Beginning a New Book

I spent most of today with Dr. Joy Riley, who has agreed to work with me on my next book, "What does it mean to be human?" Joy is a mother of three sons, wife of a physician in ob-gyn practice, and is herself an MD and a trained bioethicist. We spent about five hours just kicking ideas around and she was coming up with some pretty interesting stuff which demonstrates just how so many elements of our society are being either being reworked, or are being reworked because of the manner in which the culture is reshaping itself.

We were talking about In Vitro Fertilization, and she made an interesting point that I had no idea of. That is that not only is this very profitable work for doctors (who don't want it regulated in any way), but it also is a growth industry as a result of the sexual revolution that began in the Sixties. I wasn't sure what she meant until she explained that the hugest degree of infertility is as a result of blockage of the fallopian tubes in a woman. The overwhelming cause for this is the outcome of a sexually transmitted disease of some kind or another....

This book is going to be an narrative-driven, investigative piece that attempts to make the challenge to our humanity accessible to as large a swathe as the population as possible. We are going to need a lot of prayers.

Richard Kew