Designer Babies

I was struck by the casual and self-absorbed manner in which Anne and Jeff Bradley practice deception as an integral part of their lives. After agreeing to talk with your writer, Anne’s instinct was not to tell Jeff that she was going to the interview until after it was over. When she does go to the interview, she brings the child, Ashley, evidently against the strong wishes and better judgment of Jeff, who wishes to remain anonymous.

Friends are not told of Ashley’s origin and, perhaps most tragic of all, the child herself is deceived by the two people in the world she loves and trusts the most, who daily live a lie that Jeff is Ashley’s biological father. What happens to all that intellect when one day she finds out that her life has been structured around lies?

Kathleen Mercer-Hartert

Los Angeles