Part One of Two Three and Counting

When I was a teenager, slouched uncomfortably in a wooden desk in my “Introduction to Bioethics” class in high school, the human genome had just been slated for mapping. IVF was still called “test-tube baby-making” and was mostly still theoretical. My fellow teenagers and I had heated discussions about the rightness or wrongness of “playing god” or the fate of left-over embryos or the ethics of engaging in high-tech eugenics to choose everything from an absence of serious disease to eye color.

I usually defended the position that whatever we could do was fine. New technologies just didn’t bother me at all. Eye-color choosing was obviously wrong, but we could easily maintain a bright line between that and more legitimate selectivity, right?

Ah the naivete of youth.

A couple of days ago, blog-reader Leslie sent me a link to a Slate article about Jennalee Ryan, a Texas woman who has started a business selling embryos manufactured from select gamete donors to couples who want to be parents. They aren’t leftover embryos from IVF, donated for the use of others and they aren’t donor egg and donor sperm. They’re custom embryos from custom gamete “donors” (who are richly compensated), premixed, healthy and ready to transfer. The idea, apparently, is to save “clients” the energy and expense of finding and paying donors directly and on paying a clinic to mix the elements and grow and bank the embryos for them.

On the one hand, it’s just the next logical step from browsing an online sperm or egg bank. Just the next step from IVF itself. On the other hand, this Ryan woman really comes off pretty unsympathetically when she says it is “control” (second only to the incredible profits she has already made in the “adoption advertising” business and stands to make selling embryos) which drives her. To read her interviews, you come away with the distinct impression that her number one concern is taking biological “parents” (or “donors” or “sellers” of gametes: choose your preference) out of the prenatal experience and out of the decision-making process about who will parent the child born of the process. And she is so obsessively preoccupied with the short-comings of adopted children (they may be drug-exposed, mentally ill, too old, not white, the wrong gender, or otherwise unacceptable to prospective parents) that one worries how her eldest child—an adopted son—must feel about his position in her heart vis-a-vis his five siblings, born to her biologically.

Ah yes, and of course, all her embryos are white. And likely to be blue-eyed blondes, judging by the sperm and eggs that spawned them. As Ryan claims, there’s a high demand for white babies.

I am hesitant to sit here and denounce folks who’d rather pay tens of thousands of dollars for a blue-eyed, blonde baby-to-be than adopt a child they have a hunch they wouldn’t love because he wasn’t a blue-eyed blonde. After all, the minute I start moralizing about someone’s boundaries of family, someone else will doubtless wag a finger in my direction for not foster-adopting a waiting child rather than adopting a healthy newborn. There’s always another step in some direction that’s just one step further than some one of us is willing to go. I’m happy to check my judgment of what people are or aren’t comfortable with if I can live unjudged for my own decisions too.

So rather than point fingers at the “clients” of this new business, or even at Ryan herself (loathsome as she seems), I’d like to zoom out a bit and look at things from a slightly wider angle.

Part of me is still somewhat persuaded by my slouching teenaged self, rolling her eyes at peers who seem merely squeamish about a new technological process rather than able to point to any real harm it might do that’s bad enough to cancel out the good of making someone a parent. But another, equally strong part of me is disgusted by the market-driven nature of Ryan’s business—and ART more generally—that allows only those who can afford it—who have the insurance coverage (plus the cash or credit to make up what insurance doesn’t cover), the flexibility in their careers, the access to a high-tech fertility clinic—to become parents.

But what else should we expect? This is capitalism. And for all the hand-wringing that follows upon a story like Ryan’s, or upon some couple’s decision to spend $60,000 hiring private adoption professionals to track them down a blonde-haired, blue-eyed baby, it seems there is never any hand-wringing about the moral and ethical framework that leads to these kinds of situations in the first place. No one ever questions the “bottom line” which is that in this culture we value any number of things above human dignity and human relationship. We value cash. We value a physical appearance that can be best cashed in on. We value power in the absence of any particular responsibility and we call it “individualism.”

In short:

“I have the right to any baby I can afford.”

“I have the right to make as much money as I can selling whatever (or whomever) I choose.”

And perhaps worst of all, “She doesn’t deserve her baby, she’s too poor to raise it.”

In the absence of a more human framework than capitalism, these are the obvious conclusions to be drawn when questions of reproduction outside the fertile, straight, white, middle-to-upper-class cul-de-sac are raised. There’s nothing particularly shocking about it. Hammering away criticism any one person falling into any one of these conclusions is pointless at best, a waste of time and energy at worst. We could be using our time and energy drawing up a different framework; another logic that refocuses the debate on something other than a desperate would-be parent or a victim of rapacious economic circumstances.

