worldwide use of reproductive technologies has grown exponentially in recent years.  While these developments have brought benefits to many by successfully treating some types of infertility, deep regulatory divides – or their complete absence such as at the national level in the United States – have fueled growing national and international markets in which privileged individuals and third party intermediaries, who benefit financially from the commodification of reproduction, exploit vulnerable, uninformed, low income and poor women for their reproductive capacities.  Surrogacy and the trade in human eggs in particular have become pervasive national and international phenomena in which women’s poverty and subordinate status everywhere increase their exposure to gender-based exploitation and physical harms.

Unequal relationships between the buyers (intended parents) and the women who rent their uteri, favor the needs and desires of the buyers.  These unequal transactions, in the absence of regulation of the fertility-industrial complex, result in “uninformed” consent, low payments, coercion, poor health care, and severe risks to their short and long-term health.  In addition, both the children conceived through commercial transactions and the intended parents may suffer as a direct result of these arrangements.  While the full magnitude of the harms resulting from reproductive exploitation is unknown due to lack of regulation, documentation and oversight, reports of egregious harms continue to mount.

Unless her own eggs are used with intrauterine insemination, women recruited to serve as surrogates are subjected to the many risks of synthetic hormonal stimulation in order to synchronize their menstrual cycles with those of the egg provider.  Hormones and drugs used include Lupron which is not FDA-approved for this purpose; estrogen, which is linked to breast and uterine cancers, blood clots, heart attack and stroke; and steroids which can produce high blood pressure, glaucoma, cataracts, peptic ulceration, and an impaired immune system.  High rates of multiple births and infection resulting from Invitro Fertilization (IVF) place both surrogates and babies at high risk for complications.  When problems arise during the pregnancy, the wellbeing of the fetus tends to be given precedence over the health of the woman serving as a surrogate since the intended parents are paying large sums of money for the baby being produced.  Care of the surrogate ends with the birth of the baby even when the woman who bears the child suffers lasting effects. 

If the intended parents’ circumstances change during the pregnancy, or if the child is born with health problems or disabilities, the infants may be left to the surrogate or abandoned.  Intended parents may find that they face unplanned financial costs and inadequate legal protections. The practices of reproductive organ, tissue and cell commerce, particularly surrogacy and ova sale, infringe upon several basic human rights under international law, and are violations of international agreements on health and medical standards.  Policy makers and the public at large must recognize reproductive commerce as a unique kind of human exploitation.  As the European parliament stated in a resolution, surrogacy and egg sale constitute an “extreme form of exploitation of women.”

It is estimated that nearly half of surrogates in the U.S. are “military wives” who represent an ideal supply source for agencies and brokers.  They often survive on low incomes and tend to marry and have their own children at young ages, so the prospect of doubling their income by serving as a surrogate is a powerful incentive.  These women have few legal or regulatory protections, making them sitting ducks for exploitation and fraud.  It is no coincidence that surrogacy brokers and clinics are concentrated in areas where there are large military bases.  One could also point out that while the military heavily recruits from the working class and poor demographics to provide their cannon fodder for endless wars and occupations, these people are doubly exploited for their reproductive capacities by profit-driven private enterprise. 

Society has barely begun to grapple with the issues surrogacy raises.  In many countries, most notably in Europe, surrogacy is an illegal medical procedure.  But in the U.S. there is no national regulation, earning its title of the Wild West of third party reproduction and its status as second world-wide only to India in the supply of surrogates. 

 Surrogacy is a stark manifestation of the commodification of women’s bodies.  Surrogate services are advertised, surrogates are recruited, and operating agencies make large profits.  The commercialism of surrogacy raises the specter of a black market and baby selling, of breeding farms ala The Handmaid’s Tale, turning impoverished women into baby producers.  Surrogacy degrades a pregnancy to a service and a baby to a product – an entitlement for those with the financial means to procure one.

For millennia, women’s human rights have been abused and ignored with impunity.  As developments in biotechnology facilitate the commodification of reproduction, alarm bells should be sounding about the new door that has been opened for yet further disregard and degradation of women’s humanity, wholeness, physical and emotional inviolability.  Simply put, if you care about women’s human rights, you cannot allow their exploitation as commodities and their health endangerment for others’ profit and gain.

Kathleen Sloan is a member of the Board of Directors of the National Organization for Women (NOW), a consultant to the Center for Bioethics and Culture, and the former Program Director of the Council for Responsible Genetics.  

