I was surfing MySpace this morning when I noticed a friend had posted a blog. I went to read it and was inspired. She was writing regarding an article she had read about certain higher-ups condemning non-life-saving surgery, specifically, facial transplants. This is not about plastic surgery to remove some wrinkles or to raise drooping brow lines. This is about reconstructive surgery for people with such major deformities that they often won't set foot outside of their homes. People with major birth defects or who have been burned. This surgery may not be life-saving in the literal sense but it can change the quality of life for an individual who is not really living, just surviving.
This hit home for me. I have been blessed with 6 beautiful children, all of whom I never would have had if not for In Vitro Fertilization. The procedures were all done by the same doctor but the facility changed over the years. The first clinic was shut down after the hospital was taken over by a religious entity that believes fertility treatments are unethical. Coincidentally this is the same group condemning facial transplants.
I will openly admit that I am against abortion, cloning, embryonic stem-cell research and genetic euthanasia to name but a few. Just because, through God-given intelligence and resources, man has figured out how to do these things doesn't mean they should be done. I have an autistic son. There are some who think autism is so terrible that we should be trying to wipe it out. They would have all pregnant women undergo genetic testing and if their babies show a predisposition for autism (or downs syndrome or cerebral palsy, etc...) then abortion is the solution.
But IVF and facial transplants are about improving quality of life without harming another. Some states have gone so far as to mandate insurance coverage for fertility treatments. The desire to reproduce is inborn. Just because someone is unable to conceive doesn't mean that desire goes away as well. As someone who has conceived naturally only to place that child up for adoption, the shock of secondary infertility really threw me for a loop. Not only did I want a family but I had tasted of the fruit and had such a yearning to be filled with life that it consumed me. I can only imagine that someone who has been horribly disfigured aches to be "normal" again, to be included in society without being looked on as an atrocity or to pitied. Human beings are relational animals. We need human contact to thrive. So what is unethical about a procedure that would allow someone the opportunity to live and thrive as God created them to? What is wrong about helping couples to fulfill the command to "go forth, be fruitful and multiply"?
I would have those who sit on their thrones of ethics take a moment to climb down and look at the humanity affected by their condemnation.
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