Meeting “Leftovers”

This article made me cry when I read it, and I don't cry often. But I saw the very obvious manifestation of the cosmic battle (the seed of the serpent v. the seed of the woman) graphically illustrated by the truth revealed in this article. We, in America, find ourselves in the throes of a life or death battle between the One who came to give us life (Jesus) and the one who has come to take it away (the devil). By some accounts there are over 400,000 children (embryos) frozen in liquid nitrogen tanks at invitro-fertilization labs around the country. The all-out push for embryonic stem cell research (ESC) as a cure-all for diseases effecting many of us today, is actually a diabolical manifestation of the devil and his lie. Like abortion before it, and euthanasia in the Terri Schindler-Schaivo case, the devil is bringing death to the smallest, weakest, and least among us. Woe be unto us Christian, if we cause, by our action or inaction, one of the least of these to stumble. ~Flip

Meeting “Leftovers”
21 faces give lie to a rhetorical point.
-May 25, 2005

By Anne Morse

It was a birthday party the likes of which the White House had never before seen: The guests of honor, Tanner Brinkman, 4, and Noelle Faulk, 2, had spent the first few years of their lives in frozen limbo. So had their small companions, now sitting on the floor of the dining room enjoying slices of chocolate-covered cake.

All 21 of these kids had once been “leftover embryos” — tiny humans who remained stored in liquid nitrogen tanks when their genetic parents had borne all the children they wanted via in-vitro fertilization (IVF). Some of their siblings remain in these frozen orphanages. One day, perhaps, they will be thawed and implanted in the wombs of their adoptive mothers — women who want to enlarge their families with children genetically related to the first child.

At the White House, adult guests stare with fascination at children who had been frozen for up to eight years — lively youngsters now dressed in pink party frocks and blue plaid rompers, bouncing on White House sofas and watching with delight as the presidential helicopter lands just outside the window. Just how old are these kids, anyway? If a three-year-old has been frozen for eight years, is he actually eleven?

At a press conference earlier in the day, the children's parents introduced them to reporters and shared their concerns about a bill calling for federal funding for embryonic-stem-cell research — research that would destroy thousands of other “leftover” embryos.

Among the parents was Steve Johnson, a paraplegic who, with his wife Kate, adopted an embryo whom they named Zara — now a little girl in a pink flowered dress and blond curls playing near her father's wheelchair. Johnson described the years of pain, high medical costs, and limited mobility he'd endured after a bike accident 12 years before. “My soul aches for a cure for my paralysis,” he said — but not at the cost of a child's life. “Would I kill my daughter so I could walk again? Of course not. Then why do we think it is okay to kill someone else's kid?” he asked.

Janet and Kevin Mason juggled twin toddler sons as they described their despair after six years of attempting to conceive a child. After learning of the Snowflake Embryo Adoption program , they adopted 16 stored embryos; Caleb and Jordan are the result.

A genetic mother described how hard it was to give up children “in a suspended state.” An adoptive mom pointed out that “leftover” embryos can cure at least one tragic disease — infertility — without being killed in the process. If stored embryos are destroyed in the quest to cure other ailments, she asked, what do you say to the half-million infertile couples who desperately want a child?