Mad Cow Disease Threatens Designer Baby Industry

I don't know where to begin. This story lays out the utter desperation of one Julie Peterson of North Carolina and others presumably like her who are frustrated in their desire to create a new master race of Nordic Gods (note the gauzy glam portrait in the article). Because of our government's desire to protect our population from Mad Cow disease, certain, shall we say, effluents are no longer deemed safe for use in the creation of six-foot tall warrior queens. This has forced Ms. Peterson back to the Geheimstadt, whoops, homeland, to tap the keg of he who previously supplied the "essence" in the creation of her first "...beautiful Viking baby..." As luck would have it (or perhaps the biology of a 43 year old woman), her latest injection was unsuccessful.

Let's start with the obvious. Ms. Peterson's quest derives from two main influences...the first, to create yet another Viking baby. The second, is to ensure that her next child would have the same father as the first.

I'm generally in favor of efforts to bring babies to infertile couples. I realize I may deviate from some visions of conservatism here, but that's the way it is. I am however, very disturbed by the growing craze of women simply having babies on their own, deeming the presence of a father as unimportant. Let's face facts; we all know someone who has grown up without a father or with an uninvolved father, and many of them are healthy, well-adjusted people. That said, we tend to marvel at such people because of what they have overcome. All things being equal, children grow up healthier and better adjusted in two-parent families. Starting a child out from the get go with no father immediately stacks the deck against them. That such a decision is reached primarily due to the selfish desires of the mother (immortality through children!) reflects poorly upon these women. That such a child would be conceived according to some genetic plan for visual attractiveness bespeaks a shallowness in the mother matched only by her selfishness.

People in this world face real problems. Julie Peterson isn't one of them--though I imagine her daughter might someday be....