Surrogacy, In Vitro Fertilization (IVF), pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD), egg “donation”, and even certain forms of contraception are considered by many women–including Christian women–valid options for addressing their reproductive dilemmas despite the embryo-destructive nature often associated with these advancements in technology.
Over the years, I have known many women in churches who have traveled down these paths only to suffer the pain of knowing their very prolife intentions have led to some not-so-prolife results. For some, they have come to understand that the embryos they placed in frozen storage for future “use” are their children whether or not they are eventually born or do not survive the process of implantation. Others are still learning that pre-implantation genetic diagnosis is not actually a therapeutic treatment of their very tiny children, but a means of discarding imperfect offspring, a technological “achievement” grounded in a philosophy that says only certain lives are worth living. PGD has come to be a routine practice as IVF has come to be more about quality control.
We continue to love and minister to the women and families who have found themselves in these unfortunate circumstances without being fully informed; ridicule and rebuke have no place as there is so much misinformation about these issues. But as a matter of proactive, educational ministry, women in the church must learn more about these decisions they are contemplating.
Life begins at conception, the point in time when a new organism with its own unique genetic fingerprint commences to exist. Some hold that life begins at implantation, when the condition of pregnancy is said to begin. In the old days, before the wider use of assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs), it seemed to make sense to equate the idea of pregnancy with when life begins because a woman would know that conception occurred only once she discovered her pregnancy.
Pregnancy, however, is the result of a series of events, life beginning not at implantation but at the prior event of conception, the point in time in which egg and sperm unite. Of course, implantation is a requirement for the newly formed life to grow and mature and eventually be born, but the embryo’s environment only determines its ability to develop, not its biological or moral status. An embryo is a human at the earliest stage of life even prior to implantation. To think of this another way, preventing implantation does not alter the fact that the embryo is a living being…a child. So why does this matter?
Unless we rightly understand when life begins and that it is to be valued at even the microscopic stage, the decisions we make related to our fertility, someone else’s fertility, or even for scientific research will matter little. But they matter a great deal! We need to be a society–and a church–that says all life is to be respected and protected at any stage and age. Being created in the image of God is not dependent on being born, it is dependent on being human, and the state of being human begins at conception, not at implantation, birth, or some arbitrary line in between.
Christian women have a particularly high calling, to model to our culture that all life has dignity because of the Creator and, therefore, deserves respect. All of our decisions related to our reproductive system need to be made through the lens of a Christian worldview, not just through the potentiality of medicine. Simply because science makes is possible for us to conquer our reproductive obstacles does not mean that this is what God is calling us to do. It is so easy–and it is good!–to love the idea of a precious young child in our arms. But the idea cannot become an idol such that we ignore the truth and wisdom taught in Scripture. As the LORD said to Jeremiah
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
and before you were born I consecrated you;
I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”
(Jeremiah 1:5 ESV)
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