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August 19, 2008
Infertility & IVF
I recently stumbled on a blog by a woman who had been infertile, undergone multiple IVF treatments & who now has two healthy 4-year-olds. In the course of reading that blog, I found that a very hateful sounding woman had blasted her in the name of Christianity.
I don't remember all the details of the infertile woman's treatments, and I'm too lazy to look them back up, but all total, she had harvested something like 80 eggs over 5 separate treatments. The Christian woman stated that she had murdered 80 of her own babies. She went on to say that any fertility treatment is akin to Abraham sleeping with Hagar to get Ishmael. Her opinion is that all fertility treatments are wrong and playing God.
Now, since I've never taken fertility treatments, I am somewhat ignorant of the process. But I do know that when embryos are viable, they save and freeze them. So I think it's logical to assume the vast majority of those eggs, or embryos, were not viable or they wouldn't have continued harvesting them. If they are not viable, they are not going to result in pregnancy; therefore, how can we claim they are "murdered babies?"
Her other criticism, that all IVF is wrong, is where I get a little fuzzy. I don't agree with her, but I'm not as able to defend my position. I will say that God is still God, even in the fertility clinics. If He has decided to close a woman's womb, no doctor is going to be able to overcome that. I also think that reproduction is a biological function and that medical science is just trying to restore that function to what it should be. When a pancreas stops working, we think nothing of taking insulin to restore bodily function, so when an ovary stops working, why does it become a moral issue to use medicine to restore its function?
Reading this little battle between these two women really bothered me. I think, as a pro-life Christian, we can rather say that she brought two children into the world that would not be here otherwise, instead of blasting her for creating non-viable embryos in the process. I do know that in the course of her IVF, she did at one time selectively reduce a pregnancy that had resulted in 4 babies. I cannot defend that and do consider that abortion, but neither have I been in that situation with a doctor telling me I was risking all the babies by trying to keep them all. I believe, I hope, that if that had been my situation, I would have been one of the freaks on TV having 6 or 7 babies rather than aborting some of them.
I had a Christian friend undergo IVF & she could not let any of her viable embryos be discarded as medical waste, so she ended up with 5 babies, over two pregnancies, which was a bit more than she wanted originally. I also know of Christians donating their embryos to other infertile women, which sounds like a marvelous idea.
I know there are several Christians who read this blog and I just wondered if you had given any thought to IVF and what that means from a Christian perspective. Do you think it is morally wrong and Christians should rather wait on God to bring them the baby?
| By Wifeepoo | 7:16 AM
Comments
Amen! The Lord has given the doctors, etc. the intelligence to develop these methods. We should have the intelligence to be able to use them or not, depending on our own convictions. I don't think anyone should be blasted for choosing this option. I have a friend right now carrying her own miracle baby that she was only able to conceive thru IVF.
Posted by: jill at August 19, 2008 12:20 PM
I don't believe it's wrong, either. I totally agree with you in that if God does not intend a baby to be born, He will not allow it to happen no matter what we do. Fortunately, I didn't have to go that far. I just did a Clomid induction to get Daniel. I guess that lady would probably disagree with that, too. The way I look at it, that woman wanted those children so much that she was willing to do whatever it took within her power to get them. When those children are old enough to understand, they will never doubt how much their mother wants and loves them. Of course, on the flip side, how will she ever explain how she decided to get rid of some of them? I, too, cannot condone that. If women have the financial means to go with this option, I say more power to them!
Posted by: Tracy at August 19, 2008 5:27 PM
