Quebec Life Coalition

As of this August 5, the government of Quebec intends to fully subsidize "assisted procreation" (procéation assistée). There's almost nothing right about this move.

First of all, the Quebec government is confused in its use of terminology: it lumps in many things under the rubric "assisted procreation" that don’t belong together. And with damaging results: for in vitro fertilisation (IVF), which is covered under this new program is not a fertility treatment per se, because it doesn't increase fertility--it's doesn't repair or treat the reproductive organs; rather, it creates a human being artificially. This has huge ethical implications which they are trying to hide behind the label "fertility treatment", the same way some people try to hide the ethical implications of abortion behind the words "contraception" or even "reproductive health".

So the use of dubious terminology to cloud the ethical debate concerning IVF is bad enough. Now, if we separate the real fertility treatments (hormone therapies, etc.) from the IVF, we can address their deficiencies separately.

The hormone treatments are bad because they are 1) expensive and 2) reinforce the idea that a child is "owed" and so "property". There is no "right to have a child". But by forcing all taxpayers to pay for expensive fertility treatments, we are creating this de facto right to have a child, and thus reinforcing the idea that a child is some-thing that can be given from one person to another---a piece of property.

But free IVF is the worst aspect of this government "health" initiative. What's wrong with IVF? First of all, during the process of coming up with a viable embryo for implantation into the carrier's womb, some of the excess embryos that are produced are eliminated. IVF is therefore an abortive process that kills human beings. Next, because the embryo results not from the total self-giving of two loving spouses but from a laboratory intervention in a clinical setting, it reduces a human being to being somebody's property, again, owed to a couple because of some kind of "right" to have a child.

A child just isn't property, to be manufactured by the government at taxpayers' expense and handed over to whomever feels they want a child. A child isn't there to fulfill your needs, but rather you should be there for it. But IVF reinforces the mentality that the child is your property, and that it is there to fulfill your needs.

To top it all off, we’ll be faced with the irony that while every year starting Aug. 5 thousands of infertile couples (inculding gay / lesbian "couples") from Quebec (and elsewhere!) will be seeking expensive treatments (at a cost of 80 million a year overall) to "acquire" their children, 30,000 women across the hospital corridor, so to speak, will be killing their perfectly viable and healthy unborn children through abortion, again at taxpayer's expense.

Bolduc argued that this program will help increase Quebec’s moribund birth rate, but the laudable end doesn't justify the means he proposes, for the reasons given above. But I think that he's politically and philosophically unable to deal with the real reasons Quebec has a low birthrate: the breakup of the family, rampant nihilism, hedonism and egoism, lack of hope, lack of religion, lack of a moral compass.