It is the contention of some well-meaning individuals that the best way to protect the rights of frozen embryos is to allow parents to determine their fates. This might include binding contracts that are drawn up by both parties before IVF attempts.

Says Robyn Shapiro, a Milwaukee lawyer specializing in reproductive issues, “Just as the courts have acknowledged that parents are ordinarily the proper decision makers for their children’s welfare, the embryos’ best interests are maximally protected if gamete (sperm and egg) providers maintain decision making authority over their fate.” 

But isn’t it true that in many instances, parents do not always do what is best for their children’s welfare? And is it not further the case that fifty percent of the couples in this country divorce? When couples divorce, children often become pawns used by their parents to gain control over one another in various ways. In a more nonchalant manner, frozen embryos can be used for one partner to wage financial, emotional or psychological warfare over the other. Then, in other cases there is a stalemate in which no one makes a move to do anything to protect frozen embryos from the ticking of the clock. This is particularly the case for couples who have never been in agreement as to how they view that which they have made together in the first place. Are they persons or possessions? In addition, a very real oversight of Shapiro’s is the fact that divorcing couples lose love for one another. It only stands to reason that as that happens, so too, would one or both tend to lose feelings of attachment for low-maintenance frozen embryos they once had hopes of raising into children with that former loved one.

It seems a twisted irony that while the United States spends billions of dollars annually to prevent and abort unwanted pregnancies, this country spends billions more to provide the technological means for producing babies for those who want them. In fact, we spend more in reproductive technological and surgical intervention than any other country. 

Author David Schenk says that if there is one lesson he has learned from the history of technology, it is, “If it can be done, it will be done.” One wonders if Schenk was considering pre-technological lessons as well, such as the one learned through the Old Testament story of the Tower of Babel. At this early point in civilization, God said that there would be nothing beyond man’s ability to do if man shared a common language. He therefore confused man’s speech and scattered him. For those of us approaching the twenty-first century, we have overcome barriers to global communication. Are we possibly approaching another era in history in which God once more curtails man’s soaring to reach new heights; this time as man builds his genetic monument to himself?

Technology is not in and of itself a bad thing. Says Roberge, “There is no morality with science or technology. These things are amoral as they exist, but rather it’s what’s done with them.” Forty-one year old Mallory Albens, attempting to conceive for more than two years doesn’t see IVF as something she and her husband would pursue. She does however, suspend judgment for other Christian couples who do, conceding that God Himself may lead them on this path. She believes that one way for the Christian couple to avoid playing God “is for only as many embryos that are going to be implanted to be made.” Albens says Christians should take direction from the Bible. “Psalm 139 says that God knows us from the time we are in our mothers’ wombs. His Word says, ‘Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed.' I would think that the moment of conception would be the moment when one received everything from God, including His Spirit, based on that scripture.”

There is no getting around the fact that many of those busy at work unraveling our great genetic map are those without qualms about treading on God’s sovereignty. Says scientist Francis Crick, who along with James Watson discovered the structure of DNA, “A modern neuroscientist has no need for the religious concept of a soul to explain the behavior of humans and other animals.” He confidently speaks for his colleagues when he asserts, “Not all neuroscientists believe the concept of the soul is a myth, but certainly the majority do.” And one neuropsychologist who studies prayer adds this observation, “Most of my colleagues see religion as a sort of pathological state.” Not only may we see a day when frozen embryos are routinely tested for potential physical or psychological impairments, but perhaps spiritual ones as well.

And who is to decide? As my fingers hit the keyboard, researchers are attempting to hit upon a gene responsible for spirituality. Imagine a day not far off when parents may be able to “faith-select” their offspring just as they are currently able to “sex-select” them now. Remember, we live are living in an era where cloning is a reality, as well as posthumous reproduction, giving a child two biological mothers by using different parts of individual eggs to form one egg, growing human tissue independent of a human and, perhaps shortly, the artificial womb.

