We're all going on a summer holiday

...no more mass for a week or two.

I have noticed, in recent years, a sharp decline in the number of families at mass during the school holidays. (This is anecdotal evidence: I have not conducted actual research.) Now, I realise that people go away during the holidays, but given the amount of elderly people in my parish, and the lack of Catholic churches in the area, there should presumably also be a counter-balancing influx of families visiting grandparents. What seems to be happening is that people don't go to mass in the holidays and certainly don't bring their children along.

I find this a bit odd.

I know people who struggle to get their teenage children to go to mass, especially with the competing demands of weekend sporting activities, but there does seem to be a prevailing idea that children (and adults) can be let off from mass attendance during the holidays. The problem with this (and I don't have children, so if you do and think I'm completely wide of the mark, ought to shut up etc etc) (aside from the whole of missing mass), is that this forms a link between school and church as concepts, presumably generating similar associations when the end of the holidays come and one has to go back to both of these ie school and church are both boring, we need breaks from both, they aren't necessary all year round and so on. Two of the three longer school holidays are based around Christian holidays, so it also seems slightly ridiculous to not go to mass at these times.

There are no holidays in the adventure that is Christian Life. There may be times when things are perhaps easier or harder, but we cannot, should not, do not get breaks from being Christians, whether from Monday to Saturday or during the school holidays. Being a Christian is not a job, or an activity, it is an identity: it is about being, not doing.

Sex, drugs and rock n roll: my parents think I'm mad

And it's not just me.

 

Recently I have had a few conversations with friends and acquaintances who suffer from a weird problem. Actually it was a relief to me to find I wasn't alone, because after yet another conversation with my Mum which involved her threatening to throw a book which I was reading in the bin because it had the word 'Catholic' in the title I was starting to get a bit stressed out. The only reason that book didn't end up in the bin (or the recycling, at any rate) was because I pointed out that it was borrowed. Others have had similar conversations with their parents about books written by saints or popes. We are Generation Y: hiding our spiritual reading under the bed.

 

The strange thing is that we were all baptised and brought up Catholic by our Catholic parents and now they don't like it.

 

Now, I admit that when I discerned my vocation and then entered community I didn't hand it as well as I could have done. Announcing my decision in the car as we were driving along a dual carriageway might have had a very different ending and comments such as 'over my dead body' were perhaps only to be expected. But it started long before that. When I first went to university, there was mild concern over my regular attendance at daily mass. Attending social events at the chaplaincy was also considered worrying. It was the first time in my life I had the opportunity to have friends who were also Catholic, friends who, whatever else they were getting up to at the weekend, would make sure they went to mass on Sunday. The people who thought this was odd were the same people who insisted I came home at 9am after a Saturday sleepover when I was a teenager, so that I could go to mass.

 

I have a crucifix on the wall and a statue of Our Lady in my bedroom which is considered excessively pious of me, and yet there is a crucifix on the kitchen windowsill (in fact, now I come to think of it, there are two). We each own a copy of the Catechism, but knowing what is written inside it is over the top.

 

I know that it is traditional and expected for each generation to view the other with mild irritation and bewilderment (music isn't what it was, after all) but praying the rosary, going to confession, not talking in church; these are things our parents taught us which they now hope that we don't do. And then there are the things they hoped we would do, these being 'normal', but we choose not to because we are Catholic: things like sleeping with people we aren't married to, using contraception and talking openly about the fact that we are against abortion rather than just thinking about it. We try to keep up to date with Church news, keep an eye on what the Pope is saying in his weekly audiences, and pray for episcopal appointments. We don't eat meat on Fridays, wish the clergy would dress like clergy and also hold dangerous views about such controversial things as...guitars.

 

Our parents brought us up to be Catholics, and now that we are, they find it worrying.

Wombs to let: £28,000

I suppose a baby factory is the obvious successor to the egg bank, but it wasn't something I was expecting to come across in last week's Metro.