Jim Donald, one of the best preachers I’ve ever known said once in a sermon, “the opposite of poverty is not wealth.” And because he was speaking to a large group of upper-middle and upper class, white, Washington DC professionals, he repeated it slowly: “the opposite of poverty is not wealth.”

“The opposite of poverty is community.”

This is a distinctly non-capitalist claim and has radical potential when people believe it enough to live its logic. But much as folks in the U.S. love to repeat “it takes a village to raise a child” they don’t really believe it. They certainly don’t believe it enough to let a village raise their own children.

In the U.S. what we really believe is that it takes a gated community, a cul-de-sac, an electronic security system and a private school to raise a child. It might take a nanny or a housekeeper too, but those folks aren’t villagers by any stretch. Those people can be purchased for a price that justifies a complete lack of responsibility for their human vulnerability. No one really wants a village raising their child unless they can be the dictators of the village.

Under Jim Donald’s logic, more children are being raised in poverty than under capitalism’s logic. There are of course, the poor children who have no private schools or nannies—who might not even have enough food for the day—then there are those with wealth, but without any real community.

If we evaluated the ethics of our technological abilities according to community logic, rather than capitalism’s logic, what would our families look like?

to be continued

Update 12 February
Jennalee Ryan has emailed me. She is feeling misrepresented by the media. I told her to feel free to post her "side of the story" here in the comments. I don't know if she will choose to do so. Meanwhile, I'll correct one thing above. Her adopted child is her youngest, not oldest. My sources were wrong about that, according to Ryan.

Comments

[Dawn]

You know this is running up against where I'm realizing that had I known then what I know now that domestic infant adoption runs up against my boundaries for family building. Now I'm trying to figure out what I want to do with those feelings.

[deb]

Can't wait to read part two to see where you are headed with this very provocative post.
Thanks!

[Christina Shaver]

Okay, if you want to talk ethics here, this is my take:

Before going off and trying to have biological kids whether via technology or old fashioned sex, I think we need to as a human race first take care of those children who don't have families or whose families cannot care for them at all.

I am saying this from the standpoint of a person who did have a biological child and I love him dearly. But my thinking has changed since he was conceived. IF we have another child (we're not hoping to at this point), I think we should again turn to adoption. (Our first is.)

[Lisa]

This issue stirs up a lot of different feelings in me. We are unusual in that we looked at our adoption options before looking at IF treatments. I wanted to adopt, but found out right off the bat that I would not qualify for international adoption due to disability, and domestic adoption was iffy at best. My best hope was, and still is, foster adoption of an older, special needs child. What I think is amusing, and this has happened to me in teaching also as well as other disabled people I know who've adopted, is that our best hope for adoption is a child who is undesirable to others for whatever reason, be it age, race, or disability. So, we are too disabled to raise the potentially easy children, but we are fine to raise the children with the most potential difficulties. (In teaching, I was too disabled to teach regular ed, but was fine to teach the most challenging special ed kids that no one else wanted...)

Judgements are made all the time about which parents deserve which children. And although I would love my kids no matter what, sometimes I want to take my blonde haired, blue-eyed, white healthy male biological child to some of these former adoption folks who told me I'd never be able to adopt and raise such a child and go, hey, look what I have that you said I could never have...ha! (Please know I'm not being serious there, it is more of a revengeful joke fantasy.)

My IF treatments were luckily not a lot (we did DIUI, not IVF), but I was bothered by the fact that our road ended there, at DIUI, whereas those that had more money could go on to IVF and other more complex treatment.

I have probably a whole posts worth of thoughts on this "it takes a village" business that we tout in this country with next to nothing to back it up. I like that concept of the opposite of poverty is community. I'll be looking forward to part 2.

[M-j]

Wow! This is some heavy stuff. I remember studying this in high school and college, and to be honest it has kinda slipped my mind lately. But recently I have begun thinking about bioethics again. Mostly because if I was able to choose these "genetically superior" babies then I might not have two children with Autism. I'd have perfect stepford children instead. How boring!
I guess what I am trying to say is this: SCARY! I am currently at odds with genetic research because I am beginning to realize that the more genetic research that is done, the more likely people are going to be able to select "healthier" aka "perfect" children. I hate to say it, but you get what you get! Deal with us! You think my life is a picnic? We are going down a dangerous path with designer babies, to be sure. I know that scientists mean well and think they are going to eradicate diseases, but what we are moving towards is wiping out parts of our species because of their differences. Remember the last time that happened?
Basically they are moving towards rich, white, blonde-haired-blue-eyed world domination. Sounds familiar?

[regine]

Can only say that I'm looking forward to the continuation of this very deep post.

[kris]

I'm speechless in the best of ways.

