In-vitro adoptions rising among evangelical Christians

Krista Kapralos writes a most fascinating piece in The Washington Post this week: about how evangelical Christians are coming to the forefront of adopting frozen embryos that have been fertilized in-vitro. The article cites that there could be approximately 600,000 embryos being stored in liquid nitrogen around the United States. And that in keeping with their pro-life values, many who identify themselves as conservative Christians are choosing to legally adopt children... and then carrying them to term on their own.

From the article...

The embryo was frozen in liquid nitrogen when Gabriel and Callie Fluhrer found it. They didn’t know whether that embryo would grow to be a boy or a girl, or whether it would even grow at all.

But to the Fluhrers, it was worth the risk. That tiny collection of cells was a baby, they believed. And if they didn’t pluck it from the warehouse where it had been stored since its biological parents decided they didn’t need or want it any longer, it was likely to die.

“If we’re going to stand against abortion, it’s not simply picketing a clinic,” said Gabriel Fluhrer, a public relations and publishing coordinator for the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. “It’s doing the hard work of adopting the orphans around the world, whether embryos or orphans living in China.”

Anna Fluhrer was born in December 2010: from a frozen embryo to a healthy baby girl.

For some reason or another, I found myself studying human embryology last week, particularly the first few days and weeks of the zygote. Something that keeps fascinating me: how the heck does a little ball of cells like that know how and where to achieve bilateral symmetry? That seems like such a tiny detail but for the life of me, I can't figure it out.

Pondering about that reinforced something that I was told years ago by someone in the medical profession: that a baby truly is a miracle. There are a thousand things that could go wrong in a pregnancy, but more often than not a healthy human being is born. We don't appreciate that nearly enough.

So back to this story: as a person who strongly believes that human life begins at conception, I have to applaud that there are many people who are willing to demonstrate their ethics in this fashion. I'm also of the mind that medical knowledge is a wonderful gift from God and that it absolutely can be a blessing for those who need it, including for those who on their own cannot conceive a child.

But I'm also now seeing how my friends among the Catholic persuasion are onto something as well with their church's position that in-vitro fertilization is wrong. Because of all those hundreds of thousands of lab-fertilized embryos, many of them won't be implanted at all. Quite a number of them are fertilized but otherwise not viable for coming to full term. And therein is the ethical problem: that the in-vitro procedure, in an effort to bring about new human life, must also acknowledge that human lives will be lost as an unavoidable consequence.

I'm not coming down one way or another about this. Just wondering aloud if, perhaps, in some ways the miracle of medical technology exceeds our moral grasp.

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Congratulations to Brian and Betsi!

I've been asked not to post any pictures. Which I can understand and will respect but seriously: she is beautiful!!! I can only hope and pray that if the Lord might let me be a father someday, that I could be as blessed as my friends have become :-)

My friends Brian and Betsi welcomed their first child, the more-beautiful-than-words-can-convey Clara a few days ago! And Clara is a doll! Just a sweet tiny astonishingly cute bundle of joy. I'm so glad for Brian and Betsi: they really are going to be great parents. Heck, they already are: Brian sings Clara to sleep with the Star Wars theme and he reports that it works great :-P

Again, congrats to Brian and Betsi and welcome little Clara!

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Canadian toddler in toy truck survives 13 kilometer river ride

Demetrius Jones, just turned all of three years old, was on a camping trip with his family in the British Columbian wilderness when he went out for a lil' spin on his battery-powered miniature Chevrolet Silverado.

And then young master Demetrius chose to attempt to turn his Chevy into an amphibious vehicle.

Demetrius drove his toy truck into the nearby river and was swept away by the current. His frantic family and Royal Canadian Mounted Police launched an intensive search for the tyke, expecting the worse...

...but three hours later Demetrius Jones was found alive and laughing and 13 kilometers (a little over 8 miles) away by a group of fishermen. Demetrius had clung to the truck - what he called his "boat" - for the entire crazy ride. After being treated for mild hypothermia at the hospital, he was soon released.

Incidentally the toy truck was pulled from the river and still works fine.

(Bet I'm not the only one who thinks Chevy should work out a huge endorsement deal with Demetrius and his family: "Like a rock!" :-)

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3D printing of an unborn baby

I'd already thought that 3D printing is one of the neatest new technologies to have come along in recent years.

But look at what Jorge Lopes, a design student and doctoral candidate of the Royal College of Art, has done with it...

Marrying ultrasound imaging and MRI data to the rapid prototyping process, Lopes has engineered a way to create a life-sized exact model of a human fetus while it's within its mother's womb!

Whoa.

Lopes foresees the technology being used in the near future to give expectant parents a model of their forthcoming new arrival, as well as becoming useful in treating birth defects.

Absolutely, unbelievably mind-boggling stuff. Jorge Lopes is a genius!

Click here for the rest of the story and more amazing photos!

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