Lawrence Rifkin questions whether “making babies is the meaning of life”:
Do we laud the parents of extremely large Mormon, Hasid, Catholic, and Muslim families as public exemplars of a meaningful life? Do we honor the most popular sperm donor as humankind’s greatest philanthropist? Even if our genes get perpetuated, our genes are not us. After a few generations of genetic mixing and shuffling, there’s unlikely to be anything unique or identifying about us in our offspring. If your great-great-grandchild has your brown eyes and your blood type, but no other personality or physical traits uniquely identifiable to you, how much of “you” has really lived on? Further, if the idea is to perpetuate our genetic lineage, what if we have children, but no grandchildren?
The above photo comes from photographer Rebecca Martinez. A few months ago, James Estrin interviewed Martinez about her submersion into the Reborn subculture, “a growing group, almost exclusively women, who collect shockingly lifelike handmade dolls of newborn babies.”
The Dish 