Imagine a baby being born to a man and woman, loving each other in the bonds of Holy, Christian matrimony, and agreeing to bring a life into the world the old-fashioned way, “making love”. Better imagine it quickly because that concept is fading, going the way of phone land-lines and driving without texting. In our Brave New world you don’t need a mommy with an ovary and a daddy with sperm to create life. Now, anyone who wants a baby can get one, especially in Portland, Oregon.
Portland is now the top market in the world for surrogacy, thanks to the Oregon Reproductive Medicine clinic. They are known for their high success rate of uniting egg and sperm. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender travelers are coming from all over the world to obtain what love and marriage used to provide — a bouncing baby boy or girl. Apparently there are lots of young healthy women in the area willing to donate their eggs and many more willing be a gestational carrier, a baby-brewer. The cost? Only $90,000. A bargain, compared to the $170,000 they’d pay in New York or L.A.
Any couple who has ever had a child knows that there is more to becoming a parent than waiting for a baby to cook in a hired oven. The joy of sex in marriage that results in child-bearing. The months of prayerful anticipation, watching mommy’s tummy grow larger. Even those moments of, “I want pickles and ice cream, right now, at 3:00 a.m”. The labor, cutting the umbilical cord, the first breath and cry of life conceived by two people who are co-creators with God in this endless process of life. Technology has now depersonalized the conceiving and gestational process, reducing it to an economic transaction, a masturbatory offering, and a petri dish. Is anyone asking what we’ve lost and what the eventual spiritual consequences will be when the child discovers how the Portland stork delivered him?
