The following is by Will Johnston, MD and President of Physicians for Life. It’s for the Physicians for Life newsletter coming up, however, he assures me that I can post it, given that they are not vying for advertising dollars. An excellent, short piece. Thanks, Will.

As a society we have largely conquered cold weather, hunger, disease and early death, so in our leisure we now busy ourselves arguing over who to kill.  Are you young enough? Unwanted enough? Old enough? Depressed enough? Inconvenient enough? Does your Down syndrome leave you with too many 21st chromosomes to suit the 21st century?

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Praying for this family today:

What is in the water these days? First we have a radio station auctioning off a Russian bride. Now Ottawa’s “Hot 89.9” is giving away in vitro. No really. Now I probably don’t need to tell you that Hot 89.9 isn’t a family station. In fact, I’m listening to it right now and they are playing Pitbull. (I had to google that; here, let me help you.) It’s your general umcha umcha I’m blasting this techno beat as I rev my souped up sports car down your quiet suburban street type radio station. Nothing terribly wrong with that. Haven’t we all done it? Anyhoo.

How on earth did they come to this? The signs around town just show a baby and say something like “Win me.” I’m truly at a loss. It could be a publicity stunt. It could mean they are catering to a largely female crowd of roughly my age. It is certainly a sign infertility is a feature of our current culture.

I think it’s gauche and inappropriate; I can also think of worse things. Like giving away an abortion. (But then again, don’t we do that all the time; our tax dollars generally take care of it.) What’s hot, what’s really, really not. To me, this radio thing is somewhere in between.

I reviewed Mara Hvistendahl’s most excellent book, Unnatural Selection, here. I heartily recommend it. She covers the topic of the world’s disappearing women very thoroughly.

I’m not a huge fan of IVF to begin with. So this article outlining the controversy surrounding providing IVF to obese women fails to move me. I don’t think having children is a right and so if there are circumstances under which a woman can’t conceive, we are not obligated to help. Furthermore, some of the doctors sound to be legitimately concerned for the health of the women they’d be helping to get pregnant. I understand that being told no would need to be done gently, and that it would come as a terrible shock. But is that not mostly the same sadness any woman who would like to get pregnant and can’t feels? And obesity is not the only cause of that. I don’t think it’s discrimination to say no, and in fact, as the article points out, upon losing some weight, some of these women would get pregnant without the cost–financial, physical and emotional–of IVF.

…more often than you think, in this case of ectopic pregnancies:

While the reports of such mistakes are uncommon, the authors say there is evidence it is a broader problem. Not only has use of methotrexate boomed, but some research indicates the initial diagnosis of ectopic pregnancy ends up being wrong in 40% of cases.

Ectopic pregnancy is serious business, as this is a true example of a mother’s life being at risk. Still, it is necessary to be reminded of how doctors are not God. They make mistakes.

As it turns out, overpopulation makes about as much sense as flat earth theories. A good read.

A young man with Down’s was on the ferry from the Toronto Island airport this past weekend. He was excited to get off first and had positioned himself accordingly. But then he let me go before him with a smile, in a kind of chivalric gesture. It was one of those nice, if small, moments in a busy city.

I already get choked up when I see people with Down Syndrome, knowing as I do that we don’t see as many of them as we should.

Not going to get any better now.