Anxiously awaiting Part II...
kris

[PhoenixRising]

My experience raising a child of color has led me to the conclusion that anyone who thinks their white-people-entrenched lives have no place for a child who isn't white is probably right, and should not be argued into it. Definitely should never be guilted into it, using the argument that it's wrong to create a perfect new life at the expense of offering a family to a child in need.

Whether reproductive technologies that allow parents more control than ever (before conception) should be retailed or regulated is a complex ethical question--and unrelated to adoption. That's as coherent as the argument, 'Choose adoption, not abortion', which makes my blood boil. (Though I share your concern for the adopted child who's being raised by someone who clearly does not agree with my opinion.)

I think that we're living in a time in which technical constraints are being lifted off our biological lives with such rapidity that we're not questioning whether they should be replaced by ethical constraints. One problem is the urgency individuals are compelled into, when making their own choices, by factors like aging and insurance coverage.

Given that there are significant legal protections for everyone in the adoption triad--we can argue about whether there should be more or different, but they exist--I wonder why the application of reproductive technologies don't require similar protections for the potential parents. (And of course, the only people who think that's reasonable want to use the state to impose their version of the right kind of family on everyone.)

Some of these problems would be addressed under a system that treated a certain level of fertility treatment as a healthcare entitlement, not a for-profit enterprise that feeds insurance companies and doctors. Because today, I'm asking my doctor, who stands to benefit from my choosing more treatment, to also be the only party in the transaction who is bound by an ethical code. That seems like a stumbing block to me.

As an aside, I like Bill McKibben's book 'Enough' for addressing these questions from a bioethics perspective.

[Heather]

Thank you for this post ( and the one to come) While we come from what appear to be totally differnt lifestyles on the surface, you manage to express so many of the things that I believe and am yet, unabla to articulate. Not only that, but you educate me; bringing to light layers of issues that I had not even considered. Currently, we have two bio kids, but my husband and I both remember from an early age imagining that we would raise a family bio and adopted kids( for me that particularly meant a large family :o) ) .
After beginning to read your blog and others by birth parents, i was really question if it was truly the right thing for us to do, considering "primal wound" biasis, racisim..our possiblie inability to cope with any of those things...
However, your wiritng really hepled me to what I like to think of as an epiphany, and a realization that while our adopting is a way off, we can do it if we start preparing our family, our life, and our hearts and minds now.
I am looking forward to more of your incredible insight- for helongin me to shape my own beliefs and possibly share with others trying to understand why we hope to do what we are planning.
God Bless

[bek]

This is great. I look forward to reading the rest.

I am not sure how I feel about it. I agree with the others that have stated that those who feel not able to (or no desire to) parent a child w/ disabilities or one that isn't the blonde haired blue eyed variety, shouldn't. That doesn't help anyone.

I also really appreciated when you said that the minute you choose to take a stand, someone will come up behind you and say that you should have done it differently too... like all that garbage when a few celebrities recently decided to adopt a child from Africa (Madonna or Angelina) or build a school there (Oprah). People were outraged that they didn't choose to do it here instead. That is what it comes down to though, right? Choice. If my choice to adopt an infant domestically is valid, than so are all the other ones that other people choose to make, right? It is hard to know WHO should decide where that line is as well. The government? Do we self govern?

Can't wait for part two..

P.S. My husband is a tall, blue eyed, blonde haired man that went to not one but TWO Top schools. He gets solicited by mail occasionally to "donate" to sperm banks or IVF labs. I guess that these places use the yearbooks and face books to find out who to send letters to. We have been solicited via both schools (he used different "official" names at the schools so we know that they are coming from both. One even stated that after seeing a picture of our daughter in an alumni magazine (another blue eyed white haired child) that they would pay even more becase he showed he can produce "healthy and beautiful and potentially intelligent" children. We almost died when we saw the letter. All that good sperm "wasted" on a broken uterus..... :-) (our last two children are adopted via domestic and intl adoption and both are black).

[Emmie (Better Make It A Double)]

Awesome, thought-provoking post. Especially this:
"If we evaluated the ethics of our technological abilities according to community logic, rather than capitalism’s logic, what would our families look like?"
I think there would still be reproductive technology (including IVF), but there would be more tranparency, more debate, more universal standards, and more discussion of how one person or couple's decision affects the community as a whole, including its culture. These discussions would include both adoption and ART. Desperate, hurting infertile couples wouldn't have to go it alone in making decisions about what their options are. To deal with infertility by using technology or pursuing adoption often means exposing oneself to ruthless, high-stakes capitalism. It is also for many, an exercise in estrangement from one's community, where the community you rely on for support is left out because we don't talk really about these things.
So thank you.
Also: For a take on IVF from a different angle (how many embryos get put back), you might want to read this post and its comments: http://allthis.typepad.com/allthis/2006/10/the_ivf_post_i_.html