The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has recently awarded $2.18 million in grants to launch a public awareness campaign about embryo donation and adoption. The organizations receiving portions of the grant money are Baptist Health Foundation, Nightlight Christian Adoptions, the National Embryo Donation Center (NEDC), Bethany Christian Services, RESOLVE Inc., and Rosenberg Communications. Embryo donation is a process whereby a woman donates her unused embryos after she becomes pregnant by in-vitro fertilization (IVF). The donated embryos can then be adopted by another woman who also undergoes IVF and raises the child as her own.

The United States Supreme Court is not the only place where you can find words turned into silly putty and ambiguity derived from definitive statements. Staying in the world of legal fiction, one may go to some of our state Supreme Courts to find equally or even more imaginative interpretations of "progress" divined from 200-year-old charters.