You never know how God’s going to speak to you. And tonight he used nothing less than a huge 18-wheeler tractor-trailer truck to convey His message.Let me explain.
I was driving home on the Turnpike, after having attended Theology on Tap tonight at the Catholic Philopatrian Institute with Rachel and her friend Scott.
I had just spent the first 30 minutes of the ride thinking about how much fun it was to run into several friends whom I hadn’t seen in a long time! And the building we were in was fabulous. It was right there on Walnut Street, and it had all this gorgeous, ornate architecture. I should have snuck upstairs to see the ballroom like Rachel did, but I had been too preoccupied with conversations. Even the door we walked through was impressive in itself.
But now my thoughts were consumed with something much more serious; I was assimilating all that I had learned in Fr. Tad Pacholczyk’s presentation this evening. He spoke about the advances in stem cell research and how the uses of embryonic stem cells were, of course, unethical.The argument simply comes down to whether or not you believe an embryo is a person. But, Father explained, if you understand the basics of Genetics 101, then you would understand that a tiny embryo is precisely the right and proper beginning to a human person made of millions of cells.
Then he gave a wonderful example of how our culture has acknowledged that an embryo is just as important as the adult version.
He spoke about our country bird, the bald eagle. A few years ago, this eagle was almost extinct, and so laws were quickly passed to protect them. The law stated that if you shot and killed a bald eagle, you would be prosecuted with severe penalties.
The law went on to say that if you were to find a bald eagle nest and destroy an egg, you would be prosecuted with precisely the same penalties as if you had killed an adult bird. The reason, of course, is because the law acknowledged that destroying an embryonic egg is just as detrimental to the species as destroying an adult because they are, in fact, one in the same.
It is incredible that we live in a culture where we will protect the new life of a bald eagle instead of a human being. Or perhaps it is that the decision about what to do to protect the bald eagle comes to us much easier than what precisely we should do with our own children.
As the discussion went to ethics with infertility, a member of the audience brought up the wonderful happenings at the new John Paul II Center for Women, and organization my dear friend Anne founded and recently opened in Manhattan. I was so excited and so proud of her when her work was mentioned, even though she wasn’t in the room. I wanted to yell out, "Yes, Anne is my dear friend! I knew her way back when!!" Tee-hee. ☺
The conversation eventually went to the ethics of dealing with already-frozen embryos. What are, precisely, the moral obligations of the parents who have placed their children in these frozen orphanages, if the parents' bodies are now past the child-rearing age?
If I understood Father correctly, I believe he said that the Church has not yet released an official stance on the matter and that everything is still being considered as to the proper way to respond to such a horrible imprisonment of person. However, Father explained, ALL parents (whether those with children borne from the womb or those frozen in Petri dishes) have a moral obligation to provide for their children in whatever way continues the child’s life.
Therefore, Father argued, these parents have a moral obligation to pay the yearly costs to keep those children alive in the frozen orphanage they put them in. To neglect to pay would mean certain death for those children.He argued that paying someone to maintain and replace the liquid nitrogen for an embryonic child was no different than paying room and board for a child at a boarding school. The parents always have the moral obligation to maintain that child’s life within reason. And, he felt, it was not unreasonable to ask that life be maintained in a Petri dish when it was the parents themselves who first asked that it be created and put there.
A member from the audience questioned if this practice prevented the child from dying. Have we trapped a soul, making him unable to live a life on earth yet also unable to die and go to Heaven? Father responded that studies should be done to discern the rate at which cryogenically frozen embryos slowly die (for they surely do eventually since an embryo frozen for one year is more likely to thaw successfully than one that has been frozen for 15 years) and that—only after it can be assumed with fairly good certainty that a certain embryo is dead, given the passage of time—should the life-maintaining support system be removed.
It is important for us to remember that the only right way for a person to die is when God calls for it and brings the person to Himself, not when one of us kills a living person out of anger, inconvenience, or negligence. Therefore, it truly is the obligation of those parents to maintain their embryonic children’s lives; when God is ready to call those children home, He will see to it that they die. The conditions of the liquid nitrogen will really be inconsequential to His decision.
Father concluded with a saying that my own father has always told me. History will judge a culture not based on its military or its scientific advances, but by how it treated the weakest members of its society.
So here I was, driving home on the Turnpike, thinking about a friend of mine who has 4 or 5 frozen embryos that she admits she will probably never use. I have never spoken to her about them before, but should I, with gentleness? I directed this question Heavenward.
My eyes then noticed that in front of me was the butt of a tractor-trailer truck, and on the back doors was the word “Integrity,” with the first “T” being made into a cross. As I drove along, following the truck, I wondered how I could have the integrity to convey truth to her while also being gentle and non-judgmental of her circumstance. She is such a wonderful person and has such a good heart that I must not neglect to share this information with her. So how will I tell her?
As the truck and I slowed down on the exit ramp, my headlights came closer to the truck and revealed a message that appeared to be handwritten on the metal doors in Sharpie marker. This read, “Don’t tell me – show me.”
What a strange piece of graffiti, if you think about it. Something like, “Wash me” makes much more sense in that location. But this statement, about not just telling but showing, certainly seemed applicable to the thought process I was just having.
So how is a girl supposed to show this truth of parental obligation when she hasn’t got any children of her own yet?
More to pray about...