 

The most ridiculous aspect (and now I've said that I am torn as to which bit is actually the most ridiculous) of this article is Dr Patel's claim that she is carrying out a feminist mission. As the Anscombe Bioethics Centre wrote in their review of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act:

 

Surrogate motherhood involves a further fragmentation and trivialisation of parenthood, in that a woman deliberately becomes a gestational mother with no intention of committing herself to caring for the child she gestates. This practice is exploitative of both the woman and the child, and damages the way conception and gestation are regarded in society as a whole. If surrogacy cannot be prohibited altogether (the option we would prefer), commercial surrogacy, at very least, should continue to be prohibited. We do not believe that agencies should be registered with the Department of Health, as the Brazier Committee recommends, as this would constitute official endorsement of such agencies. (An analogy might be with the case of prostitution: those opposed to prostitution are rightly unwilling to accept the official registering of brothels, as this effectively legitimises their existence.)

 

Dr Patel is clearly exploiting women; of the £28,000 a couple pay for a surrogate mother, the surrogate receives less than £5,000. For 9 months manual labour (a 'physical job') the mother earns approximately 73p an hour (based on a 40 week pregnancy). And paying a woman for the use of her body is definitely analagous to prostitution. But hey, at least facilities are sterile!

 

And then we have the desperate couples who choose this option and are willing and able to pay. Are they not also being exploited to a certain extent (albeit in a design of their own making)? This is not a good way to have a family: I know of one woman who regularly tells people how much her IVF twins cost her, apparently believing that their grades should be better than those of other children because they cost more. As they get older, will she dictate to them on the basis that she paid for them? Isn't that a form of slavery? As always it is the child who loses: exploited by both genetic and surrogate parents.

 

We are now way beyond the start of the slippery slope: there are those who are 'too posh to push', those who choose the gender or disability status of their children. It would not surprise me if there were also designer pregnancies, where the pregnancy happens to another person, whether a woman is fertile or not. Is this the new feminist ideal: the exploitation of one woman to spare another some nine months of inconvenience? Even organs are not commodities to be traded, selected, bought, sold or even rented, so why do we seem to think that children are?

Trivial problems with having 3 parents

One group of scientists have raised concerns that the three-parent IVF technique may lead to problems with fertility, learning and behaviour, the BBC reports. Other scientists say that the effects of a mismatch between mitochondrial and nuclear DNA must be trvial because otherwise we'd have noticed already. Aside from the fact that biologically we have two parents, and therefore I can't see why we would already have noticed, and the ethical minefiel (OK, so it's not a minefield because there isn't a way through, it's just a bomb shaped like a field) the political problems of having 3 parents should not be ignored.

 

My parents are divorced, my father is remarried. A lot of people are in this position. I get on fairly well with my dad's wife these days, but I rarely refer to her even as my stepmother, although she has referred to herself as a parent in relation to me. My poor sister-in-law has two women who consider themselves to be her mother-in-law (fortunately she is a keen cook and my brother is keen on eating so there is no danger of accusations of underfeeding). Between 6 step-siblings, we only have 4 names, which is a bit confusing at times. Birthdays, Christmas, funerals and now weddings require hours of discussion and planning dedicated to the 3 parent issue. These problems are time consuming, upsetting, complicated but esentially trivial: they do not touch on our identity. At least we are clear on who exactly our parents are, who we are and where we come from. To those who still struggle with these questions, and to those who are and will in the future be born as a result of 3 parent IVF and other bizarre human interventions, I offer the answer a friend of mine discovered as a teenager (very complicated remarriage situation): first and foremost, we are God's children.

A trip to the egg bank

On Tuesday the Mirror reported that an egg donor bank had opened in London; it has been operating on a trial basis since the beginning of the year. In my health news email digest, it stated that women would be able to choose characteristics of the baby, such as eye colour. (It has got a little more difficult to review these stories since the newspapers realised that people were accessing their articles free online and that they were clearly missing out and should start charging.)

 

Choosing eye colour might seem harmless enough, and I understand that a woman might well want a baby to bear some slight resemblence to her, but we have already seen the tragic consequences of sex-selection of babies, and allowing and encouraging any sort of picking and choosing definitely sets us on the path to designer babies. Having children is not a right, it is a privilege. Babies are not convenient: they do not sleep or smile or eat when we want them to, they are hungry and tired when we don't want them to be. They are people, and like all people they are creatures. We are created. We are fragile. We are dependent. There are some things that we don't get to choose because we are not in charge.

