Abortion Rights Lead To Designer Babies
November 14, 2006
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: I've been sitting here trying to think. How many years ago was it that I warned of this? We're into our 19th year here at the EIB Network. This has to date back to '89 or '90, so basically 16, 17 years ago. It was during the often heated abortion debates, and I remember saying (and many of you who have been with us from the outset will remember this as well) that what's going to happen as we start deciding who lives and who dies based on the convenience of the living. We're already aborting future liberals as it turns out, because pregnancy is a disease. It's an unwanted tissue mass. In fact, it's a health risk.
All these arguments were advanced, and then we started saying, "You know, these elderly people that have these various diseases, especially diseases where they lose mental capacity, they don't even know they're alive and they're just burdening the health care system and we know that if they could tell us, they would prefer to be dead." So we'll find a way to euthanize them, and then this discussion expanded with all these new genetics discoveries such as being able to discover Down Syndrome in the womb, and present that option to the parents. "Do you want a child with Down syndrome? Do you want a child with autism?"
Document all these sorts of things, and I cautioned, we're going to need a whole batch of really quality ethics people in medicine and science to deal with these things because (I remember my exact words) it isn't going to be long before you get pregnant and you go to the OBGYN and he tells you, "Well, we've just done the tests and your son is going to have a tendency to be overweight, have freckles, and have red hair."
"I wouldn't want to do that to a child! Overweight and red hair with freckles? Why, oh, no! Let's terminate this pregnancy, and we'll try again and hope we get a different DNA mix," and everybody poo-pooed.
"Oh, come on, Rush. People are not that callous. That's not going to happen!"
Well, it is happening. Finally it's happening. This is a long time, but it's a See, I Told You So.
(story) "Controversy has erupted," this is over the UK, "over a new technique offered on the NHS which screens embryos for over 200 inherited diseases. Doctors are heralding the test as 'revolutionary' for the diagnosis of genetic disorders. But critics warn the ground-breaking technique is another step towards the creation of the 'designer baby'. They fear extended genetic screening may eventually be used to create babies chosen for physical characteristics, such as blue eyes or blond hair. Josephine Quintavalle, of Comment on Reproductive Ethics, said: 'We are venturing into the unknown with extended genetic testing because we know so little about this field."
That is story #1, and it's in the Daily Mail in the UK. The next story is from the Daily Telegraph in the UK: "Babies 'Designed' to be Free of Disease -- Two babies have become the first in the world to be born after their mother underwent a screening process pioneered in Britain to ensure that they were clear of an inherited disease. Freddie and Thomas Greenstreet's parents both carry genes that made it likely that their children would be born with a rare form of cystic fibrosis, a debilitating, inherited condition from which their first daughter suffers. But the new technique allows embryos to be screened and only the healthy ones used for IVF.
"Screening has been used regularly in the past for people having IVF but doctors at Guy's Hospital, London, have refined the procedure so that a much wider number of inherited diseases can be detected. Using the technique — known as pre-implantation genetic haplotyping (PGH) — doctors can develop tests for up to 6,000 conditions. ... Mrs Greenstreet defended her decision to reject the imperfect embryos and criticism that the technique would lead to 'designer babies'. She said she and husband Jim, 41, did not want to repeat the experience of caring for a seriously ill child.
"Opponents of genetic screening argue that disabled babies can have a good quality of life and screening for any reason is the start of a slippery slope towards parents choosing eye colour or other characteristics." Folks, when I'm right, I'm right, and I'm right most of the time, and that's what angers people out there who don't listen to the program. That kind of bombast. That's what we heard yesterday, right? People say, "You always have to talk about how great you are." Well, it isn't bragging if you can do it. Here's the next story: "Outrage as Church backs calls for severely disabled babies to be killed at birth." This also from the UK Daily Mail. "The Church of England has broken with tradition dogma by calling for doctors to be allowed to let sick newborn babies die.
