Thursday, July 12, 2007

A Yittle Someting... emphasis on something...

The hard boiled eggs she had placed in a bowl before putting in the fridge had evidently been slid to the rear of the shelf, near where the cold air entered, in the bustle of organizing the mathematics of daily meals and housing leftovers. So when she went to make egg salad, she found the eggs were not only hard boiled, but frozen solid.

As she brainstormed for a plan b for her lunch bag, she was struck by a string of peculiar thoughts.

Their origination sprouted from the frozen eggs. Did she have a moral imperative to let the eggs defrost naturally? Were there some ethical issues that she needed to ruminate upon before making egg salad?

She thought of the hundreds of thousands of frozen embryos at the heart of the stem-cell research/right to life ethical (and political) debate. They are all suspended in time, like little bouillion cubes filled with life potential. Would the morally responsible thing to do be to "value all life" and implant these "undesignated" embryos in an able bodied female in order to nurture the life potential? Or was it more ethical to honor the wishes of the "creators"-- the men and women who went through the procedure of invitro fertilization and were blessed with not only a child but several more "possible ice babies?" Whether their wish be to discard these extras like too much foam in one's beer, or sit idly by as the beer goes flat-- degrading naturally, without malice, yes, but with no attempts to assist, maximize, or nurture the realization of its potential?

And what of stem cell research? If these frozen "life potentials" can be utilized in research that could lead to great things which would alleviate human suffering and disability... Well, rather than ignoring such potential as it evaporates and eventually disappears...

She looked at the clock.

It would have to be Taco Bell today.

3 comments:

Deb said...

Glad to see you are writing again. I had forgotten how much I liked to read it. You have a very natural, relaxed writing voice. Thanks for sharing.

Keep on creating. I will keep reading.

Love you bunches!

Unknown said...

Thanks!!

Gonna build this house, one brick at a time...

Love you too,

Brudder

Suzy said...

To think that my frozen egg started all this. Wow, wish I could think like this. Guess that is why I married you, to help extend my brain. I, too, love to read your writing.