Posted on 08/08/2024 3:08:20 PM PDT by Morgana
“We are really struggling with infertility… We have spent the better part of our married life trying to conceive. We prayed and prayed. We have paid close attention to ovulation cycles. We have gotten our hopes us time and time again only to have the pregnancy test shatter our hopes with a negative result. We feel like we have exhausted all our options. We know that the Lord calls children a blessing and a heritage, we know that our desire for children is a good and godly desire. We are going to go to a reproductive specialist this week, and are considering IVF. Is there anything that we should be thinking about as we consider this?”
This conversation isn’t an unusual one in our day. I recall having this conversation with my own parents and friends as my wife and I went to our second appointment with a reproductive specialist. In my first examination of IVF (In Vitro Fertilization), I recall thinking that this was a miracle of science that solved the problem of infertility for so many couples, and would perhaps do the same for my wife and me. Make no mistake, it is an incredible scientific feat. But there several considerations which show that this miracle of science is in fact far more sinister.
First, there is the potential loss of life in the process itself. Normally the whole process of IVF starts with ruling out the possibility of natural conception. Scans and tests are run to diagnose the issues preventing conception, after which the doctor suggests In Vitro Fertilization. Assuming that the couple decides to go this route the process is as follows: The doctor takes eggs from the woman’s ovaries and then the doctor fertilizes those eggs with donated sperm, normally ten to twelve eggs will be fertilized. After this they will wait to see how those fertilized eggs develop, generally only those that develop appropriately will be candidates for implantation. They then will inject 2-3 eggs at a time into the woman’s uterus with the hopes that one or both would implant. Assuming that the implantation is successful, the child implanted will be brought to term and born.
Can this be done ethically? There are a number of arguments on how to use IVF while upholding biblical standards of morality. The most common argument is that the couple will only fertilize the eggs that they are committed to bringing to term. While this is a noble answer to the question, I believe that it also assumes too much. It either assumes that every child conceived will make it past the five days of development, or that the children who don’t make it through those five days would not have made it if they were conceived of natural means and were permitted to grow in the natural environment of their mother’s womb. Regardless of the noble intention to use IVF in biblically responsible way, the reality is that the successful use of IVF will cost the life of several children.
This leads us to the second consideration, namely price. In general, the financial toll of IVF is somewhere between $15,000 - $30,000 a cycle. This is an expensive process, but as an adoptive parent I can say that it is no more expensive than domestic adoption which has a price tag of $25,000 - $40,000 depending on the state in which you reside and the adoption agency you choose. The financial burden is problematic but for most people who desire children it is no real issue. The real cost of IVF is blood. In case you think I’m exaggerating here is a real-world example. A woman had fourteen eggs harvested, thirteen of those eggs were fertilized, eight were viable for implantation after five days, after genetic testing that number fell to four, after four attempts at implantation one child was born. Since life begins at conception, this means that twelve children died so that one could be born. And that is a low body count. One example that I found had thirty-two children conceived and out of that thirty-two, two would be born. In short, you need to ask yourself the question: how many of my children am I willing to permit to die so that I can hold one in my arms?
IVF is a house of mirrors where the only reflection seen is that of a child in the arms of a longing mother, while hiding the reality that for every one child born there are many that have perished and some that will remain in cryostasis indefinitely. Do not believe for a moment that IVF doesn’t have a unique cost to it. The financial cost is high, but the blood cost is far higher. I don’t mean to overstate my case, but I am hard pressed to find a greater example of child sacrifice in our day than that of IVF and I’m including abortion in my assessment. Moloch lives, and he offers you one child at the expense of 8.
The third consideration is the alternative. I want to pause and recognize that this is a sensitive issue with real people who are truly wounded by the burden of barrenness. My wife and I are some of those people. Infertility hurts but God has already provided a glorious solution to barrenness: adoption.
Unfortunately adoption has often become the very last option for the barren. This is not because it is the most expensive option, nor the most difficult, but because we have forgotten that God’s solutions are the best solutions. His answers are clean and bear in them testimonies of the glory of the gospel of Christ. There is a beauty about it that no other solution can match.
Consider for a moment the cost of adoption: it is a bloodless endeavor. Not a single child needs ever be put at risk. Instead, adoption takes children who are at risk and provides for them a place of safety and security. Adoption considers the orphan and the barren and binds them together making the orphan an heir and the barren a fruitful garden.
More so than that, the true beauty is in the gospel proclamation attached to it. In adoption the orphan is welcomed as a child, granted the rights and rewards of an heir, and shall spend the whole of their life in the home and at the table of the adoptive parents. This is what God has done for us! He has taken us, naked, pitiable, and poor, and brought us into His family, bestowed upon us His name, made us an heir with Christ and seated us at His table. What great distinction between Moloch’s methods and God’s.
In conclusion, the process of IVF is too dangerous, and the price of IVF is too bloody, and the alternative of IVF is too glorious to take such a tumultuous road. Thankfully, God has paved the road of adoption with the very gospel of Christ, we need only follow Him down that beautiful road to see barrenness obliterated and broken heartedness turned joy.
Ok but there’s still a whopping big difference between accidental and intentional death.
Also there ‘s no morality to choosing who lives or dies. Thats what IVF couples do. Creating multiple embryos is what the process does. It would be great if they were all used but they aren’t.