"Christians have long argued that life should preserved at all costs - but a bishop representing the national church has now sparked controversy by arguing that there are occasions when it is compassionate to leave a severely disabled child to die. And the Bishop of Southwark, Tom Butler, who is the vice chair of the Church of England's Mission and Public Affairs Council, has also argued that the high financial cost of keeping desperately ill babies alive should be a factor in life or death decisions. The shock new policy from the church has caused outrage among the disabled." Well, too bad, disabled. This has been coming, it's been coming for years and years and year -- and they're just now getting brave enough to openly admit what they think is proper here.
This is all based on the convenience of the living, and it's what I said many, many, many moons ago. It's just going to end up the continuation of the cheapening of life, the degrading of the quality and sanctity of life, and who knows where this stuff is going to end, but it's certainly on a fast track, and it's heading down that track, and there's really not much to stop it out there, especially in Great Britain, I mean, with the society they have there. Much probably the same thing here. All of this is going to be cloaked in compassion. All this is going to be cloaked in love and devotion and caring and we only want to do the right thing here. Keep a sharp eye on this because I mentioned to you long ago that this was headed your way, and it is.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Here's the money quote, by the way. I want to go back to this baby story, because this says it all, and it makes my point from a couple or three weeks before the election all over again. This is a quote from a parent who's going through this screening to determine whether or not her embryos contain "flaws," if you will. "Unless you have lived with a child that has a terrible disability or disease then you can't speak about it." So once again we have the introduction of the innocent suffering victim, in this case the parent of a child who suffers from something, and we are supposed to identify with the child suffering, we are supposed to identify with the suffering of the living who are made inconvenient by this -- and you can't comment, folks.
You can't say a word unless you've been in her bra or her shoes. You have no right. You can't comment on the ethics, and this is the way the left shuts down debate, they shut down argument, and they attempt to discredit anyone who would be critical of what they do by claiming, "You have no shame. You would enforce suffering on people! You should die, you should get the disease, you should find out what it's like, you are evil, you are the devil personified." That's the way they react, and it is to stifle debate -- and most people, who lack any guts at all, who lack any courage at all, will sit around and say, "Okay. Okay. I don't want to offend you! I really don't to want offend you. If it's that bad, then yes, I have no right. You're right. I have not walked in your shoes or worn your bra. I do not know. It must be so. I won't say a word."
Well, I'll tell you what, let me make this personal. I'd say virtually 99% of people who criticize me on a day-to-day basis have never, ever hosted a radio talk show, much less the most listened to talk show, and until you do you have no right to comment on what I do and how I do it. Do you think that would fly? How about if Bush said, "You can't comment on me! You ever been here? You ever sat in the Oval Office? You ever been one door down the hall from where Clinton and Monica got it on with the cigar? You ever been in here and done this job? You can't comment on what I do. Who the hell do you think you are?"
They try that. "You can't comment on the military unless you have been in boots on the ground. You haven't been to Vietnam! If you haven't killed communists, and you didn't kill the Vietcong, you have no right to comment," and they shut off and they stifle debate on virtually everything this way, particularly on these medical and health issues, and these are ethical questions that confront all of society. But now we've got the creation of a new set of sympathetic victims, the parents of children who are disabled or diseased, and we're not supposed to feel bad for. No, we're supposed to kill them, and we're supposed to not even let them be born because they wouldn't want it anyway if they could tell us. They're screaming in the womb anyway, "Don't birth me," if we were just smart enough to understand it like if we were just smart enough to understand the dolphins when they cackle at us.
So this is what we're becoming. This parent, she says, "Unless you've lived with a child that has a terrible disability or disease, then you can't speak about it." There is no truth, other than that which I declare, and you have no right to question me if you've not personally experienced the same thing I have. So that's where we're headed, and actually it's not new. Democrats have been using this technique in ads all over and they're championing of certain victims for causes, Christopher Reeve comes to mind, there are countless of these examples, and I want to make one more point. You know, last week, maybe it was the week before. (You know, these days are running together. They're going by very fast here, folks. You realize Thanksgiving's a week from Thursday? Man.)
