A London fertility clinic has had its operating licence suspended owing to what was modestly described as "significant concerns". The Homerton Fertility Centre has been ordered by the UK's government fertility regulator, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, to cease new procedures during investigations.
The clinic has admitted that there were three separate incidents. "Errors in some freezing processes" had occurred, and "a small number of embryos" had perished or were "undetectable". In other words, they could not be found after thawing.
According to the BBC, as many as 150 embryos belonging to up to 45 patients. could have been destroyed or lost.
What response is adequate to such a tragedy? One could weep, or rant. Or perhaps descend into riffing on Oscar Wilde's cynical bon mot: "To lose one parent, Mr Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness."
It's hard to know what to say, but gross carelessness like this are not uncommon in the IVF industry. The debacle at Homerton must be an opportunity to take stock.
The fertility industry claims that it promotes life. But if embryonic life happens to be "imperfect", it is disposed of. This hugely profitable industry claims that it can solve the misery of childlessness, but it actually contributes to it by offering the false reassurance that women will be able to have children in middle age. In reality, it is an infertility industry.
Without the slightest sense of irony, the British media has been in mourning over the tragedy of the 150-year-old Sycamore Gap tree. It was a perfectly formed sycamore growing in a gap in Hadrian's Wall in Northumberland. It was the most famous tree in Britain and featured in the Hollywood film, Robin Hood Prince of Thieves. Last September, vandals toppled it with a chainsaw.
Recently, the BBC visited a "secret National Trust centre" where cuttings from the iconic tree are being grown. "New life has sprung from the rescued seeds and twigs of the Sycamore Gap tree," wrote the BBC reporter. There are now hopes that a new tree could eventually grow in the Gap.
No responsible person would ever condone the wilful felling of a healthy, beautiful tree, but I believe that there was more public dismay over the iconic tree than over the destroyed embryos.
Even worse, with Labour MPs now working to decriminalise abortion, we may soon have abortion up to birth and even a little bit beyond, for any reason -- including for reasons of sex and race -- with no legal consequences at all for those involved.
Even if this fails, there will be little chance of protecting embryos in fertility clinics when we already ignore over ten million unborn babies deliberately (and legally) destroyed in abortion since 1967.
And far from a public inquiry being held into this appalling situation, moves are underway to criminalise any show of disapproval, even in the case of silent prayer, while violent pro-abortion protests are virtually ignored.
The Guardian has reported that a document from Prevent, a government program to stop radicalisation, has included "believing in socialism, communism, anti-fascism and anti-abortion in a list of potential signs of ideologies leading to terrorism".
After reporting on the fertility clinic and the Sycamore Gap tree, the popular UK breakfast show Good Morning Britainwent on to discuss The Zone of Interest, the recent Oscar-winning film showing how Rudolf Hoess, commandant at Auschwitz concentration camp, lived quietly with his family in a charming house adjoining the camp, while millions were being murdered on the other side of their neat and tidy garden fence.
At the post-War Nuremberg Trials, abortion was regarded as a crime against humanity, and the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights the UN enshrined the right to life from conception.
Ironically, discussion of The Zone of Interest on Good Morning Britain centred on how it was possible to ignore mass murder even under our very noses. This is a very good question; but the mass killing of embryos and unborn children is unlikely ever to make the news.
When will someone make a film on abortion titled Zone of No Interest Whatsoever?