Christine's blogs

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.