Posted on 08/17/2019 5:36:09 PM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege
In vitro fertilization is the process of joining a woman’s egg (ovum) and a husband’s sperm in a lab rather than inside a woman’s body... When the egg is fertilized by the sperm, the result is a living embryo, which is then implanted in the woman’s womb so that it can develop like any other baby.
Evangelical Christians differ on the moral acceptability of this procedure.
My own position is that, in principle, the teachings of Scripture present no moral objection to a married couple using IVF (as long as no human embryos are destroyed in the process), because it is simply enabling an infertile husband and wife to overcome their infertility and thereby experience the blessing of having children.
(I won’t address the morality of several related issues such as adoption, surrogate motherhood, embryo adoption, and the possibility of human cloning, but I’ve discussed them at length elsewhere.)
1. Overcoming Infertility Is Pleasing to God
2. Modern Medicine in General Is a Divine Blessing That’s Morally Good
3. We Should Treat an Unborn Child as a Human Person from the Moment of Conception
4. Children Should Only Be Conceived by and Born to a Married Man and Woman
Therefore IVF Is a Morally Good Action in Some Circumstances The previous four points lead me to conclude that, if IVF is used by a married couple, and if care is taken to prevent the intentional destruction of embryos, then it is a morally good action that pleases God because it violates no scriptural guidelines, achieves the moral good of overcoming infertility, and brings the blessing of children to yet another family. “He gives the barren woman a home, making her the joyous mother of children. Praise the LORD!” (Ps. 113:9).
(Excerpt) Read more at thegospelcoalition.org ...
Within a traditional family, I am not sure what the moral issue is here. I though Christians celebrated life. A wanted child growing up in a loving family [as we used to define family] is what a Christian life should be about.
I have mixed feelings on the no embryos destroyed in the process.
Yes, a unique human life is destroyed just as it was created. But this happens routinely inside the womb for various reasons. Additionally, until technology improves, the current method of ivf is to maximise egg production, fertilize as many as possible, and implant the best candidates. You might get a dozen fertilized eggs in one cycle. If the first one is successful, what do you do with the rest?
I realize that one can make the argument that there is no moral difference between a fertilized egg and a baby just before it is born. Is the moral good of a birthed baby worth the destruction of it’s siblings just after conception? Not an easy choice.
I’m not sure what the answer is.
I thought there was an option that only fertilized one at a time? My understanding is the vast majority create multiple fertilized eggs, some discard the unused and some freeze them in supposed perpetuity until the artificial womb is invented or a donor womb becomes available I guess. Even if the artificial womb is someday invented it wouldn’t be used by many I am thinking, especially in the beginning, unless there is some publicly funded state program to develop all the frozen people. That’s hard to picture too.
FReegards
there is a saying that goes “The devil is in the details”.
It is all fine and good to talk about this in the abstract, but Scripture says that it is the Lord Who opens and closes the womb.
Just because something CAN be done does not mean it SHOULD be done.
Psalm 127 assures us that children are a heritage from the Lord.
This rather smacks of “Even though God is Sovereign over all things, I want X. So how can I make Scripture agree with me on this? After all, God wants believers to have children.”
I would dispute point number 1.
If theres some reason or reasons a couple isn’t getting pregnant, maybe that means there’s a good reason or reasons they are not getting pregnant.
Clearly not all believers have had children. Its not something God wants everyone to have.
One of the things I have wondered it whether God wanted me to remain childless and whether my adoptions of my children went against His Will.
Sometimes we can fall into a trap of thinking that we have a right to have children because we want it so badly, or because we have so much love to give, or because we faithfully followed God’s rulebook by getting married and opening ourselves to life.
But no one is ever due another human person. God gives life as a pure gift, not as something owed. Indeed, it’s not parents who have rights here, but the child: specifically, the right “to be the fruit of the specific act of the conjugal love of his parents and the right to be respected as a person from the moment of his conception. Once we understand this—and I think most people, upon reflection, can see it—we see some of the justification for IVF vanish.
