RFC Chairman's CPAC Remarks
February 21, 2005 11:14AM EST
We have been talking about cloning, which is a real danger for the not too distant future; however, let’s look at another technology that is already here. At the Center for Surrogate Parenting, www.creatingfamilies.com/GayParenting.HTML, we find this statement: “We make no distinction between heterosexual couples and gay couples. All of our couples have the “right” to become parents.” CSP helped its first gay couple become parents in 1989. CSP claims over 1,000 in vitro births by paid surrogate mothers. This for profit company has gay testimonials at their website including the story of Mark and Peter who marvel over the out of state egg donor, the surrogate “mum” and the CSP staff. There is no mention of whose specific sperm was used, so perhaps it was mixed. Mark and Peter became the parents of twin boys—boys to be raised as homosexuals in a homosexual home. While the Center for Surrogate Parenting has both gays and heterosexuals as clients, there is actually another organization specifically dedicated to delivering babies to gays, through in vitro fertilization and use of surrogate mothers. On its internet site, Growing Generations states that: “ Cloning does concern us all, and rightly so, because the manipulation of human life to harvest body parts is an abomination. Yet today, human life is being manipulated and children are being conceived for sale to homosexuals for cold hard cash, with no adoption screening, no screening at all. If two pedophiles, or for that matter any individual, delivers the cash to certain commercial companies, a baby is delivered with no questions asked. The Internet sites of several surrogate agencies openly state they will supply eggs from donors and have “numerous” surrogate mothers available. The sites state that for the right amount of money, they will provide a freshly born baby to any couple of any age, of any gender make up, or to single parents. Because adoption is not involved, the great state of Why can the sale of surrogate services be arranged interstate? Is there not some way to regulate the sale of human eggs, at least to have the level of screening for those purchasing surrogate services as for those who want to adopt? We are in a social struggle to protect the institution of marriage, and at the same time we have allowed science to out race law—allowing the lawless to become parents of innocents. Of course it is not only, or even mostly, homosexuals who use the new science of in- vitro fertilization—many infertile heterosexual married couples choose this option to have a baby, conceiving their child with a donor egg and the husband’s sperm, or with the wife’s egg and donor sperm. They may or may not need the services of a surrogate mother. In some cases the husband and wife can contribute both egg and sperm, but the wife cannot carry a child to term and needs the services of a surrogate mother to do that. During most of these procedures, many more embryos must be produced than needed, and only the healthiest are selected to be implanted in the womb. Sometimes, though, the selection is also based on gender or other physical characteristics the parents want. And what happens to all those unwanted and unchosen embryos, each of which has the full genetic make up of a human being? They are frozen and put in suspended animation in a laboratory. Once again ministry organizations are ahead of government in finding a solution to a social wrong. For each successful in vitro baby born, dozens are left frozen in suspended animation –some because a lesbian “couple” wanted only a girl baby; some are rejected because of the wrong hair color. So these human beings sit in medical freezers awaiting life. But there is hope. Ministries such as Nightlight Christian Adoption and their Snowflakes program have a solution—an adoption solution. The ministry arranges adoptions of frozen embryos to Christian couples, so that these “snowflake” babies can have the full life they deserve. The proof these are babies, not extra cell masses, is their cry at the moment of birth. Government needs to re-examine its role in surrogacy and in vitro production of children, particularly in light of further reproductive advances and cloning.
Religious Freedom Coalition P.O. Box 77511 Washington, DC 20013 General Correspondence: support@rfcnet.org Special Events: events@rfcnet.org | DC Advocacy Office: (202) 543-0300 Administration: (202) 742-8990 |