Embryo's are BABIES ... wake up people!

This morning I was watching Good Morning America, ABC's national morning news program. One story on the show this morning was a story about a couple who did genetic testing on their first child in order to make certain that the child would not carry the gene for colon cancer that her father is a carrier of. This gene that is carried in the Kingsbury family has led to colon cancer that has killed numerous people in the Kingsbury family.

Chad Kingsbury, the father of the child Chloe who is now a beautiful young toddler, himself has about an 85% chance of contracting colon cancer due to the gene that he carries. Chad and his wife Colby before they had any children new that there was a real chance, about 50%, that their children would contract this dangerous Gene from Chad. The Kingsbury's made a desicion that they themselves called difficult, however they did decide to run a relatively new test called "preimplantation genetic diagnosis" or "PGD."

The process involves harvesting some of Colby's eggs and then fertilizing them with Chads sperm. A process that is known as "invetro fertalization." The eggs once fertilized then become an embryo and start to grow and duplicate cells. Once the embryo has dublicated to about 8 cells, then scientist remove one cell and run tests upon that cell to determine whether or not the embryo is carrying the dangerous gene. When an embryo is found to be "healthy" then it can be implanted back into the mother and they can hope it will attach to the uterine wall and then the pregnancy would continue from that point on as usual.

Obviously the couple has succesfully done this once and have, as I have said, a beautiful young daughter. But they have also recently gone in for round two in hopes of another child.

Now at first this may sound like a great thing, but there are a number of concerns that Christians should hold, indeed reasons why we should say "NO WAY!"

First of all, each time this process is done there are numerous embryo's that are created. Each is then tested for the dangerous gene and then the ones that are considered "healthy" are approved to be put back into the mother. However, there may have been 8 or more embryo's created, and let's say that even just 4 are found to be free of the dangerous gene. In the case of the Kingsbury family only two embryo's were put back into the mother with hopes of conception.

So what about the other 6? Well, they are frozen. If the first to don't take, then they can try the other two "healthy" embryo's. But wait. What about the other 4? Those that have the gene known to lead to colon cancer? Well I guess they are just doomed to be frozen until they die and be used for embryonic stem cell research.

Has anyone caught on to the problem yet? We as Christians often cry "life begins at conception." But Science has deemed the term "conception" to mean when the embryo implants itself in the uterine wall, not when the sperm and egg engage and become an embryo. But from the very moment that the sperm and egg come together, there is instantaneous life! It become a child and starts to develop.

Invetro fertilization is a method that helps many couples have children that might not otherwise be able to do so, but at what cost? The death and mistreatment of numerous human lives for the production of one or sometimes more.

And now we have this new science that can test these invetro embryo's to see if their little life is even good enough for a shot at being born! These children that carry a dangerous gene are labelled "unhealthy" and not worthy of birth. Well I'm sorry but isn't Chad Kingsbury a full grown man who is cancer free with a family and good life? So what if he has a high risk of cancer? Think of all of the millions of women who have had or are at a high risk of breast cancer, should they have not been born? Are they unhealthy merely due to the chance of developing cancer?

Who gets to be the judge on where this stops anyway? What is the standard that children should have to meet to qualify being born? It's not going to stop at dehibilitating disease you know. Eventually people will chose there kids hair color, eye color, potential height and things of that nature too!

I remember at one time watching a show about a man who was wheelchair bound, could barely speak understandably and by the worlds eye was seriously dehibilitated. But, by the way, he was one of the very few people in the world who was able to read sanscrit, a dead and ancient language. Incredible what a scholar this man is! But he would be unworthy of birth by many people who would utilize such technology.

How scary and dangerous is what this area of science we are embracing today! What disregard we have for human life, and it just keeps degrading!

It's too bad Hitler didn't have this technology, or maybe he would have already worked all the kinks out of us foolish humans by now. After all this is exactly what Adolf Hitler was trying to do.

We as Bible believing Christians must be loud about this because these children cannot speak for themselves!


-Jacob

Psalm 139:13-16

13For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. 14I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. 15My frame was not hidden from you,when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. 16Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there were none of them.

Here is a link to a written article about the Kingsbury family and the above described procedure: http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=2932593&page=1