We celebrate the birth of Christ on Christmas – the miracle of Jesus, and indeed the miracle of life. To hold our newborn son or daughter in our arms is to witness the miracle of birth and life. As our children grow, we go to bed every night saying “Thank You God.”
Not all women though can share in the celebration of life. They may lack a fertile lover.
Trent Arsenault has been offering the gift of life for 5 years. The minister’s son had an epiphany in 2004 when he read about a neighborhood teacher who wanted a baby. He found his calling. He would donate his sperm to women who desire it. He would gift these women with life.
What greater gift can there be?
Trent is a free standing sperm bank in Fremont, California.
Trent does it for the love of life. He charges no money for his services and does not know the women in the Biblical way. He obviously does not claim a charitable contribution. All he asks in exchange for his semen is a contract in which he disclaims any paternal rights or responsibilities.
Even God’s angels today need the services of lawyers.
Trent offers his services on line and provides complete medical records along with his photo.
He has donated his sperm 348 times to 46 women. 14 babies have been born and 4 more are on the way. He has provided the gift of life to suffering women.
The Grinch, aka The Food and Drug Administration, is attempting to stop to his ministrations. The FDA, which does a poor job of safeguarding our medications or food, issued Trent a cease and desist order, threatening fines and imprisonment. It claims he violates their regulations, which require a blood test within 7 days preceding any donation of body tissue or fluids. They view sperm as a body fluid, even when no exchange of body fluids exists. The agency charged his “firm or establishment in Fremont recovers and distributes semen, and therefore is a manufacturer of human cells.”
The whole situation is illustrative of a bureaucracy gone wild, of a Nanny State that does not know when to quit.
Of course, artificial insemination through strange men poses risks to fetuses. Some men pass on genetic problems. STD’s can also reach the mother and child. So too though with sex through marriage and other relationships.
The FDA has no jurisdiction over normal heterosexual relations, which carry much
more risk than the non-carnal sperm donations. A man can father as many children as he wishes through as many women as he can entice into a sexual relationship. The late Wilt Chamberlain supposedly claimed he had bedded 20,000 women and 23 in 10 days. Magic Johnson, who admitted to being a “Party Animal,” was sued by one consort for giving her AIDS.
Every act of sexual intimacy between fertile couples carries risks to the baby and the couple itself. Whatever risks may exist with artificial insemination are probably less than with traditional sex, especially the classic one night stand. The breakup of a relationship may also cause great emotional trauma to at least one of the two.
At one level, the FDA’s action reeks of 1984. At a basic, constitutional level, the FDA’s stance also clashes with the fundamental precepts of Roe v. Wade and Griswold v. Connecticut – those of a woman’s right to choose
Merry Christmas Trent.
No comments:
Post a Comment