Much hoopla and ballyhooing was made over the recent visit of 20 children to the White House. What made these children so worthy of our president's valuable time away from bike riding and clearing brush at his ranch was that each of these kiddies are the result of "rescuing" embryos from in vitro fertilization clinics.
The "rescued" embryos then go through an in-vitro fertilization process that they were passed over for in the first place. While the idea of selecting embryos that would otherwise be destroyed or remain in deep freeze when one's own efforts have failed is not objectionable in and of itself, the ends to which President Bush and his politicall allies would use these children are. You see, these kids were paraded in front of the public as a way of saying "See, all embryos can be life! You can't use them for stem cell research!" It was Bush's very public bitch-slap to Congress over their impending loosening of federal stem cell research funding rules that Bush himself tightened.
Normally, I wouldn't concern myself over an almost-innocuous, apparently benign enterprise that leads to childless couples raising children. Even the political opportunism over programs such as "Snowflakes" from Nightlight Christian Adoptions in Fullerton, Calif., wouldn't particularly bother me because there is enough public impetus behind stem cell research that Congress will overturn the President's threatened veto (and if they don't, the Republicans will find themselves even more SOL in 2006). The President's little birthday party has been recognized as the grandstanding stunt it was, and he is rightly mocked for such blatant heart-string tugging of a nature even Hallmark would not partake of.
Our good friend and sometimes guest ranter Buckminster was quick to point out why we should find "embryo rescues" appalling: In order to make a political point, these evangelical Christians (and we must count the President as one) are blatantly ignoring the plight of parentless children who already exist, many of whom are children of color. Buckminster is right. By saying "Golly, I want to be pregnant!" these selfish little mookheads are really saying "Fuck those needy brown children. Fuck them right in the ear!" They'll be fine in their orphanages or in the system, they say. Even though the child won't be any more genetically related to the parent than if he or she was adopted, they would rather rescue "potential" life than life already living.
By ignoring children in need in order to fulfill some sort of selfish, ideological need, these would-be saviors are perpetuating a real tragedy. There are nowhere near enough adoptive parents in this country, especially foster-adopt parents. San Jose, California, soon to be the nation's 10th largest city, needs at least 3,000 more foster homes alone. Over half a million children are in "the system," and 20,000 of them "age out" each year. Over half will require public assistance because they lack, most significantly, the emotional, intellectual, and material support a family provides.
American adoption law is astonishingly Byzantine, forcing parents to jump through hoop after hoop. It is because of these laws that an increasingly large number of couples who wish to be parents travel abroad to adopt children. Most people aren't even aware of the barriers facing couples willing to adopt, which leads to foolish beliefs like "I can adopt an embryo; someone else will take care of the little brown children." But of course, no one will.
Never mind that the federal government is subsidizing this practice. Nightlight has garnered itself over $800,000 alone in Dept. of Health and Human Services grants, even while charging a fee of $4,000 to $5,600 per embryo adoption. Not a bad income for a project that's supposed to be all about saving embryos (or people, as they would have it) from destruction at the hands of soulless scientists. This at the same time funds for vocational education and social welfare institutions that directly benefit "system" children are rapidly facing the carving knife of Republican budget makers in the Administration and Congress.
On the surface, embryo adoption would appear to be merely one more salvo in the increasingly shrill ethics war over stem cell research and in-vitro fertilization. But while the ideologically pure prattle on about potential lives and the very real lives stem-cell research could save or improve, one side, in upping the rhetorical ante, has gone and left children behind.
-Jim
Cross-posted at Los Punditos.