Today, as I look at my three beautiful children, I know that God is good. No, God is great, or in Arabic, Allahu Akbar.  And what gives me the greatest solace in times of trial is the verse in the Quran that states: “It may be that you detest something which is good for you; while perhaps you love something even though it is bad for you. God knows, while you do not know” (2:216).

As Muslims, we believe in the power of life to change others, and we believe even more in the power of God. In any disaster, in any calamity, and in the face of any death, we are urged to repeat “inna lilah wa inna ilayhee raji’un”—“To God we belong and to Him we return.” In the end, only He knows what is best for us.

I could share with you so many stories from the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, and the Quran that illustrate the power of God in our lives: the creation of Adam, the patience of Job, the perseverance of Noah, the purity of Joseph, the judiciousness of Solomon, the trials of Jonah, the obedience of Abraham, the wisdom of Moses, the devotion of Jesus, and the inspiration of Mohamed. I could share these stories with you, but they are available to all in the Holy Scriptures.

Instead, I want to share with you the story of an amazing woman whom I met recently at a conference. This woman truly exemplifies the spirit of respecting life. Melinda Weekes had recently returned from a trip to theSudan, where she was helping to enact a policy of slave redemption. For years and years, a rampant genocide was perpetrated in southernSudanby the wealthy slave traders of the north. They would pillage and torch the mud huts of the villagers, and then capture the women and children to sell them into slavery.

Heartbroken by what was happening in Sudan, this woman traveled across the world to help free these slaves by buying them back from the traders and returning them to their villages.  Upon their return, she helped them rebuild their lives by establishing schools and educating their girls so that they could break free from oppression.  Describing the strength of these women in the face of modern-day slavery, Melinda shared story after story of the things she had seen on her trips toSudan.  She spoke of one of the most powerful experiences she had had, when she sat with a woman who had lost her home, her husband, and her children, and had suffered incredible harm at the hands of her slave master.  She asked the woman, “How do you survive? How do you manage to continue living?”  The woman responded, “When the world pushed me down to my knees, I knew that it was time to pray.  I am blessed to still have these old knees that allow me to kneel, blessed to be able to prostrate, blessed to be able to pray. And I am blessed because I have God.”

I ask you today to reflect on women like these, to reflect on their inner strength, and to reflect on your own life as you know it.  I ask you to accept life as a gift and to understand that your life belongs to a greater power, to a higher authority that breathed life into your soul at your beginning and decreed that you should live it with good morals, good ethics, and a good heart that can truly make a difference in the lives of those around you.

In the memorable words of Mother Theresa:

Life is an opportunity, benefit from it.
Life is beauty, admire it.
Life is a dream, realize it.
Life is a challenge, meet it.
Life is a duty, complete it.
Life is a game, play it.
Life is a promise, fulfill it.
Life is sorrow, overcome it.
Life is a song, sing it.
Life is a struggle, accept it.
Life is a tragedy, confront it.
Life is an adventure, dare it.
Life is luck, make it.
Life is too precious, do not destroy it.
Life is life, fight for it.

I’d like to end with a prayer, a Muslim ayah (verse 286 from Suratul Baqara) from the Quran:

On no soul doth God place a burden greater than it can bear. It gets every good that it earns, and it suffers every ill that it earns. (Pray:) Our Lord! Condemn us not if we forget or fall into error; Our Lord! Lay not on us a burden like that which Thou didst lay on those before us; Our Lord! Lay not on us a burden greater than we have strength to bear. Blot out our sins, and grant us forgiveness. Have mercy on us. Thou art our Protector; help us against those who stand against faith.

I ask you today once again to respect life, for there is no greater gift. Respect life, yours and the lives around you.  For when we lose respect for life, we lose respect for humanity, and when we lose respect for humanity, we lose respect for God’s creation, and when we lose that, we have lost everything.

Suzy Ismail is a Visiting Professor at DeVry University in North Brunswick, New Jersey and is the author of When Muslim Marriage Fails: Divorce Chronicles and Commentaries. This article is adapted from remarks made in the Princeton University Chapel for Respect Life Sunday.  It originally appeared in Public Discourse: Ethics, Law, and the Common Good, the online journal of the Witherspoon Institute ofPrinceton,NJ, which generously gave permission for this reprint. 