Anyway, I had this story about whether or not conservatism, liberalism, are genetic, is there a conservative gene, is there a liberal gene? Well, guess what's going to happen here, folks? I want to be the first to warn you. I want to be the first to predict you. All of this genetic science and all this genetic research will eventually lead to the discovery of the gene that determines whether or not a child is going to grow up conservative or liberal, and if the majority of the scientific community happens to be liberal, they will find a way to eliminate the conservative gene, and they'll wipe us out, and we won't even need elections to lose. We just won't be born!
Doctor walks in: "You know what we just discovered? Your kid could grow up to be Rush Limbaugh."
"No!"
"Yeah. You've got the gene."
"No! I will not have it!"
"Your kid could grow up to be Ronald Reagan."
"I refuse! That's an insult. Not my baby."
"Yes, we've identified the gene."
"I want an abortion right now!"
And so, conservatism will be aborted. The liberals are aborting themselves unintentionally when they discover the genes. There might be some conservative scientists out there and so forth and so on, but they of course will play it by the book. They'll play it ethically. So it's all heading, ladies and gentlemen, down the road. I don't think it's going to happen in our lifetime. But who cares about anything beyond our lifetime? We're all so selfish, who cares a rat's rear end about our kids. If we did, we wouldn't have voted the way we did on Tuesday. Who cares about the future. We all want it now, and everybody who comes after us is on their own, right? Well, this will lead to conservative being wiped off the face of the earth via genetic research. So enjoy it while you can. Hank in Hollywood, Florida. Welcome to the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Thank you very much, Mr. Limbaugh. Mega dittos to you.
RUSH: You bet, sir. Thank you.
CALLER: You know, I'm glad that you talked about this. I'm the father of a 15 month old daughter. My wife is currently pregnant right now about two months, and last pregnancy, three months into the pregnancy, we had this test done, and, you know, my wife called me at work said, "You know, they said our child is going to have Down syndrome and all these other things." I picked up the phone -- she was crying hysterically -- I picked up the phone and called the doctor's office, and said, "How dare you tell a pregnant woman this?" I said, "How do you know anything?" I explained this to my wife, "They don't know anything. It's only three months. They're not able to predict anything." As it goes, 15 months later my child's 15 months old, she's perfectly healthy, everything is within range, motor skills are perfect, weight is perfect. She's a beautiful child, actually a friend of mine just got pregnant, and he told me that his wife and him were going for that test. I said, "Listen, don't account for that test."
RUSH: Hold it. I want to make sure I understand, because I thought the Down syndrome test was infallible now?
CALLER: No, it's absolutely not infallible. As a matter of fact it could be just very well flawed.
RUSH: So they told you your daughter was going to have Down syndrome and gave you the choice?
CALLER: Didn't give us a choice, no, but informed my wife that there was a high probability that the child was going to have Down syndrome, and I interjected and I told her. I said, "Listen, dear, just calm down. There's no way they can tell. It's only three months into the pregnancy. There's no way, and then I proceeded to call the doctor's office screaming at the nurse."
RUSH: She's totally fine? She has no Down syndrome? Is that what you're saying?
CALLER: Absolutely not. There's nothing wrong with my child. She's actually a beautiful baby girl.
RUSH: Good.
CALLER: And hopefully be able to grow up as bright as you.
RUSH: Well, that would be accomplishing something--
CALLER: (Laughing.)
RUSH: I wish her the best. They hate me for those kinds of comments, too, Hank.
CALLER: Well, we love you for them.
RUSH: I've learned something. I think this is probably going to cause a spate of calls. Any of you guys in there heard calls like this, a misdiagnosis, or prediction of -- you have, Dawn? I thought this stuff, amniocentesis, I thought it was pretty much a hundred percent or very close to it. But, you know, having not procreated, ladies and gentlemen, I'm not that familiar with it. In fact, I have no right to talk about this because I don't have kids.
END TRANSCRIPT
Read the Background Material...
(UK: Outcry as clinic offers 'designer baby' embryo screening for 200 diseases)
(UKT: Babies 'designed' to be free of disease)
(ABC: Using The Body's Own Stem Cells To Grow New Arteries)
(UKDM: Outrage as Church backs calls for severely disabled babies to be killed at birth)
(Chandigarh Newsline: Now, vision possible with stem cells)
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