The day before yesterday we made the passage from Virgin Gorda to Tortola. We decided upon a quick shot over to Tortola and a overnight at Trellis Bay. Here we would attend the full moon party and overnight in preparation for our next morning shot over to the Baths.

We are writing this blog from the Fat Virgin Cafe, located near the north end of Virgin Sound, The Fat Virgin provides internet access and a close dinghy dock for Wally. This morning we have already been out running and hiking. The run took us to the north tip of the island along a new area that is being developed called Oil Nut Bay.

The passage took under 12 hours. We left on the 1730 bridge out of the Dutch side of St. Maarten. Wind was light, sea conditions 4 to 5 feet in north swells. We arrived Virgin Gorda at 0520 or there about with plenty of light. A quick motor into virgin gorda sound and we had the anchor down and breakfast cooked before 0830. Caught 3 fish on the passage, kept one. More later.

The boat is ready. The crew is ready. Customs is done. Dockage is paid for. Bottom is clean. Freezer is pulled way down cold. Fridge is full. What else? Well about 2 pages of maintenance check list items have been checked. As well about 3 pages of other checklist items have been run. We plan to leave today on the 1730 bridge and head for Virgin Gorda directly.

As I sit here in front of the computer doing some research to help my mother I have become outraged. My mother has Parkinson's disease, or at least has the symptoms of it, for a long while no doctor would or could? make a diagnosis. As I sit here researching available treatment options a great inequality became obvious to me, it seems that in the US culture it is ok to medically induce a human to have a "litter" of babies then cull (read selectively kill) the unwanted ones but it is unethical to create a baby for tissue usage to save the life of another human.

I find this double standard appalling, the ethics or wrong doing between creating a litter of humans and disposing of the unwanted sexes or unwanted for X reason ones is no more kind or acceptable than simply creating a human fetus for medical experimentation. O yes then we do have the complainers that say culling from the "human litter" example is acceptable for diseased or deformed specimens. Sure I would have to agree with this that modern medicine give us the opportunity to prevent problems. BUT if the "human litter" was induced by modern drugs, which in most cases of extreme multiple fetus pregnancies they are, we are back to a simple medical experiment. Grow as many litter mates as we can, then harvest the acceptable ones for a birth by culling the unacceptable.

So the birth of the few selected and their ongoing life is at the expense of what was going to be their brothers and sisters. Where does my logic fail? But it seems to me that in the case of stem cell research or stem cell treatment, the harvesting of fetal tissue, or even the planned production of fetal tissue is not different than the case cited above minus the direct family relation where a brother or sister gave their life to continue that of a selected sibling. What gives?