Comments for Plato's Offspring at http://www.thecatholicthing.org , comment 1 to 6 out of 6 comments http://www.thecatholicthing.org Sat, 25 May 2013 10:38:28 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2010/platos-offspring.html#comment-4434 In a debate for the US Senate, Dr. Alan Keyes raised this very issue of incest during a debate with then candidate Obama only to be scoffed at. The debate is on Youtube. When truth is defined as desire + consent, then all is permissible. - Timothy J. O'Donnell Tue, 29 Jun 2010 17:42:05 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2010/platos-offspring.html#comment-4433 Does this not PROVE THE POINT, of why the Mother Church has deemed acts such as artificial insemination as "sinful" acts that put up barriers between us and G-d, and brings suffering to the resulting child(ren)? Children are no longer gifts from a Loving creator, but personal "objects" as in "MY CHILD" or "YOUR CHILD," not "Our Child." Already there are businesses in countries like India where a couple can "rent a womb." The egg from one woman, sperm from any number of men and a third person CARRIES and her body nurtures the resultant infant. Oh it's all so sterile and surgically done but what of the child and what of the mother that borne that child? Legally, it is recognized that the woman that borne the baby is it's natural mother. But how natural is it when it is not even her own genetic off-spring? What seeds are we sowing that we have yet to reap? - Sandra Tue, 29 Jun 2010 08:57:53 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2010/platos-offspring.html#comment-4432 We have adopted a child. Who knows why the child was conceived? It is now loved by 2 parents. One should not decide that a child with only 1 parent will have trouble deciding where it came from and how. If a child is loved and knows it he or she will grow up to love also. Sometimes God has a one parent family. He is still present in our lives and loves us very much. We are all in this world together to help live and grow and to show others God's love and light in our lives and to let it shine out to others. I am so tired of the church telling others of the sinful society that we live in. It has always been sinful, even from the time of Christ. It is what we do in the here and now that matters. God gives us the situation and then its how we handle it that matters. He has given us so many ways to help us find our way back to him. His mercy endures for ever. Maybe its time we show more mercy instead of judging people. That is just my opinion. Thank you. - nancy Tue, 29 Jun 2010 06:20:31 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2010/platos-offspring.html#comment-4431 Another example of the adage that "Just because you can do something does not mean that you should." Modern science, unfettered by any moral constraint, uses us as guinea pigs as they test out each new technology. And then they are shocked - shocked! when lives are ruined and people suffer. We are at the mercy of people who regard themselves as an enlightened elite and who are motivated primarily by pride and curiosity. I think you are overly generous to attribute this situation to "misplaced charity." To me it just seems another case of willful men (both the scientists and the sperm donors) looking for an opportunity to satisfy their egos. We need to pray for humility and discernment and hope the next generation learns from our mistakes. - CatholicTide Tue, 29 Jun 2010 05:41:00 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2010/platos-offspring.html#comment-4430 Father, there's much more on this front emanating from European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology conference in progress in Rome, of all places, including news that, increasingly, many women are not putting all their eggs in one basket, so to speak, but rather freezing them until "Mr. Right" comes along, in the words of one researcher. According to a study of 200 women students in their 30's, eight in 10 pursuing a medical degree would freeze their eggs to delay starting a family. The researcher said, "We found that they had all had partners in the past, and one was currently in a relationship, but they had not fulfilled their desire to have a child because they thought that they had not found the right man." Perhaps one could, in a twist on Darwin, call this "unnatural selection," but God's injunction to "be fruitful and multiply" seems to be secondary to the selfish notion of advancing one's educational and career interests. One of my stepkids gave me a plaque that reads: "Anyone can be a father but it takes someone special to be a dad." And while I agree that it's much better and to God's purpose to know who one's mother and father are and to thus honor them, it does not mean that "test-tube" babies or others born through extraordinary fertility means cannot somehow overcome this familial connection by establishing bonds with those who are not of the same blood. And what of those abandoned early on? Stanford’s Institute for Social Research recently estimated that “28% percent of White students, 39% of Hispanic students, 69% of Black students, and 36% overall live without their fathers.” There are millions of people who are fatherless and motherless, but can still call on Our Father whenever they are in need of help. - Joe Tue, 29 Jun 2010 05:29:10 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2010/platos-offspring.html#comment-4429 These times have a quality of unreality - as if one were observing a horrible drama. Large numbers of people have accepted that anything that can be done is allowable - that there are no fundamental boundaries. Like Europe in the period before World War II, the United States seems powerless to halt this march toward disaster. - Ars Artium Tue, 29 Jun 2010 02:04:06 +0100