The families here today have either adopted or given up for adoption frozen embryos that remained after fertility treatments. Rather than discard these embryos created during in vitro fertilization, or turn them over for research that destroys them, these families have chosen a life-affirming alternative. Twenty-one children here today found a chance for life with loving parents.
I want to thank Nightlight Christian Adoptions for their good work. Nightlight's embryo adoption program has now matched over 200 biological parents with about 140 adoptive families, resulting in the birth of 81 children so far, with more on the way.
The children here today remind us that there is no such thing as a spare embryo. Every embryo is unique and genetically complete, like every other human being. And each of us started out our life this way. These lives are not raw material to be exploited, but gifts. And I commend each of the families here today for accepting the gift of these children and offering them the gift of your love.
President George W. Bush
A while back I ran across an article about
Adoption's New Frontier.
The Religious Right's argument against stem cell research is based on the idea that each embryo is a life and that destroying an embryo is destroying a life. This belief is rock solid from stem cells to abortion. Life begins at conception. "The Pill" is an abortifacient since it works by preventing implantation of a "live" embryo. Abortion is murder. Stem cell research destroys life. Stem cell research is murder.
I don't know a lot about the science in vitro fertilization. I do know that it is expensive and that they tend you make more embryos than you need because the process from start to finish has a high rate of failure. Clinics create extra embryos because of this, and it is estimated that there are more than 400,000 frozen embryos in the United States today.
Just as the Christian solution for abortion is adoption, it would appear that adoption is also being touted as solution for the surplus of frozen embryos. If each of these 400,000 is a life waiting to be realized, what better solution could there be than implantation and adoption into good Christian families. Much better than living their lives in a frozen limbo. Much better than being murdered in the name of godless science.
Marlene and John Strege were the first couple to adopt frozen embryos, and in 1998, their daughter Hannah was the first snowflake baby born. In testimony before a subcommittee of the House Committee on Government Reform in July 2001, Marlene spoke out against the use of embryos in stem cell research, and said, "Any woman can carry an embryo; tissue or blood matching is not necessary. As embryo adoption proliferates in the wake of this controversy, the 'excess supply' of embryos will evaporate."
She advocated research using other types of stem cells that do not require the destruction of embryos. "We plead with Congress not to force millions of American like me to violate our consciences and participate in another form of genocide, especially when the advances possible with other stem cells are not nearly exhausted."
Genocide?
Should we force "millions of American's" like Marlene to violate her conscience and participate in Genocide? Jesus, Joseph and Mary no way! This is an agenda I can get behind: nobody should be forced to participate in genocide if they don't want to.
I am happy that Marlene has found a solution. If things go well there will be so many stem cell adoptions there won't be any stem cells left for research. Genocide over. Problem solved, God Bless America, God Bless Marlene.
Couples like Paige and Stuart Faulk of Alexandria, Virginia brought their children to the White House in an effort to show what an embryo, not used for research, can become -- their two-year-old daughter, Noelle.
Noelle is a "Snowflake Baby" born through embryo adoption. The term "Snowflake" -- created by the first adoption agency to arrange embryo adoptions, Nightlight Christian Adoptions -- highlights the uniqueness of each embryo. The label can also be attributed to the fact that each of these children's lives started, well, frozen.
Noelle's parents experienced infertility for over five years. They took the usual measures to conceive both naturally and then through in vitro fertilization, only to learn that Paige, her mother, had premature ovarian menopause. During in vitro, the Faulks made it clear to their doctors that they did not want them to over-fertilize and freeze embryos; any that were created, were implanted in Paige's uterus. Unfortunately, none survived.
God Bless America, God Bless Marlene, God Bless Paige and Stuart Faulk.
The Lord works in mysterious ways. The Faulk's have a problem they need fixed, infertility. They tried to solve the problem with their own in vitro fertilization being very careful not to overfertilize. With the high rate of failure of in vitro I can only assume that in Paige and Stuart's world the careful destruction of human life for pregnancy is preferrable over the wanton destruction of life for research.
I am going to estimate that the Faulk's created 8 embryos in their quest for fertility. Eight embryos, Eight lives created, Eight lives destroyed.
Question for Paige and Stuart, did you baptize the embryos before dispatching them to the afterlife?
When the prospect of getting pregnant and giving birth seemed bleak, Paige said she, "prayed about [conventional] adoption." Then she happened to turn on the car radio on her way to work and heard Marlene Strege on the Christian program, "Focus on the Family."
Immediately moved by Marlene's story, Paige and Stuart knew embryo adoption would be their way of starting a family. Through Nightlight Christian Adoptions, the Faulks were matched with a couple in Colorado who had excess embryos from attempts at in vitro fertilization.
The Faulks adopted eight embryos from that family in Colorado; four of those embryos were thawed and two survived the thaw. One of those two embryos, a six-day old cluster of cells, would result in the birth of their daughter. After five frozen years, Noelle was born on May 22, 2003.
God Bless America, God Bless Marlene, God Bless Paige and Stuart Faulk. God Bless Christian Radio. God Bless Nightlight Christian Adoptions.
If you are keeping score here, 8 embryos adopted. 4 embryos thawed, 2 dead embryos at thawing, one dead after implantation, 8 from the previous attempt at in vitro and we have 11 dead, one bouncing baby girl. Personally I don't believe that embryos qualify as a human life, but if I did I would think that 12:1 would be a very disturbing kill/life ratio. I don't think you could find many who would be willing to kill 11 people in order to have a child.
But wait, there's more:
The four remaining embryos were thawed the following March. Though weak, all survived the thaw and were implanted, but none resulted in a pregnancy.
Add another 4 to the bodycount. I might be off in my numbers a little, but truthfully, once you've killed seven, what the difference between 4 or 8 more? It must be that Paige doesn't believe that when an embryo dies a human life has been lost, if so, how could Paige and Stuart reconcile the body count needed to produce their daughter. They would be mass murderers by their own criteria.
Paige said, "I disagree with using frozen embryos for science, because I believe it's killing a life," as she pointed to her young child. "I don't believe that we need to kill something in order to find ways of repairing or fixing other things, and that we can continue to use the gifts that God has given us."
Oh shit! Paige, Paige, Paige. Not only have you killed upwards of, by your own definition, 15 human beings in your quest for a child, but you did it using science and used that very same science as a way of "repairing and fixing" you and your husband's infertility. There are a lot of nagging details in your logic here. How are you going to tie up all of these loose ends.
From Our Faith in Action
The couple actually adopted eight embryos, and although only one actually survived the difficult medical process, they see all eight as children given to them by God. All of them are now where they are meant to be.
Paige speaks about her daughter with pride and joy, I want her to know how much she is loved and how God's hand has been in her life. She is really smart, and as soon as you teach her something, she'll say "I do it!". Her large brown eyes with long lashes are loving and caring, but also playful and energetic.
Someday her mother will tell her of the battle that was fought to save her life when she was too small to defend herself.
Whoa! "All eight as children given to them by God. All of them are now where they are meant to be". Is it just me or is Paige beginning to sound a little like Andrea Yates here? How much do you want to bet when Paige tells her daughter "of the battle that was fought to save her life when she was too small to defend herself." that she won't mention all of the "children" who were slain on Noelle's behalf.
Word of advice Paige.
If you and Stuart are going to keep up with this right to life thing, you might not want to tell Noelle the circumstances of her birth. If I was Noelle I would be sleeping with one eye open if I knew my parents were willing to slaughter babies on a bibical scale to bring me into the world. Trust me, even small children can figure out your your crackhead logic.