Transcript: Lesson 22 - Sex, Procreation, and Assisted Reproductive Technology
Friends, welcome. In this unit we are going to be thinking about the reality of sex procreation and assisted reproductive technology, that in the last unit, we were thinking specifically about how we oftentimes try to delink sex and procreation and that we, we try to oftentimes engage in sexual union, but in ways that shut down or limit the procreative capabilities of our bodies.
And so in this unit, we're going to be looking at from a little bit different angle, where, whereas previously, we were thinking about how we often disassociate sex and procreation. Now we're going to be thinking about it more from the angle of how do we try to produce new life, oftentimes, apart from the reality of sexual union. And so again, we're, we're thinking about this and how this connects with the story of naturalism that our broader culture tells that our bodies are just mere matter that it's just biology. And so really doesn't matter what we do or how we treat our bodies because they don't have any inherent meaning. But instead, we're thinking about this from the perspective of God's story that our bodies have meaning that the sexual union has meaning that marriage has meaning and that that part of that meaning is connected to children connected to the reality of new life. And so as we dig into this video, I wanted to start out by asking a number of different questions to kind of get our minds thinking along these lines. So the first is what happens when we unlink sex and procreation. We, we talked about this last time a little bit in terms of contraception. But think about it from this angle. If you could create a new human being outside the womb, which we we can do. But not only create but but also allow them to gestate in other words to grow through this process. And then, quote unquote, they wouldn't even be born at that point. But they would just be like Aldous Huxley talks about in his dystopian novel, "The Brave New World" that, that they're just at a certain point decanted they're taking out a taken out of the sort of artificial womb that they're in, you know, would we what do we have any struggle with that? Would? Would we think that there's something wrong with that? Or maybe especially in our technologically driven age? Would there be some people who would say that that's a superior way to go about it? Why? Why go through the hassle of the physical difficulty of pregnancy if there are a way to completely unlink sex and procreation and birth. But we can also ask, what view of the human person is entailed in commercial reproduction? In other words, we have to acknowledge that the fertility industry is big business, that there is a lot of money to be made in the fertility industry. And to try to think about, you know, is this something that Christians should affirm ethically or not? For example, many people would not affirm something like people being able to buy and sell organs. And so we have to reflect a little bit on if we, if we would think the buying and selling of organs is wrong. Is it okay that we buy and sell a sperm and eggs and embryos? Or is there a sense in which that might be compared almost to human trafficking? If we believe that embryos, fertilized eggs? If we believe that life begins at conception, then how do we understand this this complex world that we've created with our technology? And then finally, this broad question, how do Christians discern the limits we should have regarding our power over human life? I think we would hopefully affirm that it's that we don't have the ultimate say, we don't have the power of life and death, even over ourselves. But that ultimately, there are certain things that we should not take into our own hands. And so the question is, in our technologically advanced society today, where we have great capabilities around almost unbelievable capabilities with respect to human life, and the ability to actually alter or create human beings. How do we think about this power? Are there some things that we should say, you know, we can do that, but we shouldn't we should resist that urge. Here's some more questions. And these get these get more specific as we think a little bit about assisted reproductive technologies should children of sperm donors have the right to know who their biological father is? This is something that in many places, right now, part of what's involved in sperm donation is that the men who who do this have legal protection so that their biological children actually can't seek them out can't find out who they are. And this is something that often, again, this is done thinking more about the sperm donors, and maybe even the mothers involved. But one question that people are starting to raise, especially as the the first and now second generation of children produced through these technologies are getting older as well, wait a second, you're telling us we, we don't have the right to actually to know who our biological father is. And so a lot of these things are aimed more at protecting, maybe the sperm donor,
