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.
100%
No I have not attempted to tear down any argument, only to show it is not a clear argument, also I continue to agree is abortion wrong and the death of the embryo is an issue, I just do not personally know to what extent, read Exodus 21:22, even in the old testament forced miscarriage through a bad action did not require the death penalty, yet the law was clear, death required death, there was a ambiguity even under the Mosiac law.
Samson committed suicide, like the firemen going UP in the Twin Towers. In service to others, or OTHER.
So for an ectopic pregnancy the mother must always carry to term and have no choice but to die painfully as her child also dies from and unviable pregancy?
Yes a rare event but happens, but as you said, it is clear the pregnancy must go on and both just endure a painful death.
To take this a bit further, let the trapped man burn to death slowly instead of ending his life mercifully and I guess Samson was wrong committing suicide to kill the Philistines, though oddly God gave him the strength to commit suicide. I wish my life was so easily morally Black and White as some here have it.
Sampson committed suicide to kill other, not to save lives. Literally he asked for the strength to kill them, the fireman sacrificed their lives trying to save lives, false equivalency you posted..
Ending a pregnancy to save the LIFE ( not just the “health”) of a mother has always been the tenant of the Catholic Church. Both the mother and the baby will die with an ectopic pregnancy so that pregnancy must be terminated.
These “doctors” aim to create thirty testtube babies for one pregnancy, they then kill the worst looking ones, usually TEN of them. It is mass murder.
Removing an ectopic pregnancy is not the same as an abortion since the intention is not to directly kill a healthy baby for convenience, but to treat the mother which, unfortunately, results in the death of the child. This is known as the "principle of double effect":
1) The act itself must be morally good or at least indifferent.
2) The agent may not positively will the bad effect but may permit it. If he could attain the good effect without the bad effect he should do so. The bad effect is sometimes said to be indirectly voluntary.
3) The good effect must flow from the action at least as immediately (in the order of causality, though not necessarily in the order of time) as the bad effect. In other words the good effect must be produced directly by the action, not by the bad effect. Otherwise the agent would be using a bad means to a good end, which is never allowed.
4) The good effect must be sufficiently desirable to compensate for the allowing of the bad effect. to compensate for the allowing of the bad effect.
Your passion blinds you. No embryo is killed unless the parents decide on selective termination. The embryos are implanted one at a time for siblings. If embryo are not used they are usually donated for other couples. At the stage they are implanted they are 16 cells.
So now I'm blinded by "passion," even though all I've given you is facts. The first one who starts name-calling has proven they are out of arguments. I don't have time for that. And I see by your answer you have no idea how IVF works. You need to educate yourself more on this subject from every side. After you do, come back and we'll discuss it as informed, polite, adults. Have a nice evening.
You are confused. Eggs are harvested. They are not embryos. They have no potential to become embryos unless they are fertilized. The retrieved eggs, a much smaller number than being touted on this thread, often only 6-8 are mixed with the father’s sperm and kept warm for a few days.
The eggs that are fertilized become embryos, usually a smaller number. The embryos are examined genetically. Those that are incompatible with life are discarded just as Mother Nature prunes embryos with abnormal chromosomal complements (3 sets rather than two sets etc). The rest are frozen.
The healthiest is implanted on the first attempt with others being implanted on subsequent attempts or donated to other couples.
Nothing evil. No Frankenstein maneuvers. In nature every sperm doesn’t find an egg nor every egg a sperm. Every embryo does not develop into a fetus. Early miscarriages in the range of 20%, many before the woman even knows she is pregnant.
Because a child’s life is a gift from God. Not an entitlement.
“Because a child’s life is a gift from God. Not an entitlement.”
And the IVF child is not?
Except that they won’t be. And since when are a couple’s “needs” determinative? A child isn’t something you order like a pizza.
Not sure what point you’re trying to make.
Sampson destroyed a culture that was putting the Hebrews in chains. All of the leaders, the Uber wealthy were in the temple. He gave all he could, and there was no other way for a blind man to go but the way he went. Slave or Savior
And just who determines which embryo is compatible with life? Are y'all OK with discarding embryos (remember these are human beings), who carry the Downs syndrome of trisomy 21?
Who made y'all "gods" to determine who lives or dies?
No, no there are not plenty of adoptable children out there. There are many children in foster care that is true. The agencies push for family reunification until these children have already experienced so much trauma that they are unadoptable in most circumstances. The ones who are taken at birth from their parents have been born addicted to drugs or have fetal alcohol syndrome. Anyone adopting one of these children is asking for a lifetime of dealing with either behavior or health problems. Many marriages will be destroyed by those problems.
“No, no there are not plenty of adoptable children out there.”
Let’s agree to disagree. The world is a very big place.
“There are many children in foster care that is true.”
Concur... way more than there should be.
“The agencies push for family reunification until these children have already experienced so much trauma that they are unadoptable in most circumstances.”
And who’s to say that the agencies themselves are not responsible for much of this trauma? All agencies don’t push for reunification as I’ve personally witnessed first hand. Many of these children are treated without the respect they are due simply by being innocent children. It’s grieves the spirit witnessing these little ones being dragged through the system by those who are fresh out of college and know absolutely nothing about children to begin with. Bunch of mush-brain youngsters with a degree or two and no life experience. Pffftt.
Furthermore, many of these parents (or parent) simply don’t have the means and/or are too fearful to go up against the all powerful and all knowing machine of the state. In many cases, their representation is substandard as their only option is a court-appointed attorney who makes their money regardless. What’s even more egregious is when you finally realize that many agencies are really not on the side of family but have an agenda that’s more akin to legalized kidnapping which sometimes results in the loss of the child(ren). Yes.... there are instances within the home when the little ones are truly in danger but that’s generally an exception rather than the rule.
“The ones who are taken at birth from their parents have been born addicted to drugs or have fetal alcohol syndrome.”
In some cases, that’s true yet they still need care and nurturing like everyone else.
“Anyone adopting one of these children is asking for a lifetime of dealing with either behavior or health problems. Many marriages will be destroyed by those problems.”
A distinct possibility on both counts though this goes along with being a parent. Nobody said it was going to be easy.
My point in that post was if IVF must be considered bu all as an obvious absolute moral wrong, basically a sin equivalent to willful evil murder, then so must any action a mother takes that can knowingly result in a miscarriage.
We are having a moral argument where one side has decided this issue has no ambiguity, they are claiming moral perfection yet are unwilling to use that same moral clarity in other circumstances that literally result in the same end and and are caused by choices of the same nature.
The moralists position in this thread position is that IVF results in dead embryos, which is murdering life. I actually agree that an embryo is a human life.
The same moralists though apparently disagree that a mother who willfully makes choices that causes her own miscarriage is guilty of the same kind of death for her embryo.
One is morally clear yet the other is not even a sin, strange position to tack given both are willful choices and both knowingly result in the death of the embryo.
I will add, those of you so morally clear on this, I would suppose then the resulting child is an abomination to you, an affront to God. I can feel the love. Just imaging telling the child you should not even exist because your mother murdered your sibling to have you.
Honestly I am unsure on IVF, I know it is possible to limit embryo destruction, expensive and not always guaranteed but possible. Strange that the heat I get her eon this due to my position it is just not morally clear, basically I am wrong for not have a perfect moral character and others are utterly certain this is an absolutely perfect understanding all must have.
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