Remember the movie, The Matrix?
Remember the scene where they show a field of pods where human beings are being harvested in order to feed the machines with energy?
Remember the dramatic, scary music to cue you that you’re supposed to be horrified when you see this?
Although our world is not run by artificial intelligence while we live in a dream state, nonetheless human beings are being bred today through In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) techniques.
In the past I wrote about why IVF is gravely sinful, and I also showed a conceivable (pun intended) scenario whereby an IVF-conceived child could have at least eight parents.
Today I want to direct your attention to three, real-life, tragic stories of IVF.
Example 1: The Savages
Try to follow this.
Sean and Carolyn Savage’s first child was a healthy boy, and their second was a premature (but now healthy) boy. Then after enduring four miscarriages, they used IVF to give birth to a daughter.
They then went back to the IVF clinic to try for another child, only to learn Carolyn was implanted with someone else’s baby!
They thankfully carried the baby boy to full term and handed him over to his biological parents.
While they were pregnant with someone else’s child, the Savages found a surrogate mother, named Jennifer Onash to carry their own baby… The surrogate miscarried.
After birthing the baby boy that was not their own, the Savages went back to the IVF clinic, but miscarried several more times.
“Not wanting to give up,” the Savages used that same surrogate, by having her implanted with their embryos yet again. This time, the surrogate was made pregnant with the Savages’ twin girls. The surrogate gave birth in August 2011.
The Savages and the surrogate were all interviewed on multiple television shows over several years. The Savages also wrote a book about their experience, Inconceivable: A Medical Mistake, the Baby We Couldn’t Keep, and Our Choice to Deliver the Ultimate Gift.
Here is a clip from the Today Show. Warning: I had to plug my nose and pace the room while I watched this:
Example 2: Sir Elton John
The desire to be a father drove Sir Elton John and his gay lover, David Furnish to use IVF and a surrogate to breed a child for them to raise. On December 25, 2010, no less, an unidentified surrogate gave birth to “their” boy.
It is not entirely clear whose sperm was used—John’s or Furnish’s or even someone else’s. It was also made clear that the surrogate was not the biological mother, so the egg came from yet another unknown woman.
Yet all of this mystery and confusion did not stop Hollywood from celebrating John and Furnish both “becoming parents” to this boy.
I purposely did not hyperlink to any articles and will let you search the web for this nonsensical story at your own discretion.
Example 3: Octomom
Perhaps the most infamous example of IVF is “Octomom,” Nadya Suleman. Having six children already, she opted to have twelve (yes, 12) embryos implanted in her at once. Eight of them survived to birth—hence her name, Octomom.
She would go on to admit she made a mistake in going through with the procedure.
You can read the article linked above to learn how much she has struggled and what deplorable act she felt she had to do to just earn some money to pay rent.
Warning: Do NOT Google her name or “Octomom,” or else you may have undesirable images appear on your computer screen. The above link goes to a reputable site and you won’t need a filter for that link.
IN CLOSING
Many more examples exist out there, but I wanted to highlight three of the most infamous examples.
I know these people mean well, wanting to fulfill their innate desire to love another person (particularly a child) unconditionally. But at what expense must society pay for the selfish desires of adults?
Think of the enormous ramifications of these selfish acts by these people. Out of any of these examples, who thought of the rights of the children?
In the example of the boy being raised by Sir Elton John and his lover, he will likely never know his biological mother or even his surrogate mother, and will never be raised by a mother—since two gay men decided their desire for a child trumps the boy’s need for a mother.
In the example of the Savages, they are treating children as commodities, to be bought and sold. They paid IVF clinicians to conceive numerous children for them in petri dishes. They also asked a different woman to carry their children in her womb.
In addition, even though they were implanted with someone else’s baby by IVF clinicians, they chose to go back to the technology to keep breeding more children! All this screams of treating human life not as a gift from God, but as a good owed to human beings.
In the last example of “Octomom,” a lot could be said. Four children were allowed to die, in order for her to have the eight who survived the IVF procedure. What a tragedy that four babies had to die. I don’t see outrage over this, unfortunately, but those four lives counted and matter as well.
No one should have to survive the work of a clinician in order to be born.
Now this woman raises all these children on her own. Something nature would never have allowed: eight children born at once to one mother.
Each of these stories sounds like something straight out of a science fiction novel.
YOUR TURN
What do you make of the story of the Savages?
Were you aware Sir Elton John used a surrogate and IVF in order to “become a father?”
Have you followed the story of Octomom?
Please share your thoughts on IVF below!
