Sins of the Mothers

Josef Mengele was clearly an intelligent man; he obtained a doctorate of anthropology in 1935 and a doctorate in medicine in 1938.  Only a few years later he earned the name the Angel of Death at the Nazi concentration camp in Auschwitz.  As prisoners arrived on the train, without a hint of compassion or remorse he would direct some to the gas chambers and ovens and others to the work camps.  However, his major interest lay in the experiments he would do on children.  He had a lifelong interests in twins, and as soon as twins were identified coming into the camp the guards would round them up and deliver them to the doctor.  I would rather not describe the gruesome details of experiments that he perfomed; you can look them up yourself if you would like.  Many of his "specimens" underwent horrific operations, often without anesthesia.  Some were killed and dissected.  Others were given infections, to see how the diseases would progress. 

He claimed to be fond of his "little children," offering them candies and treats, right up until the point he experimented on them or butchered them.  After the war, he escaped to Brazil, and later to Paraguay.  Despite the post-war search for Nazi war criminals, which successfully gathered up the likes of Adolf Eichmann and Klaus Barbie, Mengele was never found and later died while swimming in the Atlantic, probably of a stroke.  Besides Mengele, there were many other Nazi doctors who were involved in cruel medical experiments.  Many of you may recall the Nuremberg war crimes trials.  There were actually twelve trials, and The Doctor's Trial was the first.  Twenty three Nazis were prosecuted for their barbaric research.  Eight were acquitted, seven were executed, and eight were given prison terms.  There were three basic goals of their research: to improve the survival of German troops, to test medical drugs and procedures, and to confirm the idea of Aryan genetic superiority (1).  They thought they were advancing the cause of medicine and science.  They all denied that they had done anything wrong.

As a physician, I find it hard to accept that another person who claimed to be a doctor could do such atrocious things and be able to live with himself. Somehow, these people must have been able to convince themselves that they were justified in what they were doing.

Sometimes you read a story and it disturbs you.  I read one this week that has done that for several days now.  In Berkely, California, there is a lesbian couple who were married in 1990 by a rabbi.  Such things have become commonplace in our society, in one state or another.  Then they adopted a young boy, Tommy.  And when Tommy became age 7, living with his two mothers, he announced that he wanted to be a girl.  So his mothers decided to help him. 

There are many wise and intelligent physicians in the Berkely area.  There must be, for there is actually a Center of Excellence for Transgender Health at the University of California San Francisco.  The doctors there decided that a child of 7 should be able to change their gender if that was what they or the parents wanted, so they began injecting him with drugs to block his normal male hormones at age eight.  So Tommy with two mommies is now Tammy,  age eleven.

And the family has lots of support.  "...we belong to a religious community that was incredibly supportive.  They make it a point when we are in synagogue to come over and tell Tammy, 'Oh, you look so pretty today.'" (2)

I guess the story speaks for itself .  Not every doctor agrees with what is being done.  Dr. Paul McHugh, professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins, was quoted as saying, "This is child abuse.  It's like performing liposuction on an anorexic child." (3) That pretty much sums up my thoughts.  But some doctor had to prescribe the hormones for Tommy, and since they are done as an implant which is changed once a year, some doctor is actually doing the surgical implantation.  Tommy is seen by educated endocrinologists, psychiatrists, and therapists.  And somehow they are convinced they are doing the right thing.

So you have a couple of mothers who think it is fine to begin pumping their eight year-old boy with hormone blockers because he thinks he wants to be a girl.  You have doctors who believe this macabre experiment in altering a little boy created in God's image is just fine.  You have a synagogue that gives its stamp of religious approval.  And the state of California must not have a problem with it, either. In Exodus 20:5 God tells us, "For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me."  What about the sins of the mothers? 

I agree with Dr. McHugh.  This is child abuse.  A little boy is suffering chemical castration to please the notions of high-minded people who see no moral problem with what they are doing.  That they are intellectually able to convince themselves that this is appropriate is a sad demonstration of the lost state of man. There is a long list of the misguided in this twisted tale, but I reserve my highest condemnation for the physicians, who have lost all since of direction.  They may be educated in medicine, but not morality, and medicine without morality is a science that hates God.

(1) http://www.ushmm.org/research/library/bibliography/index.php?content=medical_experiments
(2) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2043345/The-California-boy-11-undergoing-hormone-blocking-treatment.html
(3) http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/10/17/controversial-therapy-for-young-transgender-patients-raises-questions/