2. Doing justice to the Creator
God does not owe us children; but we do owe him something: obedience to his moral law. It is God’s right to require that the transmission of life be the natural consequence of the conjugal act. Or to put it another way, that it flow naturally from the love between husband and wife, who cooperate with God as co-creators by calling into existence new persons with immortal souls and eternal destinies.
IVF, which substitutes the clinical collection of sperm and eggs for the marital act, and technological intervention for the natural cooperation between God and couples, fails to give God his due. This is the essence of what we call sin.
Some people argue that God nonetheless gives the gift of life to persons created through artificial means. They’re not zombies or robots—they’re full human beings with immortal souls that God specially created. Doesn’t that mean he approves?
It’s true that God has chosen to bind himself to holding up his end of creating new human life whenever the bare biological conditions are met—whether through natural intercourse or through IVF, whether through a selfless act of married love or an act of fornication or even rape. Unless you want to say that God also approves of fornication or rape, though, it doesn’t follow that he approves of every act that results in new life.
3. Unintended consequences
The teaching on IVF is based first and foremost on the immorality of the act itself. But in many cases there are side issues that would make it problematic even if it were not itself immoral:
In most cases, the sperm is obtained via masturbation, which is itself immoral and thus not permissible even to achieve a good end.
IVF technology is not accessible only to married couples, but is also put to the service of deliberate single parenthood, surrogacy, same-sex and polyamorous parenting experiments, embryonic stem-cell research, human cloning and eugenics, and other arrangements that offend basic human rights and dignity. It allows for the complete divorce of love and procreation, using technology to make human life a commodity.
IVF procedures often result in multiple embryos being transferred to the uterus; it’s an expensive process, after all, and doctors want to maximize its potential for success. In many cases, multiple embryos survive in the mother’s womb, leading to the temptation, perhaps under pressure from doctors or spouses or perhaps by the woman’s design, to undergo “selective reduction”: the aborting of superfluous embryos.
Embryos that are not implanted are often frozen for future attempts, or donated for research. In the U.S. alone there are many hundreds of thousands such tiny human persons, consigned to frozen storage like things or set aside for experimentation, radically against their innate dignity.
Adapted from: "The Hardest Teaching of Them All (Catholic Answers)
His will is in his Word.
His Word does not forbid adoption. It is spoken of positively. So no you did not disobey His will.
~ James 1:27
Anything that creates babies is fine
anything that kills babies is evil
Simple Ain’t it ?
I actually think in your case His plan was for you to adopt your kids.
I also look at it this way. Adoptive parents have a special thing in common with God, because we are His adoptive children.
anything that kills babies is evil
Simple Ain’t it ?"
Well, fornication, incest, and rape create babies. Are those fine?
I used to believe that, I do not believe that anymore.
Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
adopted kids are often not orphans and their bio moms would keep them if they were not adopted.
His will is in his Word.
His Word does not forbid adoption. It is spoken of positively. So no you did not disobey His will.
____________
I do not think it is forbidden, but I think that I was made childless and that I had my way and adopted.
The ends justify the means.
Get a bueatiful kids, it was worth the death of 6 siblings in the process.
Get a beautiful kid, it was worth raping her.
The Catholic Church, despite the human weakness of ALL it’s human followers, has explained the ethical wrong of this so clearly but so few know it.
Orphaned by circumstance if not literally. And same goes for widows. Parents who adopt are often providing loving homes to fatherless children and giving respite for single moms who for, whatever reason, are unready or unable to raise a child. ❤️
Interesting thought. Sometimes adoption can be a blessing for both child and parents.
A friend of my husband’s grandson lost both of his parents in an accident. My husband’s friend adopted the boy, he was about 10. He was truly following the directive to look after widows and orphans.
Then there are those that go to great lengths to convince women in crisis pregnancy to give them their baby. There’s numerous instances where women have been threatened (illegally) with legal action who changed their minds once their child was born and they held him in their arms.
I guess it’s a case by case situation. Only you know your heart. Only you know the situation your childrens birth mothers were in. I hope you have access to a good therapist or counselor well versed in adoption issues. Blessings to you.
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