I wrote earlier this week about a woman in San Antonio named Jennalee Ryan who is selling designer embryos to interested buyers who want have children. In my earlier post I noted the ethical problems associated with her business. Today the Associate Press reports that Ryan is under investigation by the FDA. People have questioned whether Ryan’s business amounts to eugenics. One section from the AP story is particularly illuminating in this regard: Ryan’s service involves a New York physician who uses donated eggs and sperm to create embryos that can be bought for $5,000 a pair. Ryan said she allows customers to choose embryos after reviewing the donors’ characteristics,…

The Washington Post reports on a Texas based company that produces batches of ready-made human embryos to sell to interested buyers. The story says that single women, infertile couples, gay men, and lesbians will have the opportunity to take advantage of this service in order to have children of their own.

The Rev. John Yates and Os Guinness explain why they left the Episcopal church in an article in today’s Washington Post. Yates and Guinness write: “The core issue in why we left is not women’s leadership. It is not ‘Episcopalians against equality,’ as the headline on a recent Post op-ed by Harold Meyerson put it. It is not a ‘leftward’ drift in the church. It is not even primarily ethical — though the ordination of a practicing homosexual as bishop was the flash point that showed how far the repudiation of Christian orthodoxy had gone.

In the most recent issue of Touchstone magazine, W. Ross Blackburn takes on Richard Hays’ ambiguous stance on abortion. (Blackburn’s article is not available online, and that is why you must get a subscription to Touchstone magazine as soon as humanly possible!) Richard Hays’ The Moral Vision of the New Testament is widely regarded as the most influential book on New Testament ethics today. It has been proclaimed by Christianity Today as one of the most enduring books of the twentieth century, an eminent work of “evangelical scholarship.” Yet many evangelicals might be surprised to learn that Richard Hays’ position on abortion is somewhat left of the evangelical mainstream.

Pastor John Piper tells the story of a woman who “prophesied” over him after a church service one day: “Once a woman prophesied over me that my pregnant wife would give me a daughter not a fourth son, and that my wife would die in childbirth. That was not a helpful prophecy. It was pointless. And, as you know, it proved false. Love did not govern the use of that gift. That is not the way saving faith uses gifts” (source).