Looking for Mr. (and Ms.) Goodmind
In the past 40 years, some 6.5 million babies have been born unnaturally. Which is to say, with the joint support of science and medical skill.
The variations on this fertility-added process are staggeringly diverse and often mind-numbingly named. They include fertility-enhancing drugs, surgery to correct physical obstacles to fertility, intrauterine insemination, intracytoplasmic sperm injection, gamete intrafallopian transfer (charmingly acroynmed GIFT), zygote intrafollopian transfer (ZIFT), donations of eggs and embryos, and gestational surrogacy (where a person other than a couple carries and delivers a couple’s baby via one or more of these treatments).
Then there’s in-vitro fertilization, perhaps the best known of these medical marvels, which produces a so-called “test-tube baby.” In the process—actually multiple procedures—a mature egg and sperm (however they are obtained) are joined in the lab and then implanted in a womb after several days of fertilization.
All of this is enormously expensive—tens of thousands of dollars is not uncommon—but for couples who long for children but for whatever reason are unable to conceive, the cost is almost beside the point. I have nothing against any of this. In fact, these procedures reflect miraculous and wonderful technologies. But they come with increasingly worrisome capabilities in the rush to procreate, such as cloning.
This blog is usually about unverifiable religious assumptions, not whether viable fertility treatments are a good thing. But still, human beings can’t seem to stop making airy assumptions of all kinds. What I want to spotlight in this context is how people seeking fertility assistance are more and more able to genetically customize their babies. This is not necessarily problematic, but it is when people who want smart babies (and who doesn’t?) make that decision based on how long egg and sperm donors went to school, not more reliable IQ-type tests (see this story in Washington Post). I’ve met a lot of totally clueless Ph.D.’s and Master’s recipients over the years, and a good many farmers, tradesmen and even complete layabouts who may have barely finished high school but can nimbly solve complex problems that life presents and comprehend world affairs more accurately than a lot of well-educated “intellectuals” I know. Certainly far better than me with my bachelor’s degree.
So, if we’re going to insist on brainy babies, let’s at least consider the native intelligence of donors, not their study skills.
