I think it's time to wonder if science is reaching for our wallets before we have reached for our ethics review. Meanwhile, one of Canada's oldest laboratory babies, a young teenage girl, is advocating better record keeping by scientists to help children like her battle their feelings of "genetic bewilderment."

On the opposite end of family planning needs, we find that a few Canadians have found it in their power to request their death at the hands of U.S. death doctor, Jack Kevorkian.. In British Columbia, a successful businessman chooses death by Kevorkian rather than life with Parkinson's. His son answers reporters questions and expresses shock, regret and complete ignorance of his father's plans. In Guelph, a father of a 34 year old woman who chose Kevorkian death wants to see murder charges laid.

In all the stories we see just a glimpse of family reaction in newsbites, and then hurry on to what's happening next. Pushed and pulled along by the pacing of consumerism, we're unaware of just how easily we're planting seeds of self determination, and we have no idea what the crop will look like.

As a nation, we often look to the Supreme Court of Canada for the answer. It makes you wonder what coffee break is like in their grand marble halls. They handle twice as many decisions a year as their U.S. counterparts, and considerably more than the British Supreme Court and my guess is they'd say, "what coffee break?"

Do they ever have a bad day where they slam a book shut and pout over why Canadians have asked them to play God?

Among the caseload of decisions currently under deliberation is what to do with the status of unborn children. Do they deserve protection or not ? A mother simply known as "G" and the need to protect her baby in the womb from her glue sniffing addiction sparked that process. Later this month the unnatural death of 12 year old Tracey Latimer heads back to court. Her father, Robert Latimer, moved by the difficulty of his daughter's life with cerebral palsy, is charged with her death.

What does happen in the emotional balance of families and individuals who are the first to process ethical change ? The stories may never be known, or, like the teenager lobbying against genetic bewilderment, may only develop decades after decisions are made.

Ultimately it is family by family, heart by heart, that decisions to navigate past our current ethical frontiers will be made. Science and government can regulate or change the rules, but the real decisions to change how we govern our lives will be made in the quiet reflection of our homes, around our dining room tables, and in the quiet of a bedroom or library chair.

Amid the choices, consider God is waiting to be acknowledged as our source of wisdom. I'm not one to advocate we turn off our mind to the realities of new technology that awaits us, but rather, that we make the decision with understanding that if there is wisdom at all, there must be a source of wisdom.

As time and choice march on, it takes courage and clear thinking to search out that source of wisdom on ethical choice. The reality is God's advice appears to be from an old source which requires us to submit our will when all around the world shouts new advice from unstoppable will. God's wisdom is in conflict with ours. Does He know something about the future that we don't ?

The headlines and temptations inviting us to play God will continue, the answers of who has the better track record with the rules lingers to be discovered.