There were 1 million frozen embryos a few years back, who knows how many there are now. I know that couples are routinely advised to destroy the unused ones ( I have a relative who was involved in this industry).
You are dodging the moral issue completely, either a less than perfect “mother to be” is just as guilty of murder if their actions cause a miscarriage, just as much as an IVF pregnancy or neither are.
I am only stating it is not so morally clear and we have an imperfect understanding, you are making the case for, and in your words “absolute evil” I find it strange you balk at living up to that same standard in all situations then.
Jesus refused to condemn an adulteress when the law clearly stated it was warranted, Jesus was absolutely correct for not applying the law as such, maybe consider why? And it is not just because He is God and has a special exception, that is an immature understanding. I find it unsettling how easily some toss around such absolute moral judgements for nearly all issues.
I agree and would state you are actually making my point, my only point is that it is not as morally clear as some here and the article are making it to be.
Abortion is a clear absolute moral evil in cases where it is for convenance, what about where it would save the mother’s life, yes very rare these days, nearly non existent but still, is it wrong?
My only point is this is far from an easy and clear moral choice.
???
God knows every hair on your head.
There are reasons, some we can understand and others beyond our grasp, for a fertilized egg to die before birth. Who are we to consider God's method flawed?
I have never heard that alcohol played a role in miscarriage. Over the years, many actions by the mother have been blamed, and then rescinded. For example, too much activity. Or eating spicy food.
The point is that of intent. In most IVF treatments, many eggs are fertilized with the intent that most will be terminated. It's a given that death will occur for many embryos (i.e, human beings).
Thank you for mentioning what happens to the many other unchosen or “unsuccessful” embryos.
I was also going to say that it creates and supports an entirely Godless and materialist infrastructure and mentality, promoting the manipulation of human life at its most basic in the name of “science.”
Its a very short step to any number of horrid possibilities - for example, gene-designing human embryos for preferred and fashionable traits. We all know human nature, and know for sure how quickly that would become bizarre, degraded - and satanic.
we need more teen pregnancy/marriage
I understand what you wrote but perhaps you have not considered intent well enough. A mother who makes poor choices has no intent to kill her baby, an IVF couple may have no intent to kill their babies, both are incidental the real intent.
Intent is a hard thing to divine and best left to our Lord. I am not even advocating for IVF and see the problems with it, again I am just saying it is not such a clear issue and maybe best left to the couple and their prayers to decide.
Your definition of IDF is flawed no matter how fervently you present it. Many couples have only one embryo implanted because they would not be willing in any circumstance to selectively terminate.
It is you who is lacking in morals. Comparing a miscarriage to the delberate destruction of unborn children is despicable.
Jesus refused to condemn an adulteress when the law clearly stated it was warranted, Jesus was absolutely correct for not applying the law as such, maybe consider why?
Jesus told the woman to go and sin no more. Did you miss that part?
Are you kidding?
Maybe only one embryo is implanted but many others are destroyed.
Do you not believe a human embryo is a human being?
Microscopic surgeries have enabled such procedures, they should have never been allowed, sequencing the DNA has also enable such atrocities, all should he banned.
How about avoiding slippery slopes and keep it to how man actually miss-ususes knowledge, not that such knowledge is inherently evil.
Some knowledge is evil but I would hardly call the stuff we are talking about here occult knowledge.
Yep, I was holding that piece back, IVF today has the ability to manage 1 embryo, just happens to be expensive
If this is your belief, I can only conclude you have no real understanding of what IVF entails, because as I've already said, the process of IVF assumes from the start that embryos (human beings) will be snuffed out.
Actually in one procedure they will create 3 embryos and implant them in the mother hoping one takes. The only loss of embryos occurs if the mother uterus does not take to then, which has resulted in the increase of twins and triplets now in the procedure.
This has been done to help couples manage the issue of embryo destruction, way more expensive option though..
In the fetus willfully aborted through IVF any less dead than the fetus willfully aborted for any other reason?
No it does not, go read up on the process, there is an entire industry around avoiding the destruction of the embryos from IVF of one is willing to bear the costs.
There is a great deal confusion and bad information being written in this thread.
You argue mine is a slippery slope
Yours is a straw man
Please read Exodus 21:22 and explain to me why the law does not require the death of a man who injures a pregnant women resulting in the death of her unborn baby.
Odd isn’t it if this is such a clear issue. The law was clear murder required the death penalty in the old testament yet the death of the unborn child was not required of the law.
No IVF is not the same willful act as an abortion, not saying it is the right choice, just that the two are not the same moral issue and are not the same intent, like I said earlier if you believe that then you have to accept any choice a negligent mother makes, resulting in a miscarriage, is equally evil.
Not really. They were artificially and specifically brought into existence in a laboratory with the clear understanding that the overwhelming odds were in favor of them being destroyed. What a horrifying thing, the stuff of Frankenstein movies.
Also in many cases only one embryo is implanted at a time.
One is implanted, but the others are killed. If you mean that only one is fertilized at a time, that is, in fact, extremely rare because of the uncertainty of just one being successfully fertilized, and the expense involved in attempting multiple fertilizations until one "takes."
That is a parental decision.
Parents have no more right to kill an unborn child than they do a born child. You can put your 1 year old and in a closet and pump it full of bullets of lethal gas from the outside, but just because you can't see it happening doesn't make it any less murder.
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