 

This was as far as I got when I actually went and read the Mirror's article. I was struck by the fact that the director talked about the 'needs' of people 'needing' donor eggs. Need is not the right word - children are a privilege, not a necessity. It would be more accurate to talk about desire and want. I also took note of the 53 year-old woman who said that she'd always wanted to have children but had never met the right person. There is in that statement a clear understanding that the 'right person' is a necessary part of the process of having children. There is no mention that she has now met that person, but she's decided to have a child anyway. In the same way that we have separated sexuality and procreation (see Humanae vitae and if you haven't read it, then read it) we have also separated the concepts of children and family. Sometimes there are ways of doing things which are just different. Other times there are right ways and wrong ways, and being created and finite we also don't get to choose what is right and what is wrong. We can choose whether to do right or wrong, between good and bad and frankly that is a complete misuse of the precious gift of our freedom. Right use of our freedom is using it to choose between good and better, not between good and bad.

 

It was at this point that I discovered the Telegraph's article on the same subject and realised how incredibly naive I am. It may be couched in terms of altruism, but this is not some benvolent institution, set up because of tragic needs which we cannot ignore (like, say, a food bank). The donors (something of a misnomer) will receive £750 for providing eggs. How long before we see young women funding their way thorough university by selling their eggs? And the profit margin is presumably quite high, as treatment (purchase of eggs) costs £10,000.

 

Whilst I have thrown words like right and wrong around, and asserted that children are a privilege and not a right, I do empathise with older women. And I do not wish to generalise or assume that it is only single women who seek IVF in later life, I know women who did not meet and marry their husbands until they were in their 50s and 60s and therefore never had children. My great uncle's second wife told me cheerfully that she had no regrets over not having met her husband sooner as he, a widower, had been married to someone else. There are also couples who are sadly, persistently infertile. Women are called to be mothers, whether biologically or spiritually, and the inability to answer that call for whatever reason must bring heartache. But we also need to remember that our actions always have consequences. The consequences of delaying children by prolonged, repeated use of contraceptives in order to advance a career, go on holiday more often and generally 'enjoy life' might be infertility. We are not in charge and we cannot have it all.

Keeping up with life

The Daily Mail (not my favourite source of healthcare/science, or indeed any other kind of news, but anyway) reports a worrying trend in the number of women taking stimulants in order to cope with life.

Aside from the fact that Ritalin and friends are not licensed for the treatment of ADHD in adults (ie their safety and efficacy in this group of patients is not proven) and that buying medicines on the internet is a stupidly dangerous thing to do there are some other concerning aspects.

The women taking these drugs are obviously experiencing extreme pressure to perform and conform, but more seriously still we can see a tendency to measure people by what they do. We are not ourselves, or what we eat, but what we do. This is massive problem because if you cease to "do" then you also cease to "be". In the case of the students using these drugs, their measure of themselves is how well they perform in exams: I am only as good as my exam results. Others struggle with the demands of juggling work and family life, or long hours and pressure to meet targets. But where is the weakness in admitting that something is hard? There is also, as so often with mental health, a reduction of the human person to the merely biological.

According to the article, women aged 25 to 34 are the most stressed demographic group in the country. No surprises there: we are the group who first experienced student loans, SATs at 7, 11 and 14 years, league tables, contraceptives for all, abortion virtually on demand... We have grown up being encouraged to turn down children in favour of career success, with the advice that giving up work for motherhood makes you a failure, that instant gratification is our right and we are also the generation whose parents lapsed in their religious pratices meaning that many of us have never stepped foot inside a church. We started life with the understanding that, as women, we would have to fight tooth and nail to be recognised as good enough and we have arrived at adulthood finding that most of the work has been done.We have moved on from the time where everything was blamed on our parents not giving us enough attention. Now we are our bodies. We have been formed by secularism and individualism and taught that an expensive pair of shoes can solve all our probelms.

We were promised the world, and the world turned out to not be worth the paper it was written on. Only God's promises are worth trusting, and the majority of this group have no idea what they are.

Something this simple shouldn't take two decades

For H: Keep up the good work!

Recently (with my Catholic Link hat on) I have been trying to find short videos or animations which explain the Church’s teaching on contraception. There is a huge want of apostolic resources on this topic and it has been something of a struggle. I was telling my brother (or unsuspecting apostolic guinea pig, as I like to call him) about this lack of videos on the topic and his response was, “Of course not, no-one wants to think about that stuff!” Eventually, I found something and then I sat down and tried to write a post. I ended up with a reflection on my own experience which was completely wrong for that site, but I decided to post it here instead.

