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According to several news outlets, the world's first "healthy" baby has been born as a result of a new procedure that uses DNA from three people.  Read more here:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/sep/27/worlds-first-baby-born-using-dna-from-three-parents?utm_source=email+marketing+Mailigen&utm_campaign=News+10.4.16&utm_medium=email

For many decades now, conservative Christians and pro-life organizations have been warning the medical community that they are simply going too far in these reproductive technologies.  Wading through the myriad ethical issues raised by this particular procedure is like trying to sprint in the shallow end of a swimming pool with weights tied to your ankles!

First, I find it very ironic that the Doctor who performed this procedure did so in Mexico where it's no holds barred, and gave his reasoning as "To save lives is the ethical thing to do."

Wait, what?  How did this procedure save a life?  A bit later in the news article referenced above, we discover that Dr. Zhang actually created five embryos with this procedure, only one of which "developed normally."  So what happened to the other four babies?  What was done to save their lives?  I'm confused.

I would never make light of the pain experienced by the couple receiving this procedure.  They have experienced miscarriages and even lost young children to a congenital disease passed down by the mother.  My heart goes out to them.  But who's to say that if the couple would have tried five more times to get pregnant the normal way that one of the babies would have "developed normally" without this crazy procedure?   And who's to say this newly born baby will not develop a disease or condition of his or her own, completely apart from the mother's DNA influence?

I'm all for couples being fruitful and multiplying!  But couples must count the cost.  It appears this couple was completely OK with destroying the life of four of their babies just to get that one "healthy" baby.  And couples all over the world (especially the western world) have decided that keeping some of their babies frozen indefinitely never to see the light of day is OK if it helps them get that one "healthy" baby.

And who decided that the be-all-end-all standard for having babies was "a healthy baby" anyway?  A good friend of mine in North Carolina who has a Down Syndrome child often corrects people when they tell expecting mothers, "Well, as long as your baby is healthy that's all that matters."  So a DS child doesn't matter?  Autistic children don't matter?  My friend would often quip, "Or even if the baby is not healthy, the child is still a precious gift from God."

Amen.  Preach on.

God help us.  We are digging ourselves a very, very deep hole.  I totally get the desire to have biological children.  It's a desire derived from our Divine design.  But to allow that desire to become Lord is dangerous idolatry.  I wonder if anyone directed this Jordanian couple to the thousands of orphans in their neighboring, war-torn countries waiting and longing for adoption?  If they could afford this procedure, they surely could have afforded to adopt.

If someone does not step in and stop this medical insanity, the devaluing of life will expand to the point that anyone deemed "unhealthy" will easily be dispatched.  And the irony of it is that this is all done under the guise of valuing life.  That's always how sin works, friends.  Trickery and rationalization are sin's favorite mediums.  And no medical procedure yet invented has been able to produce a sin-free baby.  That's one universal genetic defect that can never be cured except by the Blood of Jesus.

Be careful my brothers and sisters in Christ.  "Children are a heritage from the Lord" (Psalm 127:3).  But making them at all costs will turn out to be too costly in the end.  For it turns out, as exhilarating as procreation is, and as precious as babies are, they both make very poor saviors.

by Keith McWhorter