Occasional Tales

Baby or hot potato? Janet and John want to have a baby, but can’t. They do have the money for in vitro fertilisation with donated sperm and an egg, and they hire the womb of Edith Honeydew, who gives birth to a baby, which is called Sam. When Mr Spick, the consultant, phones Janet and John, he finds that they’ve split up and don’t want the baby. Nor does Ms Honeydew when Mr Spick phones her. And when the IVF company tracks down the donors of the original genetic material, one can’t be found and the other isn’t interested. The problem is, whose baby is it? The answer in my mind is Janet and John’s; not that this is a satisfactory answer. You could simply treat Sam the Baby as if he was something you’d bought at a shop, but while returning a book or DVD is one thing, returning a baby is quite another. He’d have to be offered up for adoption unless Mr Spick took the matter to court, which could well rule that Janet and John, the original purchasers, were responsible for the child. The bi...

And in with the newer. Mrs Green is about to go on holiday when finding that she’s pregnant, she has the embryo removed and deep frozen so that she can have it re-implanted afterwards. But while she’s on holiday, she meets someone else and decides not only to divorce Mr Green, but also to have her new paramour’s baby instead. And she has the original embryo destroyed much to Mr Green’s disgust. The removal of the embryo in the first place seems a little strange and somewhat indulgent, but it doesn’t appears to be reprehensible. The destruction of the original embryo without Mr Green’s consent seems unethical. On the other hand, what’s he going to do with the embryo? Find a surrogate of some sort? A very understanding girlfriend? But if Mr and Mrs Green can’t agree on the fate of the embryo, whose cause wins the day? The party who wants to keep the embryo? Tomorrow’s scenario is another from the Big Book of Unwanted Baby Stories.

And the excuses. The excuse which the nurse peddles for using Toni as a life support machine is pregnancy, which would require her to support another life just as she’s supporting the other patient. But Toni would seem to view pregnancy, whether it was planned or not, as a natural phenomenon against which this contrasts as something unnatural. Anyway, at this point, they start questioning her mental state, recalling a blow to the head and how her relatives thought she’d be in favour of the doctors’ actions. they sedate her and leave her in a coma-like state for the remaining five weeks. But when they revive Toni, she’s ashamed of her refusal to play her part and thanks the staff for all their help. She even gives the biotechnologist a big bunch of flowers. (In a moment of extreme irony, which I’m adding for my own amusement, the man reacts badly to the pollen and dies.) Did the doctors do the right thing after all? Their excuse for sedating Toni sounds a little specious, but perhaps we...

It’s like The Matrix. Toni Chestnut gets knocked down by a car and eventually comes to in hospital where, she’s told, she’ll be for six weeks. But she soon realises that she’s actually all right. When she starts trying to disconnect herself from the machines, the doctors stop her because her kidneys are actually being used to help another patient. They weren’t able to ask her for her permission because she was unconscious when the decision needed to be made. Toni wants her body back, but the doctors explain that the man she’s helping is a biotechnologist who has developed strains of rice that help millions. And he has a girlfriend and three small children. Toni is unmoved and wants the machine to be disconnected from her. Should she be disconnected from the machine even if the other patient dies? On the one hand, the doctors needed someone to keep the other patient alive and Toni happened to be unable to give her consent; on the other, once she’s conscious shouldn’t the doctors acquies...

The confusing Father Black. Mrs Mauve contracts a form of flu which will result in her baby being blind. Although she could have an abortion, she decides to have the child anyway.[ 1 ] Mrs Brown also catches the same flu and is warned against getting pregnant in the following six months or risk her child also being born blind. But she ignores the doctor’s advice. Father Black, who’s supposedly an expert on morality, says that both women have done the right thing. But is he right himself?[ 2 ] Mrs Blue is in the same position as Mrs Mauve, but knows of a herbal remedy which will protect the foetus. Yet she’s not prepared to stump up the money (the grand sum of 50p) for it. But Father Black accuses Mrs Blue of betraying her unborn child and condemning it to a life of disadvantage. She says she won’t play God with its life.[ 3 ] Who’s right and why has Father Black changed his tune? I don’t know. Personally, I think Mrs Mauve should abort the foetus and try again, but it’s her choice. Mrs...

Green and red. Can something be red and green at the same time? I assume that this means the thing can simultaneously red and green without these being discrete colours or some wavelength in the visible spectrum which stands halfway between them ( somewhere between orange and yellow ). As far as colours are concerned, such a thing isn’t possible, although I can imagine some state in which the colours shimmer a bit like an animated blend function in a graphics program. According to the book, there are things which can be in two complementary states simultaneously such as negative numbers which, when multiplied together, produce a positive number, but which can have square roots. Unfortunately, I think Cohen has misunderstood i. Also, I don’t think this is necessarily an example of something being X and not X simultaneously. I’m not sure. If anything, specific opinions may contradict our general outlook. Think of Dave “Lost my bike again” Cameron. He’s a Tory, but I believe he’s very pro...

Is he bald? Well, let’s see. In one version of Uncle Angel’s historical novel, Brush with a Comb, (which is set in the future) we read Louis XXVI was so hirsute that people said his head had been mugged by a shrub. But in a later draft we read “Look out!” muttered one of the guards through the side of his mouth. “Here comes King Chrome Dome.” Of course, the reviewers noted that Louis XXVI seemed to be both bald and not bald, the novel being somewhat inconsistent on this point. I think the question is pointless. If the King of France doesn’t currently exist, then it’s not currently possible to answer the question. Is snow white? Yes. I assume that because the basic building block of snow is ice, which is clear, that there’s some physical property which makes snow appear white once crystals form flakes. It’s probably like clear plastic which, once you’ve folded it a few times, becomes silvery and translucent. Are all bachelors unmarried men? Only if we’re using the word to mean “man who ...