When Life Begins: A Christian View of Reproductive Technologies
Series: In the World But Not Of It April 17, 2005
Intro: (1 Samuel 1:1-17) – Hannah’s story
Different Context; Same Pain:
Although our context today is very different then it was in Biblical times, the pain of infertility is still very much present. In Canada, it is estimated that one out of 8 couples deal with the problem of infertility. (Ian Shugart, Assistant Deputy Minister, Health Canada,
http://bioethicsprint.bioethics.gov/transcripts/dec04/session5.html December 3, 2004). Some of you here this morning hear this passage of Scripture and can feel the pain of Hannah. Most of us know someone personally who has or is going through the same struggle. How should we as Christians respond? Are there lines that we should not cross in attempting to relieve the pain of not being able to have children?
The Principle of Love:
One of the foundational principles of Christian ethics is love. In fact, that should be the foundational principle of all of our actions and interactions and intentions. It is loving to attempt to alleviate the suffering of couples who deeply desire children, and it is loving to use appropriate medical and scientific options and opportunities to bring to reality their desire to have children and to raise a family. Yet, should we do that at any cost? Are there limits to the lengths to which we should go, or encourage, or even as a society permit?
What “Can” Be Done v. What “Should” Be Done:
Advances in science and medicine have enabled many couples who cannot have children to conceive. And yet, in every society there must be a continual conversation between what can be done, and what should be done. That conversation is generally carried out under the heading of “ethics”, and it is here that I believe we as Christians and as the church should seek to be involved and inform our culture.
You see, at the heart of it all we believe in the principles God has laid out in Scripture because we believe that God is good, and the principles He has established are for the very best for us. We can convincingly demonstrate that, and we can do so not from the perspective of “God says this so we should do it”, but rather from the perspective that “these principles will enable us to create the most just and loving society, rooted in the knowledge and revelation of God.” I firmly believe that this is a part of our mission in our world – to be witnesses to the goodness of God and to be defenders of justice and promoters of love.
Treatment Options For Infertility:
In Canada today, a couple struggling to conceive has the following options:
1. Accept their infertility, grieve, and carry on with their lives.
2. Attempt numerous non-medical therapies, such as being more aware of the best times for conception, or lessening the amount of stress in their lives and improve their over-all health with the hope of increasing their chances of conceiving naturally.
3. Begin medical treatments designed to increase the chances of conceiving naturally. These include drugs that manage hormone levels, and often include surgery to correct any physical problems affecting the ability to conceive naturally.
4. Begin more aggressive treatments, generally referred to as “Assisted Reproductive Technologies”. I’ll come back to these in more detail in a moment, because the ethical issues are more complex here.
The Ethics of #1-3:
The ethics of the first three are fairly simple. The second option, involving lessening stress and being more healthy, is probably good advice for all of us, and is not only ethical but to be advised.
The third option is ethically no different than medical treatments that might help a blind person to see, or that might clear a blockage in an artery. As Christians we would see a firm and clear analogy to Jesus’ ministry of healing, and rooted in compassion and our most basic command to love one another.
And of course no one would condemn a couple’s choice to accept their infertility, although I do want to digress here for a moment… In general, I think we don’t handle the pain of infertility very well or very sensitively as a culture. Questions such as “when are you going to have kids?” or comments like “you only have one kid – don’t be selfish, have more” are often hurtful and almost never constructive. When we do know of a couple struggling to conceive, many of those comments are also hurtful. We need to recognize how painful this struggle can be, as it was for Hannah and others in Scripture, and respond with compassion by taking the pain seriously, by listening without judgment, by avoiding minimizing the pain or trying to point out things like how kids can really be a bother sometimes, and by respecting people’s privacy if they don’t wish to talk about it.
Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ART):
We cross into new territory, medically and ethically, when we begin to talk about more aggressive treatments, such as:
1. Artificial insemination (AI) – male sperm is collected and then injected into the woman’s body through a medical technique rather than through sexual intercourse.
2. In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) – male sperm and female eggs are both removed from the body, combined together, and then re-implanted into the woman’s body.
The very existence of these medical techniques opens a whole range of possibilities, such as the use of sperm or eggs from people outside a marriage relationship, and the possibility of a surrogate mother. Here we need some guidance from God.
Direct v. Indirect:
So I took out my concordance, and looked up “assisted reproductive technologies” to find the passage of Scripture where Jesus told us what to do… that didn’t work, so I tried “artificial insemination”… then “in vitro fertilization”, still no luck.
However, I still do believe that Scripture speaks to every situation, and shows us how to live in every circumstance. Sometimes that is obvious; other times, like this one, we need to step back and dig out the principles that exist and see how they apply.
Foundational Christian Principles:
1. Love: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Matt 28:39. I mentioned this one earlier, and it is fairly self-evident in Scripture.
