Just this morning at work, we were brainstorming for an upcoming event in Johannesburg. We found ourselves discussing what’s making rounds in the news. We ended up talking about teenage and child pregnancies and embryo freezing. Some say that the process, embryo freezing, brings about the making of more babies not less; so, this should be enough to make pro-life campaigners happy. But then when do we, if at all we have to, understand that morals and ethics transcend beliefs, or at least that they have to? 

I, for one challenge this assumption and wish to bring on further clarification. Human life is never a product in some factory line. Or is it an object which is in high demand for which we need to provide a supply and deliver? This is the belief that those against embryo-freezing are against.

The question is, how can this be ethical? Which brings me to another deceptive argument being used to justify such a position. Pro-life activists are mainly being criticized for bringing ethics and virtue into it. But let us once again call a spade a spade; in actuality, in this world of relativism, we do all agree on some absolutes, no? While at this thought, kindly remember morals and ethics transcend beliefs or at least they are essential.

No law allows us to go about shooting or robbing each other, although there exist places where anarchy reigns. In contrast to what relativists believe, there are some few absolute truths; these same absolute truths, which they seem so repulsed by, might be in fact what is keeping them safe and alive in the world of today.

Also, with regards to belief and morality, I hope that honesty and ethics do occupy a place in our society and are not only left to religion. I hope the public is wholly informed to be able to distinguish the difference between religion and ethics and not confuse the two — similarly, the intertwined relationship of morals, ethics and beliefs. 

To further clarify this distinction, it is convenient to say that it is thanks to this distinction that we can rely on the fact that doctors and all other professionals, for that matter, do not need to be religious to act ethically. This is because they are bound by a code of ethics that transcends any belief they might hold.

For love has no gender or status and should be open for all to share and to give away to the many rejected children who already exist. So I hope that for those who want to dismiss ethics in this whole debate, now it becomes more blatantly clear how ethics has everything to do with it. And ‘do no harm’ I consider is the Hippocratic Oath that all doctors are bound by, i.e. to protect human life.

We would be out of touch with reality not to recognize the money-making business that will start operating once the legal framework for the system is set up. So another hope I have is that we can start seeing more clearly the sometimes puerile parody of plans in such issues. I want to urge the public and the government to encourage laws and policies that have both the pain of people encountering fertility issues, the interests of children and the future generation at heart.

I can never assume to truly possess the ability to understand fully the pain of those people who want to parent and who biologically cannot; I can only humbly imagine it but what I do know is that true familial love which is unconditional and wants only the best for all its offspring, presented with the threat of Solomon’s sword, would not ask for what it wants at whatever price (refer to the biblical story).

I commend the government instead of legalizing such seriously morally dubious scientific practices, to focus instead, on policies that make it easier for all those ready to adopt. For love has no gender or status and should be open for all to share and to give away to the many unwanted children who already exist and who are wholly in need of it.