Procreation is becoming industrialized, with all of the values of the assembly line, such as filling special orders and following quality-control procedures. Or, to put it another way, the fertility industry has helped unleash a sort of “new eugenics” that has people believing that they have a right not only to a baby, but to the baby they want.
If you doubt me, witness a lawsuit filed by a gay married couple, Albert and Anthony Saniger, against a fertility clinic and a fertility specialist because, though they specified that they wanted two boys, they received a girl. From CBS-LA:
The Sanigers, married in 2013, dreamed of having two children, both sons, the suit states. Before they were wed, the couple chose first and middle names for their future sons in May 2015 and created Gmail accounts for their future offspring with their first and last names, according to the lawsuit.
Throughout the process, the couple was explicit with HRC and Kolb that they wanted only male embryos transferred to their surrogate and the defendants represented that the Sanigers would get to select the exact embryos, which had an identified gender, to be used in each transfer, the suit states.
Instead, the suit states, HRC and Kolb “negligently, recklessly, and/or intentionally transferred a female embryo to the Sanigers’ gestational carrier.” . . .
The Sanigers’ daughter was born in 2021, the suit states.
Notice the dehumanization that permeates the entire process: Surrogate mothers objectified as “gestational carriers”; the contractual demand by the special-order customers for eugenically selected embryos to implant, which requires preimplantation genetic diagnoses, i.e., removing a cell from an early embryo to test for sex (and often, other “undesirable” characteristics); and the discarding of undesired embryos or their donation for use in experimentation. It’s disgusting.
Also, I wonder how the girl will react when she finds out that her fathers not only did not want her, but sued because she was born? I can’t imagine the potential for pain. So much for unconditional love.
One last point: Was the “mistake” discovered during gestation? The story doesn’t say, but part of the lawsuit involves the cost of a third child when the fathers wanted only two. If they knew, at least they didn’t insist on an abortion. If not, would they have ordered the girl aborted as some surrogacy contracts allow? I hope not.
But we know such travesties happen. The concept of “fetal reduction” — the euphemism for abortion when “too many” embryos successfully implant in the surrogate mother’s womb — demonstrates that abortion and IVF are inextricably connected. Indeed, members of that industry are worried that Dobbs puts Big Fertility at “significant risk.”
Me? I hope the case gets thrown out of court. If we allow lawsuits to succeed because quality-control measures fail during assisted reproduction procedures, we will have taken a great stride toward the crass commercialized reproduction Huxley warned against in Brave New World.