In every parish I attended as a child there was always one family with more than four children who were regarded by the rest of the parish as more Catholic than everyone else at mass. Nobody ever explained why this was, but they were generally viewed with a mixture of superiority and guilt-fuelled admiration. Apparently being more Catholic meant that you were usually late for mass and were unable to get your children to sit still for 45 minutes.

At (my non-Catholic) secondary school that I learned that “Catholics believe that contraception is wrong”. There I also learned that contraception was the answer to pretty much all the world’s problems (and this was before the AIDS epidemic!). I had one conversation at home on the subject in which I was informed that “NFP probably works for clever people” and the clever couple cited had about five university degrees between them (and three children). I had a friend at school who was one of nine children. I used to hear people saying that they must be Catholic, which always mystified me as I knew they weren't.

In short, by the time I was 15, what I had learned about family planning was this:

• The Church is against contraception (apparently for no reason).
• Catholics themselves know better (and mostly ignore the Church).
• NFP is very complicated and difficult (and ineffective).
• Having children turns your life into chaos.
• Contraception will allow me, an intelligent woman, to have the life and career I deserve (and should want). Without contraception, this will not be possible. I am capable of making the world a better place and if I have children this will be impossible.

What a devastating combination! The world tells me all the disadvantages of children. The Catholics I know tell me nothing, in word or deed. (This sounds like poor me, I am a sad victim of the big, black formation hole, and that is not the point I am trying to make.) The world has got louder since then. It now assumes I want to have casual sex and assures me that there is no problem with that, in fact I should probably be encouraged in that line.

Now we have to fast forward almost ten years to the time of my personal conversion. Through prayer, formation and endless patience on the part of those who did apostolate to me I discovered that I believed in the Faith and that I wanted to live by the teachings of the Church. But I was still really stuck on the subject of contraception. I ended up feeling that I would have to go along with the Church even though there was no reason for what she said. I would have to suspend my own intelligence out of some sort of blind obedience to the Church and for this I would suffer: I would be unlikely to be able to find a sane man who would marry me under these conditions, and if I did I was going to have fifteen children (and probably die young, worn out from childbirth and never being able to afford a holiday). It took a lot more years of prayer and formation for me to understand and love the wisdom of the Church, a loving Mother who cares for her children and knows what is best for them.

It has taken nearly 20 years to undo the brainwashing I underwent at school. And it still isn’t completely done. (Interestingly, the undoing hasn’t come from having endless conversations about the merits of NFP over contraception but from understanding Catholic anthropology and the dignity of the human person.) I have a fairly constant mental battle with myself every time I read about sexually transmitted diseases, teenage pregnancy etc. I know that trying to address these problems with contraceptives is like sticking a plaster on a gaping, infected wound and expecting it to heal all by itself. But the world's roots go deep.

I am not surprised that “no-one wants to talk about that stuff”. There is a wall of silence surrounding the subject that probably stems from a fatal combination of “no sex please: we’re British” and abject ignorance on the part of the majority. I finally begin to understand the weirdos people (see what I mean about brainwashing) I knew at university who wouldn’t shut up about NFP: if people, and especially young people, don’t hear about the Church’s teaching from those faithful to the Church they are going to hear about it from somewhere else. And those other people who tell them about it are not going to have the integral wellbeing of the human person as their motivation and the inate dignity of that same human person has the foundation for all their reasoning. Because of this they will, however well-intentioned they may be, get it completely wrong.

Update: Contraception Can't: We need to talk!

Sometimes there are no shades of grey

A couple of weeks ago pro-abortion campaigners delivered 600 coathangers to the Department of Health in protest at Jeremy Hunt's supposedly pro-life views. Their concern is that if the abortion limit is reduced (not that anyone seems to have plans to do so) that abortion will become "illegal and unsafe".

As a young adult, I had rather contradictory views on abortion. I was convinced that the unborn child was a person, and arguments at what point exactly it became a person seemed deeply flawed to me. However, I also believed that it was inevitable that women would have abortions and therefore it was better for them to have legal access to abortion so that they didn't die in back-street abortions. In short, I subscribed to the 600 coathanger view.

I have long since changed my mind about this. I realised that if the unborn child was a person (and furthermore, if we cannot say definitively that it is not) then there can be no justification for abortion. The "people will do it anyway so lets make it legal" argument has long been applied from everything from prostitution to speeding and doesn't hold water: if something is objectively wrong then making it legal doesn't make it objectively right.

