biological unit, grounded in how God made us, and a social unit. The state's authority derives from the family, not vice versa. Human beings-whether state legislators, federal bureaucrats, or church conventions-cannot simply pass a law to change what marriage is. How have we come to this point? Some of today's confusions about family date from the time when our culture began to treat sex as an end in itself, and to separate it from procreation. People have always wanted the pleasures of sex without its result, namely, children. "Sex without responsibility" captured the unique selling proposition of the prostitution industry. In the latter half of the 20th century, technology made that proposition universal. One does not have to be a Catholic or to reject birth-control entirely to recognize that contraceptives had a profound effect on the culture's mores about sex. Separating sex from procreation meant that each could go his separate way. Sex without the family commitments of marriage became socially acceptable. Sex became a matter of recreation, a jolt of physical pleasure, unconnected to family attachments. This led not only to promiscuity but to the acceptance of pornography and the constant sexual stimulation of our entertainment industry, in which sex obviously has nothing to do with having children. Homosexuality too makes perfect sense, if sex is seen as simply a type of pleasure one can have, apart from its biological purpose. Often, instead of bringing couples into marriage, sex becomes an occasion for breaking up marriages. In their lust for unrestrained sexual pleasure, people consider the marriage bond too constraining and start looking for other partners. Most seriously of all, the separation of sex from procreation means that when sex by accident does produce a child, it is nothing more than an unwanted byproduct. It becomes perfectly acceptable, under this mindset, to get rid of the unwanted "product of conception" (to use a common medical euphemism) by means of abortion. Once our culture began approving of sex without procreation, the next phase of our dehumanization could begin: procreation without sex. It is no longer that unusual to conceive children via artificial insemination in a culture dish. When the sperm and egg are from a married couple and the microscopic baby is planted inside the womb of the otherwise infertile mother, this might be a valid use of the medical vocation. But increasingly, the baby is placed in a surrogate's womb, so that the woman who gives birth to the child is not the biological mother. Another option now available is to buy sperm and eggs from commercial businesses that harvest genetic material from Nobel prize winners or beauty queens, enabling would-be parents to have "designer babies" with no biological heritage from themselves. As reproductive technology becomes more and more sophisticated, as the human genetic code is cracked, and as genetic engineering becomes bigger and bigger business, expect more to come. Not just cloning, not just the genetic engineering of children according to our consumer preference, but childbirth itself may become a relic of primitive medical practices. Once an artificial womb is perfected, genetic material can be controlled in the lab, in a way it cannot be in the human body. It is understandable that women in labor may well, at the time, wish they could have a baby some other way. In the not too distant future that may become technologically feasible. We have conquered other kinds of pain, transcended the limits of the body in other ways. Freeing women from the pains of childbirth may well be seen as the final step in the emancipation and full equality of women.