And there are plenty of frozen embryos to study. In this country, despite widely held belief, it isn’t illegal to specifically create embryos for research. The congressional ban simply means that the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the largest government source of money and scientific research standards can’t fund or control any embryo studies. Lawrence Roberge worries about Christians pursuing IVF without adequate information in making their decisions. That embryo development isn’t completely arrested with freezing, he points out, may be a little known fact. This has led to uncertainty as to how long embryos can be safely frozen. In Great Britain, thousands of frozen embryos were destroyed when that country enacted a five-year limit on their storage. In this country, the oldest frozen embryo to result in a live birth surpassing this limit was six years old. Yet who is to regulate experimentation on even older frozen embryos?

“Christians need to be much more involved,” says Cameron. “According to scripture, we are called to be salt and light without compromise.” Besides pushing aside the fear of what may happen to us professionally or personally with a non-compromising attitude, we need to be more aware of what is happening in reproductive technologies. Just as the secular world views “Knowledge as power,” Christians need to believe in acquiring enough knowledge to allow God something to give power to, such as getting across the ethical concerns of IVF. As Roberge has stated, Christians need more information before undertaking any IVF procedures. As an example of what he believes to be a lack of public education in general, Roberge says, “There are Christians and pro life organizations against abortion, but not necessarily against birth control, without realizing that many birth control methods actually work to abort rather than simply to prevent pregnancy.”

Albens thinks that Christians probably can have more control than they think with IVF. “And if you can’t have that control by telling your doctor that you refuse to have embryos frozen, then, as a Christian maybe you don’t want to pursue IVF.” In the meantime, Albens is patiently waiting on the Lord, sure that God is leading her through a process that involves, “Waiting, trusting and learning…His Word says we have to go through things in order to experience His compassion so that we might have compassion for others. I don’t know how God is going to provide, but my prayer is that He keeps my arms full and my hope alive.” While she spiritually grows in the process, she is focusing on enjoying other people’s children.

THE HUMAN GENOME PROJECT

What to do with our nation’s stockpile of frozen embryos is of concern even to those who have pioneered the actual technology. And it is inextricably intertwined with such hotly debated issues as abortion, surrogacy, “egg brokering,” cloning, and the Human Genome project (coding of the entire human genetic map). The more we are able to do on the embryonic level, which we are realizing through the Human Genome project, the more complicated it may become for couples seeking ART.

PRE-EXISTING CONDITIONS ON THE EMBRYONIC LEVEL

One technology is called “preimplantation genetics.” This technology that began with the genetic screening of an embryo for cystic fibrosis allows prospective parents to sort and choose embryos for genetic defect, discarding the ones that will potentially be born with disease. If these capabilities, as well as proposed legislation happen within reproductive medicine, it might very well be a reality for all those visiting fertility clinics to be required to have their embryos frozen, analyzed and tested for defects. From there we are potentially only a step away from genetic screening becoming required by all major health insurance companies or we run the risk of bearing offspring who cannot obtain health coverage due to their “pre-existing conditions” prior to their births. 

KILLING PEOPLE BASED ON HEALTH

Roberge explains, “Some genetic traits are actually protectors for other types of diseases.” He also points out that we can’t know in many instances to what extent a person may be affected with a genetic disorder, as in the case of Down’s Syndrome, for example. Do we have the right to decide that life may not be worth living for someone because they may face a disorder? Says Jay Johansen of the Ohio Right to Life Group, “The ‘standard practice’ in IVF is to fertilize several ova, see which ones appear to be thriving the best, pick some to implant, perhaps freeze a couple of the ‘runner ups’ and discard the rest. We find such a practice totally unacceptable, as it blatantly calls for killing people based on health.” Johansen finds the notion of parents freezing embryos comparable to that of couples having “surplus children,” then allowing only the healthiest to live. 

WHAT ARE THE LIMITS?

The issues are so interrelated and complicated, digression toward a number of hazy realms is possible. If we are willing to take the initial step of warehousing human life in freezers and accept this as “procedure” in achieving parenthood, we begin a journey with no apparent limitations.

