What is known as the “reproductive tourism enterprise” is actually an unregulated $4 billion fertility (“assisted reproduction”) industry.
And its efforts to produce cookie cutter type children made from the best ingredients is perhaps one of the most lucrative duhumanization businesses in the world.
Today, an entire medical and scientific community is manufacturing children for profit, dehumanizing a human being’s rights in the process. Scientists are calculating the most “effective” method to produce a greater volume of babies using “cheaper techniques.” And the American Society for Reproductive Medicine and the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technologies, among others, are seeking to legally dehumanize people through legislation labeling the surrogate mother (“the carrier”), the father (“the sperm donor”), and the child (“the product”). The terminology may sound banal, but it’s quite significant when determining basic human rights.
To date, laws don’t delineate whether or not a sperm donor is a father who can claim a parental right to the child his sperm helped create. Likewise, it’s unclear if the embryo/zygote/fetus created on demand in a test-tube has rights. Studies reveal that IVF babies not only experience “test-tube trauma” but also that “Intracytoplasmatic Sperm Injection” (ICSI) is correlated with Angelmann Syndrome, a severe condition that causes children to move like robots, unable to talk. Indeed, some states are enacting fetal pain laws. Yet, it remains to be determined what rights, if any, “the carrier,” “sperm donor,” or “product” has.
Evasion tactics avoid the dehumanization of choice—especially the consumer’s choice to purchase chromosome gender selection. This option is quite similar to China’s gendercide policy, although it occurs at a different stage of the reproductive process. However, the consequences are profoundly dire. Researchers have proven that China’s policy has not only eliminated an entire generation of girls, but it is detrimentally impacting the entire South-East Asian region, increasing sex and drug trafficking, prostitution, slavery, and numerous other crimes.
Sadly, discussion about reproductive rights is significantly limited to the non-issue of access to sexist and lethal female birth control. But, women do have a terrific opportunity to influence radical change that advances the protection of human rights at all stages of life. This may seem like an insurmountable challenge, but it possible, as each landmine, one by one, is deactivated.