Question: A white New York couple is relinquishing custody of one of the twin boys the wife delivered last year to a black New Jersey couple, who are the child's biological parents. A fertility doctor mistakenly implanted the white woman with an embryo belonging to the black couple. Should this sort of business mishap prompt Congress to step in and regulate fertility clinics?Erbe: Clearly we have passed the sublime, surpassed the ridiculous and are now somewhere in the Twilight Zone.
The New York couple mentioned above, the Fasanos, had two healthy children: one that was biologically theirs and one that was not -- all due to the incompetence or carelessness of a fertility doctor. But this is hardly the first time we've experienced fertility melodramas that sound like science fiction plots. And it is certainly no reason to think federal regulation can help.
But there is one thing I, personally, would like to see Congress do. That is make sure those of us who won't go anywhere near a fertility clinic are not forced to pay for the services provided to those who do in the form of higher health insurance premiums. But as with family law, health insurance, too, is a matter of state law. So like those who call for congressional action, I, too, will have to start lobbying my state legislators instead.
Shiner: I ask my colleague: If we really think that Congress is too clumsy to handle important issues, then why don't we act like it? If we think the best public-policy decisions are made at the local level, where most of the actual information is, then why don't we shift more power to local levels?
Why? Because there is a disconnect between rhetoric and action; it is a disconnect of the same sort that existed when President Clinton claimed that "the era of big government is over" but then proceeded to expand it. Too often we talk a good game without following through. I agree that biotechnology issues, along with a host of others, are usually "best left to the states." What I don't agree with is saying one thing and then doing another.
Bonnie Erbe is host of the PBS program "To the Contrary." Josette Shiner is president of Empower America.