The following comes from a May 30 Bioedge article by Xavier Symons:
Feminist author Germaine Greer has attacked the IVF industry, claiming that the highly commercialised treatment has ‘destroyed motherhood’.
“The concept of motherhood has been emptied out,” she said to a packed audience at the Hay Festival in Wales. “We now have a genetic mother who supplies eggs… did we sit down and talk about what eggs mean to women?”
Greer was referring to women being offered “cut-price IVF” in exchange for giving clinics their eggs for research and use.
“In some cases you are told what has happened to them, and in other cases you are not,” she said.
Greer also said that the feminist push to legalise abortion in the 1960s had been overshadowed by ‘IVF barons’. She claimed that David Steele, the architect of the 1967 Abortion Act, acted out of political expediency, on account of pressure from influential IVF advocates.
“We got legalised abortion precisely because the fertility industry needed it… It certainly wasn’t us. We could have marched until our feet fell off and they wouldn’t have bothered to give us access to abortion. They were the ones who wanted to be able to terminate pregnancies at will. David Steel is a politician. He only made an act after the fertility barons told him what they needed.”
True to form, Greer pulled no punches. She even criticised gay IVF parents Elton John and David Fletcher:
“I’m a bit exercised to discover that Sir Elton John and his ‘wife’ David Furnish have entered on the birth certificates of their two sons David Furnish as the mother.”
I’ve never seen anyone pray or picket at an IVF clinic–for a long time I lived about two blocks from one. Yet, more babies are probably killed at IVF clinics than abortion clinics. I’ve been to many pro-life marches and at least visibly, no one other than myself cared about the things that go on a an IVF clinic. Even pro-life leaders are very seldom brave enough to bring up IVF.
I assume IVF clinics are tacitly off-limits to protests because they are the sole domain of the well-healed like Elton John? And we don’t want to upset the people who might also be funding the Church?
Thank you for this article CCD, and your excellent post, Dave. It’s so true that we give a passing frown to IVF but the deeper menace of what all this entails is terrible to contemplate! One more nail in the coffin of civilization, as they say.
Money is power…’power corrupts…absolute power corrupts absolutely’. I’m getting too old for all of this!
Rebecca Taylor had an excellent article about this in the Register called “It’s time to become pro-life 3.0.” She essentially shows that Catholics understand abortion (1.0), but are shaky on IVF (2.0) and mostly absent on genetic splicing and experimentation (3.0).
https://www.ncregister.com/site/article/its-time-to-become-pro-life-3.0/
Right. Being pro-life is not just about abortion.
Some years ago I was praying outside an abortion clinic in a large city. At some point I noticed a sign on a building across the street. It was a women’s fertility clinic.
I thought it was ironic but had a hard time saying why. Thanks Germaine!
I’d be curious to hear why you chose the abortion clinic over the fertility clinic–if you are willing to share that of course.
Maybe, just maybe, is one of their own beginning to figure out that it is feminism itself that is the real war on women??
Well, what is the point? Ms. Greer is hardly a model for women, and her “protest” is more of the nature of “who gets to sit next to Satan at the banquet of the damned”?
OK, OK, IVF labs are bad, evil, and all that, but it is but one piece of the model that Catholics, and Christians, must fight. The key here is contraception and a sexuality model that stresses (1) have responsible sex only (? What??), (2) avoid STDs, and (3) don’t worry, we can turkey-bast you to pregnancy, or to a baby. Of course, abortion is always available, too.
Protest society’s acceptance of “free sex without responsibility”. That is Satan’s prize.
CCC: ” 2376 Techniques that entail the dissociation of husband and wife, by the intrusion of a person other than the couple (donation of sperm or ovum, surrogate uterus), are gravely immoral.
These techniques (heterologous artificial insemination and fertilization) infringe the child’s right to be born of a father and mother known to him and bound to each other by marriage.
They betray the spouses’ “right to become a father and a mother only through each other.” ”
CCC: ” 2377 Techniques involving only the married couple (homologous artificial insemination and fertilization) are perhaps less reprehensible, yet remain morally unacceptable.
They dissociate the sexual act from the procreative act. The act which brings the child…
I don’t quite get the logic of Greer’s assertions. I am 72 and freely admit that my brain is not that astute. Is she saying that IVF demeans motherhood, but abortion (mothers killing their offspring) doesn’t? Is she saying that pro-aborts are different than IVF proponents – they both believe that procreation should be separated from human sexual intercourse. Why would the feminists pushing for legalized abortion not be happy that IVF advocates had the political clout for the 1967 act to have passed. Someone can straighten out my confusion.
Judith, I think it’s just that homosexuals, scientists et al are by-passing women (female eunuchs..ahem) and I’m pretty sure it’s what’s got her nose out of joint. I doubt it has anything to do with the moral issue, as you already know. Probably she feels women can kill their own children because it’s their power play, their choice but no one else can do it without being anti-women. I doubt there’s any logic which is why anyone of sense would be confused. With feminazis it’s always about power, I would imagine. Does she object to sexual preference abortions?
So is it sinful to create a bunch of embryos and then discard the unused ones?
Yes.
PS…I meant that men/scientists et al, can by-pass women to have babies with IVF, which means women can’t abort them if they choose. It’s all pretty weird. I think I’ll go have a cuppa tea and ponder life’s enigmas of which are always confusing! ;)
Thank you, Dana! I think the bottom line is Ms Greer needs our sincere prayers.
Well, Ms. Greer falls under my blanket prayer for the conversion of sinners. I confess I’m much more concerned for the health and safety of children and the unborn, people wrongfully imprisoned, the abused, the sick and the dying and so much else. Ms. Greer has free will and has used it for much ill, as have many of us. God have mercy on us all. God bless and keep you Judith! (I’ll remember you in my prayers today)