Navigating Reproductive Technology in a Brave New World

Navigating Reproductive Technology in a Brave New World  

A Scripture that Guides 

And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

Genesis 1:28 

What is IVF?  

What Biblical issues, questions and concerns are at stake?

What about frozen embryos?  

What is the meaning of the sexual union and how does it represent God’s self-giving love?  Does conception happening outside the womb do irreparable damage to God's good world.        

Is there anything wrong with conceiving a child outside the womb, outside normal sexual relations?  Because in my view, that’s at the heart of this.  --Scott Rae 

Their love-giving has been life-giving; it is truly procreation. --Gilbert Meilaender

In begetting, we, too, give of ourselves and thereby form another who, though other, shares our nature and is equal to us in dignity.  If by contrast, we come to think of a child as a product of our reason and will, we have lost the deepest ground of human equality--and perhaps as important, missed the meaning of the human act of love.  A child who is thus begotten, not made, embodies the union of her father and mother.  --Gilbert Meilaender

What is the impact of introducing “third parties” into contraception?  Does it weaken our view of parenthood? What about generational linkage?  What about the child’s view of self and connection to their past? 

Such possibilities, in which human freedom intervenes to make choices possible, forces us to reflect upon the meaning of the bond between parents and children. --Gilbert Meilaender

 What is eugenics?  How does it relate to breakthroughs in reproductive technologies?  What are the moral consequences of testing embryos for ‘genetic risk scores’ for diseases?  

  …it is becoming increasingly difficult to justify rolling the genetic dice by having children without thinking about the traits they will have.  --Jonathan Anomaly  

What is the general Evangelical view?    

I think most medical technologies are ways that we can work with God to remedy the brokenness that exists in our imperfect world.  Medical technology, I think, is God’s good gift to human beings, that through general revelation and common grace we are able to alleviate the effects of the general entrance of sin, primarily disease, decay and death.  … And I would make the argument that infertility is a result of the general entrance of sin into the world.  Not the way God intended it to be.  --Scott Rae

Where do we go from here?

 --- For couples facing infertility 

---- For all of us and our collective witness