Gattaca is Here

Remember the science fiction movie 'Gattaca?' In that movie a world was depicted where parents could choose the characteristics of their children or have the talents and looks of their natural children assessed. Occupations were then chosen for the children based on these considerations.
Well these days are closer than you think. There is a clinic in Los Angeles called The Fertility Institute that is advertising a new service in which you can select your baby's sex, hair color, eye color and even more.
The website at the Fertility Institute posted this futuristic statement on their website -“For the first time ever, patients having genetic screening for abnormal chromosome conditions in their embryos will be able to elect expanded testing that can greatly increase the odds of achieving a healthy pregnancy with a preselected choice of gender, eye color, hair color and complexion, along with screening for potentially lethal diseases, screening for cancer tendencies (breast, colon, pancreas, prostate) and more.”
Wow! The future is finally here! Initially this type of screening was supposed to be used to prevent us from having children with cancer and other fatal diseases. Now it is used to create a race of super children. It is very much like something Hitler and his cronies would cook up.
I am surprised that we can start fooling with Mother Nature like this at all. I think it is also something that is very petty. Since when do we judge kids so much on appearances in the first place? Isn't it almost a crime to choose a red head over a blonde if your DNA assigns you the blonde kid over the first place? I am not even going to get started over the racial and sexual discrimination that also might result from this.
The other thing that is disappointing about all of this is the lack of surprise at the end of the pregnancy. I am one of those moms who just do not want to know the sex of the child before the day it is born. I like the surprise of it all. I love not knowing what color of hair or eyes my child will have. It is part of the joy of being pregnant.
In fact that is what that movie Gattaca was partly about. Choosing your baby's chromosomes are not only discriminatory it is also not very human. In a way too it is an insult to Mother Nature who creates human beings to adapt to our environment so who knows what kind of chaos or disease we are courting by bringing selective human beings into the world.

A World With No Moms

Is it time to stop being a mother? Is being a mother redundant? Is being a mother bad for the environment? Many environmental experts are suggesting just that. In fact the idea that it is time for all mothers to become obsolete has been consolidated in a movement known as the childfree movement.
Can you imagine a world where there is no moms anymore because it becomes law to have sex with birth control. That could happen according to professor Hans Tammermagi, adjunct professor in the School of Environmental Studies at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada. He says that making changes like using public transit or recycling are minor compared to what we can do for the environment simply by stopping breeding.
I find this a little disturbing, not only because I write a blog about moms and need an audience but because I am not so sure that the right to be a mom is something that should be controlled by law. For instance look what goes on in China. China has had one child laws for sometimes. This has brought that problem all kinds of ethical problems such as gender selective abortion, infanticide and forced sterilization. What I really don't like as well is the way sexism can play into this – with little girl babies being killed first.
Overpopulation might be a big problem but the human race has to go on somehow. Although I see the point of limiting the global population and the good it would do the environment we are not really factoring in what could happen if there was a world disaster and the human population was largely wiped out. We could be dealing with a situation where we need more humans to fight some kind of war or plight and just do not have them on hand.
My point is that children are not the problem. We are the problem. It is especially problematic that we don't teach our children to do things like recycle, turn the lights off and ride their bikes to work. Instead we teach them values that are wasteful – like eating fast-food, driving the biggest shiniest car and using cell phones.
Children can grow up to be adults. That is the real problem and the real crux behind the agenda of the childfree movement.
There are too many problems associated with stopping people from having children altogether. Furthermore it is a biological directive that is natural and hard to stop. Second of all if children are not allowed they could become big commodities on some kind of black market. The thought of trading children, paying money for them or raising them in secrecy to save the world is just too much for this adoring mom to bear.