If you have been watching the Olympics, you cannot help but be awed by the strength, speed, and skill of Olympic athletes. Take Michael Phelps, the phenomenal American swimmer who took gold in event after event. Or Dara Torres, a 41-year-old American swimmer who bested much younger athletes, winning a silver medal. These men and women have spent years training, strengthening, and perfecting their skills and their bodies. As much as we applaud their accomplishments, we marvel at their effort. Now, imagine not long from now, watching an Olympic games featuring athletes who never had to train like Phelps and Torres have. Instead, their skills and physique were planned before their birth, enhanced through nanotechnology. The games would be called the “Bio-Olympics,” in which competitors have artificially enhanced features, like superhuman strength and speed. Sound like science-fiction? It’s not. Not long ago the President’s Council on Bioethics wrote about such a possibility. We talk often on “BreakPoint” about bioethics, especially when it comes to cloning, embryo-destructive research, genetic engineering, and so forth. But science is bringing even greater ethical dilemmas right to our front doors now. As my friend Nigel Cameron points out in the latest issue of BreakPoint WorldView magazine—which, by the way, you can subscribe to for free at BreakPoint.org—science is moving beyond improving or fixing humanity, to remaking humanity.Thanks to genetic, robotic,

It is symptomatic of the condition of our culture today that the Express, a daily newspaper for commuters published by the Washington Post, can feature a piece in its entertainment section about an indie-rock band known as the New Pornographers without raising any eyebrows. But let someone speak out against pornography and suddenly people get uncomfortable. We’ve reached the point where we blindly ignore gross and horrific child abuse. And we’ve become so comfortable in our upscale communities that we don’t want to acknowledge what the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) calls “the seedy and sophisticated underworld” of child porn. The world of child porn, according to the NCMEC, is exploding around us even though it is illegal to produce as well as to access child pornography. Not only is there more child porn; it is getting worse and worse. The NCMEC reports that the images used in child pornography are “getting younger and younger.” In addition, the images are “more graphic and violent.”  Child Porn vs. Child Protection

Many people had hoped Cafe Erotica would close, but for seven years one of its former dancers prayed for it.  Rachel Simms, who danced there for nearly four years in the late '90s, is today a happily married Christian and church volunteer. She was among the people who watched the "We Bare All" sign come down in Friday's "grand closing ceremony."  Her story was much like that of many other dancers she knew. She was a single mom with a daughter to look after, she says. Simms had $3 to her name when she first walked through the doors of the 24-hour strip-club/restaurant in 1996. She was living in Milledgeville when her neighbor, who danced nude at Cafe Erotica, had car trouble and asked Simms to give her a ride to work. Rather than making the drive back home and returning, she waited for her friend to finish her shift at the club off Interstate 75 at Exit 146. "One thing led to another and I ended up working there," she said. She doesn't really remember the first time she danced, but she vividly remembers the drive home. "I regurgitated all the way home from Warner Robins to Milledgeville," she said in an unflinchingly frank interview in the coffee shop at her church Wednesday. "I'm sure I'm not the only one who had that experience." She's not proud of what she did, Simms said, but she talks about it because she wants people - the women who dance in such clubs or are thinking about it, and the men who go to the clubs - to know the dark side of what some consider to be only harmless fun.  And that side, as she tells it, is very dark. Former stripper glad to see club closed

Like so many teenage mums, Elizabeth Cameron doesn't like to talk much about the father of her toddler daughter. She shrugs when asked about him, and admits that when questioned about his whereabouts  -  as people inevitably do  -  she likes to keep things vague. 'When new people ask, I say I have nothing to do with him  -  which is true,' she says quietly. 'But I'm not sure yet what I will tell Phoebe herself when she is old enough to ask. 'Hopefully, one day, I will get married, and then Phoebe will have a father and it won't be such an issue.' If only things were that easy. The truth is that little Phoebe will never want to know the truth about the man who gave her life. She was conceived on a cold December evening when Elizabeth  -  then a 16-year-old virgin  -  was dragged into the back of the van and raped.  All that Elizabeth will be able to tell Phoebe one day is that her father was a stranger in a hooded top who forced himself upon her.She has no idea of the man's age, ethnic background, even height, such was the confusion of that evening. Indeed, he could be one of three possible individuals. One of the few things that Elizabeth is sure of is that she was raped three times that night, by three different men. That Phoebe exists at all almost defies belief. Practically everyone who knew exactly how Elizabeth had fallen pregnant  -  doctors, siblings, even her own father  -  urged her to have an abortion as soon as possible. ''I was raped and left pregnant at 16... but I still love my baby''

Opinions expressed in 'Perspectives' columns published by CentersForDecency.org are the sole responsibility of the article's author(s), or of the person(s) or organization(s) quoted therein, and do not necessarily represent those of the staff or management of, or advertisers who support the CfD.  If you wish to contact CfD - call 713-266-2715 or write: 1415 South Voss Road, #110-393, Houston, Texas 77057.  We also appreciate your Comments@CentersForDecency.