2. God’s Design For Family: one man and one woman, together for life in a covenantal love relationship, into which children are born. We read of the institution of the marriage relationship in Genesis 2, “a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.”. In Genesis 1 we hear God’s blessing and command, “God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.” We read throughout the rest of the Bible how families are the designed by God to be places of security and identity and support, and we recognize that the security and identity come from God’s design for families to consist of husband and wife, and their children.
Scripture does recognize that this ideal is not always the reality – and in fact I can make a convincing case that widows and orphans have a special place in the heart of God, but this is precisely because they are outside of the “ideal” family structure that God ordained, and so God takes special care of them; and we should also.
3. God is the Author of Life: God creates life, and that life must be treated with dignity. We see this throughout Scripture, including a respect for prenatal life. And here we must ask the critical question – at what point does life begin? Here there are three options – at conception, at some point after conception but before birth, or at birth. Legally in our country life begins at birth, and a fetus is not recognized as having personhood until birth. And so abortion is legal, as is the destruction of lab-created embryos for research purposes. The option of life beginning at some point between conception and birth is difficult in that there is no one decisive moment that we can clearly point to. And so most Christians and Christian communities would maintain that life begins at conception, and thus must be treated with dignity and respect and should be protected.
Applying The Principles To ART
Let’s take this principles and apply them. Does AI violate any of these principles? It is not un-loving. Assuming it is the husband’s sperm, it doesn’t violate God’s design for family. And there is no creation of life. Therefore, it is ethical and we can affirm it.
IVF is more complex. I trust it is still motivated by the loving desire to see a couple conceive. And again assuming that it is the husband’s sperm and the wife’s egg, we are still in line with God’s design for families. But we do begin to encroach on God’s territory of creating life, and so we need to be cautious.
Now, stay with me on this one, but this might still be ok. If two of the wife’s eggs are fertilized with her husband’s sperm and implanted, we could argue that we are still ethically ok, although in a “grey” area. The problem is, that is rarely the case. Most often, and here is where we really get into ethical difficulty, many more eggs are fertilized – in my view, many more lives are created. In some cases, quite a few are implanted with the expectation that some can be selectively aborted if too many grow, and so now we cross the line into destroying life, which is wrong. Generally, these “extra” embryos are frozen for later use, in case none from the first batch are successful. You see, it is cheaper to do a bunch together and freeze some rather than go through the whole procedure again, just like it is cheaper to buy a warehouse pack of ground beef at Sobey’s, rather than individual packs… “Freezing” is certainly not treating life with dignity, and again we must confront the issue of what happens to the “leftover” embryos. The three options here are that they are destroyed, used for research, or donated to other couples. Again, since two of those involve the destruction of life, we can conclude they are wrong.
Fertilizing eggs outside of the womb also opens up the possibility of selecting which embryos to implant. Scientists can already, right now, select for gender, and can select embryos that do not carry some genetic diseases such as Cystic Fibrosis. As they discover more and more about how genes effect us, they will be able to be more and more selective. Again, knowing that those “not selected” for whichever reason will be destroyed, I conclude this is wrong.
I rule out all situations where a third party is involved – ie. the sperm or the egg comes from someone outside the marriage relationship, or a surrogate womb is used for implantation. This violates the principle of God’s design for families, and introduces a web of relationships that can only be destructive. For example, and I found this hard to believe, the Ethics Committee of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine has concluded that it is generally ethical for family members to donate their sperm or eggs to other family members. One example they approved of was for a son to donate sperm to his father – usually when the father is in a second marriage and this new marriage has not produced children. As a result, the father who is raising the child is really (genetically) its grandfather, the child’s half-brother is really (genetically) its father, and the father’s ex-wife is the child’s genetic grandmother (“Ethics Committee Report”, Fertility and Sterility, vol. 80, no. 5, Nov 2003). Now, tell me this child is not going to have a difficult time figuring out who they are, and how they should relate to all of these people in a healthy way!
Let me make one exception to this exclusion of all situations which involve a third party. Because we live in a society in which there already exist a lot of frozen embryos, which in my view are already living persons, I can accept couples receiving donated embryos which they plan to carry to term and then raise in their family. To me, this is ethically identical to adoption.
Conclusion:
Alright, this is the point that I’d like all of you who have gone to sleep, or tuned me out because you have been thinking “this doesn’t apply to me, I’m not infertile”, to pay attention. Our society is creating and destroying life at an alarming rate. What began with legal abortion has progressed to the point where we are deliberately creating and destroying life. We need more thoughtful and articulate Christians to put a voice to God’s heart cry to protect the innocent. We need more people like you who will enter the debate, in your own circles, about when life begins and what principles should guide our society in making these decisions. If you know of someone considering ART, give them a copy of this sermon, help them wade through the ethical issues not in a judgmental way but in one that helps them make thoughtful and informed decisions about the lives they are thinking of creating. Next week I am going to talk about cloning and stem cell research, and there are some fairly alarming possibilities in those areas as well, and there also we need to speak up.
Let me close with a familiar and relevant passage of Scripture: Psalm 139:1-16.