After reading about the coathanger delivery I started thinking about it again, and I realised that what really worries me is what it is that drives women to seek an abortion at all costs. Things have changed since the Abortion Act was first introduced. Single mothers, although obviously they have extremely difficult lives, are not ostracised from society. And if she really doesn't want to or can't look after a baby, then there are hundreds of couples out there going through IVF and surrogacy who do want to have a child.

I was reading a friend's column in El Colombiano yesterday, in which she explains that being pro-life isn't just about mindlessly shouting about something you disagree with, but that it is important to inform your conscience about why abortion is wrong. I then read the comments section. I try not to do this, it generally annoys me. What I found was that whilst the comments where anti-abortion, quite a lot of them said things like "there's no need for abortions in this day and age because we have contraceptives". (That is something that I still struggle with. I am 100% with the Magisterium on this, but it has been so well drummed into me throughout school and university here in the "geopolitical epicentre of the culture of death" that contraceptivees are the solution to all the world's evils that often it is the first answer to pop into my head. I choose to reject this answer, but it is still there.)

What we have lost here is love. Love of a mother for a child is surely the most fundamental kind, and if a mother can argue that her child is not a child, or puts her right to what she considers life over his or hers then we have lost something fundamental. And for those women who have abortions because they are desperate and struggling and genuinely see it as the only solution, well, they are also called to make a great act of love, and so are the rest of us, to support them (practically, spiritually, psychologically) in that love. And if, horrifyingly, a child has been conceived in rape then that woman is also a mother and she too is called to make a sacrificial act of love. Acts of love are not easy. We must die to ourselves, say no to our own comfort, our own plans, in order to love. And "dying to ourselves" is not just a nice turn of phrase: Jesus really died on the cross out of love. And that is the measure for which we must strive.

Doctor What?

I am a big fan of Doctor Who. I watched it (and hid behind the sofa from it) and I remember being told that a particularly scary alien had been made by school children in their classroom. I didn't buy that: said alien was clearly going to come and get us all.

Although I watch Doctor Who, if I had children of my own I wouldn't let them watch it, because of the obvious agenda which has been present since its reincarnation with Christopher Eccleston as the Doctor, that is, the normalisation of same-sex relationships. I feel this is particularly relevant now with the current move towards the legalisation of same-sex marriage (despite the fact that the government has no mandate for this, but don't get me started). OK, so we all know that the BBC has a very liberal ethos, but it worries me that such ideas (not to mention the level of sexual innuendo) are being blatantly targeted towards children.

In the episode The Doctor Dances the Doctor (Eccleston) tells his assistant Rose that humans from the 51st century (ie. the pansexual Captain Jack) are more "flexible". The implication is clear, that we mere 21st century beings are limited in our understanding of human sexuality. By the 51st century we have come to realise that everyone can sleep with whomsoever they wish...be they man, woman, Ood, Time Lord or headless monk...and especially if they're Captain Jack. If there was ever an example of a person who sought, and failed to find, fulfilment in the concupiscences Captain Jack is that man.

In the recent episode A Town Called Mercy the Doctor asks the town preacher if he can borrow his horse. The preacher tells the Doctor that the horse is called Joshua, meaning deliverer. The Doctor replies that he speaks horse, "His name's Susan and he wants you to respect his life choices". Yes, that's right, gender is a choice. LGBT orientation is so natural that its even found in animals.

I had hoped that when Russell T Davies (whose writing frequently centres on sexuality - his series Queer as Folk portrayed a gay sexually active 15 year old - see Wikipedia for his complete works) left the series that this element would disappear. However, it was obviously not to be. Whilst A Town Called Mercy contains an interesting exploration of revenge, mercy and reconciliation, it also clearly portrays the aforementioned idea that we can choose our gender, as well as touching on the assertion that it is fear which leads to prejudice, hatred and violence, and the illogical inverse that all prejudice (or perceieved prejudice) stems from fear. How often have we recently heard gay-rights activists claiming that Christians are afraid of homosexuality?

If I am afraid of anything it is that the normalisation and acceptance of intrinsic wrongs lead to the perception that they are objective goods and that the confusion of freedom with licenciousness will continue to reinforce the dictatorship of relativism and the culture of death. Which is why I write with one eye on the screen, and the other firmly firmly fixed on a crucifix.