RAMIFICATIONS

When Christians are preparing to embark upon such a course as that of ART and all of its ramifications, they should be first and foremost able to identify themselves as that of patient or consumer. There is an increasing muddying of the distinction between the two. Fertility has not as of this time been labeled a disease, and motivations do matter. Anyone with a mouse can click onto a number of websites offering the genetic material of high-quality potential sperm or egg donors. A Christian couple should have received some diagnosis, or at best, be experiencing unexplained fertility. They should ask themselves, how long have we tried to get pregnant? What is God directing us to do? Is adoption the way we are being led? Of course, there is counting the cost of ART, both in the attempt to bear offspring as well as the price of raising the multiple children that often result from it. Then there are the health risks facing both mother and child. There are inconclusive studies on the effects of such technology on either group. In addition to all of this, there should be a certain relinquishing of control over reproduction. It is often when we surrender our wills to become pregnant that we become blessed with the reality of expecting a child.

CROSSING THE LINE

Peggy Artero, for example, is a 32-year old who has not been able to conceive again since the birth of her son six years ago. Having seen a fertility specialist for the past year, she has undergone surgery to unblock both of her fallopian tubes and had artificial insemination performed some three times. “Even though my desire to have a child is overwhelming, bordering on anguish sometimes, I believe there’s a line you don’t cross trying.” She explains that crossing that line involves forfeiting her sense of peace and justice. “Even if my husband and I could afford the cost of IVF, and we were told ‘this is your only chance of becoming pregnant,’ I wouldn’t have any back up embryos made for other attempts because once it’s an embryo, it’s like giving permission to freeze my baby. Modern technology can be taken to the point where it becomes inhumane. I felt a peace about having my surgery, but not about this.” 

WORLDLY WISDOM

The Bible tells us that ours is a God of peace, not of disorder. If we examine the staggering amount of heartbreak and chaos created as society uses its knowledge to fulfill personal choice, we see much discord among the joy. If we consider that in several recent court cases women have fought to gain custody of their frozen embryos in the hopes of becoming mothers while their former spouses have fought not to become fathers, we see a distinct lack of unity. If we understand that in the majority of these cases, it is determined by our highest courts that “ordinarily, the party wishing to avoid procreation should prevail,” and that nobody is granted custody of embryos ordered destroyed, it might penetrate our hearts that “the wisdom of the world is coming to nothing.”

LEGALITIES

Of this glut of cases in which technology is outpacing law, Nigel Cameron, Senior Vice President of The Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity says, “The courts wouldn’t allow for a man to force a woman to have an abortion if he didn’t want to become a parent.” He thinks that making a decision for the destruction of embryos is like allowing a man to choose against being a parent “after the fact.” But because of the fear of questioning the life of the unborn at a period of development well before that of the twenty-two week fetus some states currently allow aborted, permission is being granted by our legal system. The sanctity of the human rights of the party wishing to avoid parenthood, even if after the fact, is allowing such fathers of frozen embryos to walk away from the consequences of their actions in pursuing IVF. By releasing them from responsibility for that which was freely consented to, participated in and created, are we not creating a whole new class of the deadbeat dad? How can it be that the same legal system that has been known to pursue this individual with a vengeance for the life he abandons after birth is the same that protects him from reaping what he has sown in a tank at the nearby fertility clinic?

CHANGED MINDS

Motive, emotion and desire affecting the lives of frozen embryos are brought to the courts by women as well as men. In the precedent-setting case of Davis v. Davis in the Supreme Court of Tennessee, Ms. Davis, who had previously fought on the state level and won the right to save the lives of the “human beings” she and her husband had made together, referred to them in Supreme Court as “potential life.” By the time the case made it to this level, Ms. Davis had remarried and held the hope of reproducing with her new husband. She no longer wished to be implanted with hers and her ex-husband’s stored and frozen embryos, but rather wished them to be donated to another couple. 

