Abortion. Assisted reproduction. Pregnancy reduction. Sperm banks. Today, choices abound, but when my grandmother was having children, a woman either could get pregnant, or she couldn't. And if she did, she was supposed to have the baby, sometimes in secret, sometimes in shame, but she was supposed to have it.
Yet technology has not changed the fact that women still put their lives in jeopardy over the issue of having children. We've simply traded back-alley abortionists for hi-tech clinics that "make" babies. In the past, a woman reacted to society's stricture that she maintain her chaste image by subjecting herself to dangerous and dirty abortion methods, rather than have an illegitimate child.
Now, chastity has been supplanted by serendipity: women need to "have it all" children, and a career, even if it means submitting their bodies to years of hormone treatments, ovarian stimulation and surgeries.
When I attended Barbara Katz Rothman's lecture on Monday night with some friends, I thought that there would be no way I could agree with her. She was billed as a "feminist critic of assisted reproduction." It sounded a lot like "Dartmouth students against drinking," oxymoronic and incongruous. I expected her to be a conservative in disguise, a pro-life feminist, a bizarre amalgam of confused political ideas.
But instead I learned there has been a lot going on in the assisted reproduction industry that should not have escaped our notice. For example, in its infancy, assisted reproduction consisted of the doctor substituting his own sperm or donor sperm for the father's, often without the woman's permission, in order to protect the husband's sense of virility.
Even today, the absence of regulations and the dearth of statistics is profoundly shocking. Even more startling were the allegations Ms. Rothman made that Invitro Fertilization (IVF) is inextricably linked to cancer. According to Rothman, IVF "drugs cause rapid cell growth," which is the calling card of cancer. The World Health Organization is concerned, but still, regulations are wanting and studies have not been done. The needs of very real women are being ignored.
The truth is, though, having children is not simply an issue of women's lib. While women should have the choice to abort an unwanted, or even unhealthy, fetus, they need to stop putting men off with the argument, "it's my body, so I'll do what I want to." Women need to be protected from the potentially debilitating effects of assisted reproduction, and men need to get over the misconception that the inability to conceive makes a man somehow less of a man.
Both sexes need to accept that having children is a joint venture, and like the connubial tango, it does take two. If a couple truly wants children, and the woman is willing to entertain the possibility of sacrificing her health on the altar of fertility, then assisted reproduction should be a choice. At the same time, if a couple chooses to remain childless, even through abortion, that too is their prerogative.
If the issues surrounding having children or not having children are such a headache, then why does anyone bother? It sounds like a stupid question, deserving of the answer, "we have to maintain the human race, duh." But that is not the explanation, because when it comes to having children, most potential parents consult only their desires, not what will be for the good of humankind as a whole.
The desire to bear a child is rooted in our enchantment with things small -- with the warm, soft flesh of babies, with the sweetness and vulnerability of young children, with the implication that life has no limits. After the Pied Piper lured away the children of Hamelin, the village was a joyless, empty place. Why? Because the village had no future? No. The village had no present. The children of Hamelin, like the children of Hanover, or Halifax, Hiroshima, Honolulu and Haifa renew our hope, justify our cares, and fill our beating hearts with elation. Their activities form our mythology about family and form our attitude toward the world around us.
When my brother was three-years old (and I was six), he took a container of vanilla yogurt from the refrigerator into the living room of our home. He sat down on the floor, removed the lid and applied a thick layer of the yogurt to the bottom of his feet. He then made yogurt footprints on the hardwood floors throughout the first floor. The story lives on in my mind and each time I think of it, it summons a smile, an unbidden giggle in my chest.
While you can lecture me on the responsibilities attendant to childbearing and child-rearing, you will be contending with an unseen influence: my recollection of the yogurt footprints. When the time comes for me to put my mortality on the line, the memory of those sticky footfalls may trammel my misgivings about masochistic injections of hormones and IVF drugs.
In this respect, Ms. Rothman is right. Science should not be allowed to take advantage of any woman's susceptibility or any man's unenlightened ego. The desire to have, or not have, children makes people subject themselves to strange practices. It is for this reason especially, that science must be controlled; so we can benefit from the technology with a minimum of malignant consequences. At the moment, the assisted reproduction industry may be embryonic, but it is definitely not adorable.