Putting an end to foolishness in all quarters

It is said that when Blessed John Henry Newman was asked by his Bishop what he thought of the laity, he replied that the clergy would look foolish without them.

I wanted to write something on the role of the laity because it seems to me that there is a great deal of confusion about what laypeople are supposed to do in the Church and the world. People spend a lot of time waffling on about the role of women in the Church, but a lot of the time I think that ignorance and confusion about the role of women stem from ignorance and confusion about the role of the laity. Commission of lay funeral ministers and (frequent) liturgical abuses involving Extrarodinary Ministers of the Eucharist don't really help, although sometimes it can be difficult to tell whether they are the symptom or the cause of this widespread ignorance and misunderstanding.

I can give references for the things in this list if required (Conciliar or post-Conciliar documents) but for now, this is my understanding of the role of the laity:

Personal Holiness
In a larger font because it is the most important. The universal vocation of all the baptised is holiness.
Frequent the sacraments, especially make regular, frequent Confession and Holy Communion.
Develop a prayer life (eg. visiting the Blessed Sacrament, praying the rosary - no study or special training required, reading the Bible, praying lectio divina...there are a lot of elements you can include according to the amount of time you have, your state of life etc.).

It might also be helpful to:
-get a spiritual director
-join an ecclesial movement (or another group where you can forge community and friendship with other Catholics)
-Form yourself - read the Catechism, listen to what the Pope says..., do a course of study (a Catholic course, obviously). This won't just help your personal holiness, but will also prepare you for apostolate.

This is not an exhaustive list. Do whatever it takes: only saints will change the world (LFF).

Apostolate
Quite possibly no-one has ever told you this (I was in my late twenties when I found out) but by virtue of your baptism you are also called to be an apostle. Apostolate can take the form of:

-Evangelisation - by witness of life AND by announcing Christ. That means not just being nice to your colleagues but also telling them why.
-Renewal of the temporal order - transforming everything which is in contrast with the gosepl, in your workplace, through your work, in your school, in your neighbourhood, in your home, in the bank queue, at the supermarket, outside your local abortion clinic...
-Charitable works and social aid - probably this is the one most people know about, but look how far down the list it is!

What else?
Well, really everything is covered by the above, but for the sake of clarification, the laity are called to "develop and make effective all those latent Christian and evangelical possibilities which already exist and operate in the world" (EN70) and "co-operate with pastors in the service of the ecclesial community" (EN72) in keeping with our proper state as laypeople, including:

-Catechesis - the first place of catechesis is the family, the domestic Church. Teach your children (and your spouse) Christian values, form them in the faith, take them to mass, teach them to be holy.
-Sacramental preparation
-Serving in your parish - in an administrative capacity, visiting the housebound and elderly, cleaning the church...
-Praying for your priests

If you're still unclear about any of this, there are plenty of beatified and canonised laymen and women. Read about their lives and follow their example.

Do not try to substitute for or replace your priest. You are not a priest, you are a layperson.

If you don't want to fall down the slippery slope, don't go near it

Apparently we could soon have three-person IVF. At first I thought this had something to do with the three-person civil union which has been recognised in Brazil. But no, this is an entirely differnt kettle of ethical fish (dophin-friendly tuna, perhaps?). Genetic manipulation could result in babies with DNA from 3 different adults. Leaving aside the issue of IVF itself, the suppoosed medical benefits would theoretically be the elimination of genetic mitochondrial disorders.

The Nuffield Council on Bioethics highlight a number of ethical concerns but have given this proceduce the ethical OK - so long as it is medically safe - but Human Genetics Alert (a secular, independent public interest watchdog group) is concerned about the procedure leading to demand for genetic designer babies. They argue in favour of abortion on the basis that "the foetus is part of the mother's body" (a topic for another time methinks) but are against sex-selection because it smacks of discrimination and eugenics.

Frankly, I think they are right to be concerned. Despite being illegal, it has been demonstrated the sex-selective abortions are taking place for purposes of "family balancing" throughout the UK, (ie 'I can only afford to have two children and I've already got a girl so I need a boy this time'). Talking about the slippery slope may be a cliche but it should be obvious by now that if it is possible to abuse a technique in some way, then people will find a way of doing it whether within or without the law. With sex-selective abortion we have seen a step towards designer babies; with the ability to add the DNA of a third person into the mix, how long will it be before parents decide that they need their child to be taller, thinner, smarter, faster or better looking than all the others in their classroom.