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Is It Just Me!

More and more frequently of late I find myself forced to ask the question, “Is it me! Is it me!”

Maybe I just became less easy-going as I passed the landmark of three score years, but I find myself frequently appalled at news items others seem to welcome.

Only last week was the case of “Pillow Angel” – a mentally-retarded child whose body was medically sculptured to ‘fit’ her mind – and today I am appalled by the BBC’s report of an Israeli family who have just won a legal battle to secure control of their dead son’s sperm, with a view to impregnating a female volunteer and producing a dead man’s son.

The “father”, an Israeli soldier, was killed in the Gaza Strip nearly five years ago. His parents had his sperm extracted after his death and since then have been fighting a legal battle with the hospital authorities to have it released to them. Doctors refused, on the grounds it could only be released to a spouse (presumably, he didn’t have one), but a court in Israel has finally ruled against the hospital.

The similarity, between this case and that of “Pillow Angel”, is in the apparent right of the parents to make decisions that, it can be argued, are more in their interests than that of their offspring. The girl, “Pillow Angel”, is so mentally retarded it seems unlikely she would be cognitive of her physical transformation to adulthood, whereas life for the parents will be vastly improved by permanently keeping her as an immature little girl. In the case of the dead Israeli soldier, his needs can obviously not be better served by posthumously siring a baby to a woman he never met. The parents are simply seeking his replacement – a living reminder of the son they lost.

Have we given up on ethics? Are we now just accepting the self-centeredness of our species as a right, simply because medics are now able to perform these procedures?

Or – is it just me?

BBC report HERE.

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