This is a powerful piece describing the consequences of some fertility techniques that involve selective reduction of embryos.

I will never fully recover from what I’ve seen, and done.  For I have failed, intentionally and knowingly, in the first duty of a parent: protecting the lives of two of my children.

This is not, necessarily, to condemn all fertility treatments, but it is necessary to acknowledge the serious moral difficulties inherent in some of these techniques. The irony is that the longing to bring forth life in a certain way results in the desire (or perhaps even the need) to take life.

 

H/t Rod Dreher

 

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5 COMMENTS

  1. I read the “powerful” piece. It took my breath away. Out of the very words emerged a terror and an evil which I did not anticipate. I want to pray for God’s wrath upon all of this, wrath unchecked; yet, to do so is itself evil. I must pray for His mercy and His grace on these generations of the anti-culture. It is hard to pray for one’s enemies particularly when they murder tiny folk so innocent, tiny folk betrayed by parents bereft of natural affection or too cowardly to show it.

  2. One of the greatest fallacies of the popular imagination concerning abortion is the notion that it primarily affects the woman. This couple deserve our prayers because this decision, while it may have ended two lives, is not final: it will be in their hearts forever more.

  3. The anonymous author had no problem creating and discarding all the other embryos that resulted from the IVF procedures. His article may only serve as a warning for IVF patients to ask the doctor to only implant one embryo at a time and to please destroy the rest before we can see a heartbeat on the ultrasound.
    I’m mom who has experienced infertility for over 7 years and have that same desire for chirldren. I recommend Naprotechnology and traditional chinese medicine to many other infertile women, but I find most people don’t care enough about the embryos and procede with IVF anyway.

  4. After scanning over 200 comments on this article by Anonymous, it is only on FPR that I discover a comment that indicates the author does not fully grasp the fire he was playing with in the first place. Thank you for that! Anonymous’s personal response to the horror of IN VITRO FERTILIZATION is deeply moving. However, it is important to understand that we do not only mourn two lost lives, but we also must mourn the lives of the other little ones — embryos — that were created in the lab and for a variety of reasons did not meet the standards of the lab technician or doctor on hand. Those lives were also lost — in addition to the two that were put in the womb with the third. This is why there are serious moral concerns with IN VITRO. Not only are children aborted before and after implantation, but there is a eugenics aspect that is also morally reprehensible in the rating and judging by one human being of others to determine who is best fit to be given a chance at life. Please read more on this subject: Father Tad Pacholczyk, Ph.D.

  5. Happened upon this article this morning, and it’s terribly sad and disturbing. This is the kind of thing that can tear a family apart. How can Anonymous ever look at himself or his wife the same way again, and how can he guard against seeds of resentment taking root and eroding away at his love for her? God give him grace…

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