In an introduction to a book about children adopted as frozen embryos, or “snowflake babies,” politician Mike Huckabee writes:
“… I met Maria Lancaster in 2007. I was running for president when she approached me on the campaign trail in Bellevue, Washington, and handed me a photograph of her daughter, Elisha.
Elisha came to her parents through embryo adoption. A surplus embryo from another couple’s fertility treatment, she was frozen for four years at just two cells. In 2003, she was taken out of the freezer and placed inside Maria’s womb. When Elisha was born, she was the 36th child in the world to be born in such a fashion…
I thanked Maria and tucked the snapshot she gave me in my wallet. I couldn’t quit thinking about this little girl who represented such a clear picture that life is valuable. Elisha lives a full life and is loved by her parents. And I couldn’t help but wonder, What would have happened if Jeff and Maria Lancaster had not considered and valued the fact that an embryo is a human life? She could have been a medical experiment or discarded as medical waste.
During ABC’s Nightline program later in the campaign, an interviewer asked me, “What do you have in your wallet?” I pulled out Elisha’s picture and briefly told the story.
I still carry her picture in my wallet today. I have kept it there for six years. When people ask me why I am pro-life, I open my wallet, bring out the photo and show them a living reason. I have to ask them, “Would you be willing to tell the mother of this child that her child wasn’t worth saving?”…
Elisha is a real person. She is not just tissue. She is not fodder for medical experimentation. She is a loving little girl with a powerful story. And she, and others like her, are worth saving.”
Mike Huckabee “Foreword” from Souls on Ice: True Miracle Stories of Embryo Adoption (Beaverton, Oregon: Good Catch Publishing, 2013) 21 – 22
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