PRE EMBRYO, NO SUCH WORD

In a major embryo custody dispute between a couple in Tennessee, the American Fertility Society attempted to distinguish frozen embryos from actual “persons” by classifying them as “pre embryos.” In powerful court testimony, one Dr. Jerome Lejeune, the world renowned specialist in the field of Human Genetics stated that “each human being has a unique beginning which occurs at the moment of conception.” He asserted there was no such word as pre embryo, given that before the embryo nothing is known to exist aside from sperm and egg. The court overwhelmingly agreed with Dr. Lejeune.

EXPERIMENTATION

So does biochemist, professor and author Lawrence Roberge. Roberge says that the term pre embryo is “fraudulent.” Yet it is this deceptive terminology which may in part be responsible for the cavalier disregard of frozen embryos as sub-human, relegating them to the ranks of tissue used in research experiments. When the courts rule that frozen embryos must be donated for these purposes to settle custody disputes, Roberge’s concern is that some of them can be used for “horrible experiments.”

EXAMPLE

One illustration he offers involves that of a woman whose father suffered with Alzheimer’s Disease, a progressively debilitating deterioration of the brain. The woman, aware that fetal tissue research has shown that fetal brain cells have been used with varying degrees of success to treat this disease, approached her doctor with this knowledge in mind. She asked the doctor to perform IVF using her eggs and her father’s sperm to impregnate her with a fetus that she planned to abort so that its brain cells could be used to treat her father’s illness. Roberge says the doctor refused, but what if he hadn’t? What about the doctors who can be financially motivated to abuse their power in creating life with the sole purpose to destroy that life?

PLAYING GOD

Combined with what we already know scientifically, if we could determine that frozen embryos contain spirit or a soul, determining whether they live or die would be just like playing God. If we fully realized that we cannot know when the spirit enters the body, we would not want to risk discarding God’s Spirit within the life that man begins in the laboratory. God Himself tells us, “As you do not know the path of the wind, or how the spirit enters the body being formed in a mother’s womb, so you cannot understand God, the Maker of all things”(Ecclesiastes 11:5).

ETHICAL DILEMMA

We may leave weather radar to the meteorologists, but do we want to relinquish the identification of spirit to those whose discernment lacks the involvement of the soul? One author says that “from the pragmatic perspective, the warning about ‘playing God’ is a distracting irrelevance, since we’re already playing God in so many ways.” He cites Nobel sperm banks and preconception sex selection with success rates of some ninety percent as examples. For the Christian couple suffering the very real despair of infertility, this ethical debate should be taken seriously in addition to the practical concerns regarding Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART).

EMBRYO FREEZING

We began freezing embryos as part of the costly ART known as In Vitro Fertilization (IVF). Using a series of painful hormone injections, a woman’s ovaries are stimulated to produce multiple eggs; up to twenty or more. The eggs are then harvested during a surgical procedure known as oocyte retrieval, immediately fertilized and become embryos. Because initial (and often subsequent) implantations may fail, some embryos will be implanted, while others will be frozen as back ups for future attempts. Depending on the initial success and also possible future changes in a couple’s decision to pursue IVF, excess embryos are routinely ordered destroyed by couples themselves, or donated to research, which of course also leads to their ultimate destruction.

EGG FREEZING

We then began attempts to freeze eggs, hopeful to some as an achievement that would bypass certain ethical dilemmas associated with embryo freezing. Eggs have always been considered too fragile to freeze, yet with persistence a success was lauded when a Georgia woman was the first to give birth this way in this country. In this case, after sixteen of the woman’s twenty-three eggs survived the thawing process and were fertilized at the same time, eleven of them developed into viable embryos. Since eleven is a number usually more than twice the amount a doctor will implant in a woman at one time, four were used for implantation, resulting in the birth of twins. Yet what is neglected to be mentioned in coverage of this story is that of the whereabouts of the remaining seven embryos. Until technology of egg freezing is perfected, embryo freezing is still the preferred method for IVF. And yet, even if it could “pass the muster,” which Scientific American asserts it may never do, should we simply overlook these millions of frozen embryos globally we must deal with at present?