In a world preoccupied with material wealth and convenience, the gift of life is often minimized and sometimes forgotten altogether. Modernity encourages us to view “unwanted” life as a burden that will hold us back.  For Muslims, however, just as for many in other faith traditions, life must be acknowledged, always and everywhere, as a true blessing.

In the pre-Islamic period, the practice of female infanticide was widespread in much of Arabia, but it was immediately forbidden through Islamic injunctions. Several verses of the Quran were revealed that prohibited this practice to protect the rights of the unborn and of the newborn child: “When the female infant, buried alive, is questioned for what crime was she killed; when the scrolls are laid open; when the World on High is unveiled; when the Blazing Fire is kindled to fierce heat; and when the Garden is brought near; Then shall each soul know what it has put forward.  So verily I call” (81: 8-15). Indeed, there are many verses in the Quran that remind us of the sanctity of life.  We are told that “Wealth and children are an adornment of this life” (18:46), and we are commanded to “Kill not your children for fear of want: We shall provide sustenance for them as well as for you.  Verily the killing of them is a great sin” (17:31).

While the religious injunctions reverberate through faith on a spiritual level, the blessings of life touch us daily on a worldly level, as well.  As the mother of three beautiful children, I can truly attest to and appreciate the gift of life. But I also understand how heartbreaking it is to lose it.

I want to share with you the story of how I came to realize life’s fragility and the importance of making the most of our spiritual journeys here on earth. Over thirteen years ago, my husband and I were eager to start our family. We were ecstatic when, a few months shy of our first anniversary, we found out that we were expecting.  Very early on, we began playing the “new parent” planning game, picking out names and nursery colors even before our first doctor’s appointment.

A few months into the pregnancy, the doctor scheduled a routine ultrasound. Giddy with excitement, we entered the darkened room and waited in great anticipation to see our child.  There on the screen—fuzzy, yet discernible—we could see our baby’s outline.  We imagined the features and jokingly guessed who the baby might look like.  But the ultrasound technician did not laugh with us.  As she solemnly stared at the screen, we followed her gaze. As inexperienced as we were, we could tell that something was not right: our baby had no heartbeat.

After losing my first child, I truly began to understand the meaning of life. When the heartbeat we’d heard so clearly on the Doppler suddenly ceased, our baby’s life ended in the womb, before he or she even had a chance to begin in the outside world.

But strong faith and an unshakeable belief in a just God is a great formula for filling any emotional void.  As the Quran states in Verse 156 of Surat Al-Baqara, there are great blessings for those “who, when a misfortune overtakes them, say: ‘Surely we belong to God and to Him shall we return.’” Losing our first baby led to a deeper appreciation of God’s magnificence and the miracle of His creation.

Several months later, we found out we were expecting again.  This time, the excitement was tempered with worry.  Our first ultrasound came much earlier in the pregnancy, and we eagerly scanned the screen for the telltale beating before glancing at fingers and toes or eyes and nose.  And there it was, strong and steady!  We breathed a sigh of relief. Our baby was alive.

As the months of this second pregnancy progressed and the baby bump grew larger, we began to hope.  Each ultrasound revealed a little more of our child and each kick confirmed that this time we were really going to begin our family.  As the due date quickly approached, we felt more confident in choosing baby items and room colors.  We even chose the name for our baby girl.  Her name would be Jennah, which means Heaven in Arabic.

With just a few weeks left before my scheduled delivery date, I went into labor.  As we sped to the hospital and I was wheeled into the darkened ultrasound room, out of habit, my eyes went directly to the heart area on the screen that I knew all too well by now.  That tiny heart, which I had sought out so many times in the previous ultrasounds, had stopped beating.

That day, so many years ago, I delivered Jennah, my stillborn daughter; and that day we buried Jennah.  We hadn’t known how fitting her name would really be.  As the infection that had ended the pregnancy sped through my blood in the days that followed, I recognized just how delicate life really is. Nothing can bring life into perspective as much as loss. And nothing can affirm faith as much as life.

This article continues tomorrow.

Suzy Ismail is a Visiting Professor at DeVry University in North Brunswick, New Jersey and is the author of When Muslim Marriage Fails: Divorce Chronicles and Commentaries. This article is adapted from remarks made in the Princeton University Chapel for Respect Life Sunday.  It originally appeared in Public Discourse: Ethics, Law, and the Common Good, the online journal of the Witherspoon Institute ofPrinceton,NJ, which generously gave permission for this reprint.