the mother, father and mother, not so much at the children? From a more moral or ethical standpoint, is it morally permissible to unite part of you, the sperm or egg or the part of someone sperm or egg? Who's not your spouse to produce a child? In other words, I think most Christians would would say, yeah, it's wrong for me to have sex with somebody who's not my spouse. Even though part of the natural result of sexual union is at least sometimes right? The joining of sperm and egg to produce a new life. So if it's wrong for me to have sex with somebody who's not my spouse, can I still, in essence, join in this procreative activity? If it happens, apart from sex, or now we're getting into this area of what starts to happen when we tamper with this, this overall union of sexual union and marriage? should someone be paid for carrying someone else's child as a surrogate mother? Surrogacy is something that is growing in popularity, where women who for a variety of reasons can't carry children to full term pregnancy, actually arrange for someone else, to carry that child. So that you you have now a surrogate mother, who is the birth mother, but they're not the biological mother of the child. And so all of these steps are in some ways being broken down and, and sort of parceled out to different people in this process? And so not only should somebody even do this at all, but should somebody be paying for this? There have been a number of different documentaries recently, as people have raised questions about the ethics of this, particularly about the ethics in countries like India or in China, where people who are in poverty, take on this task take on surrogacy and questioning whether even there are issues of economic justice in play with something like this. Or a question like this, should the state allow or demand that a birth certificate have the name of only two mothers or two fathers? Should it list one father, and one mother, as we think about the reality of same sex marriage, and the reality of surrogates of sperm donors and others, you know, what define somebody as a father, what defines somebody as a mother? We, obviously in the case of adoption, we have a history of working with that. But even in adoption, there's not the claim that somebody can have two biological fathers or somebody can have two biological mothers. And so this is this is another dilemma that's out there. And finally, is there such a thing as a right to have a child, if somebody for different reasons, struggles with infertility? Do they have the right to do whatever is medically possible to have a child? How do we think about this? Now, I've raised more questions here than I can answer. And my goal here is, is not necessarily to answer all these questions. It's just to help us realize a little bit the complexity of the situation that's created when we separate sexual union, marriage and procreation. That our technologically advanced society has taken a lot of taken a lot of technological advances, but hasn't always thought through the ethical implications, or even the personal, emotional, psychological implications of of trying to separate all these different facets of sex, marriage and procreation. Now, before we move into thinking a little bit more about assisted reproductive technology, I do want to speak to a couple for a couple of minutes about infertility and pastoral care. I think it's really important that we understand that you know, the reason many people turn to assisted reproductive technologies is because something has gone wrong, right? Something has gone wrong with our bodies, that they are not seeing procreation happen. They're not having children, because something with the body is not working as it as it should. And so, as we mentioned, at the start of last, the last unit, we need to work, I think here to understand the difference between remedial technology and enhancing technology. And that was, so we're not just saying all technology is bad, we're not saying you should never use technology. It's trying to figure out what kind of technology is consistent with the meaning of our bodies with the meaning of sexual union with the meaning of marriage. And so that's, that's really important. So as we walk alongside people who are struggling with infertility, or maybe if you yourself are struggling with infertility, here are some key things I want to keep in front of us. I think it is important to affirm that something is not right. That if somebody comes to you is just struggling is walking through this, this difficulty of infertility. You know, we say yeah, that's not, that's not how God intended this to be. And this is where think back to the previous unit. This is where I think if we say if we recognize children are, are an inherent part of the meaning of marriage, children are an inherent part of the meaning of sexual union. So that so that of when I encounter somebody who's struggling with infertility, I can actually say, yeah, like no wonder you're struggling, this is really difficult because something is broken down here
in terms of the way God intended it to be. On the other hand, if somebody were to say, well, children aren't really part of the meaning of sexual union children aren't really part of the meaning of marriage. You know, then when I encounter somebody who's struggled with infertility, you know, maybe my attitude is more like, well get over it, that's not really you know, that you just want that that's not really part of what sexual union, that's not really part of what marriage is about. Because children aren't really connected that way. And so I think, far from diminishing people who struggle with infertility, that this notion that children are a crucial part of sexual union actually helps us understand the deep pain and deep struggle that people are walking through that it is hard on a marriage, it is hard on individuals when there's infertility, because there's something about that that's connected to the meaning of marriage. I think we also need to affirm God's providence and care, we recognize that even in the midst of suffering, it's not out of God's hands. And so we recognize that God is with us, even if we don't understand what's going on. And even if it doesn't feel good, even if it is suffering, we want to affirm that God is is still in control, and that God still cares for them, he sees them he knows them. We also and this is really hard to do. But I think we do have to do it as well in a good pastoral way, to guard against idolatry, that oftentimes we do turn marriage and family children into idols in our culture. And so even as we encourage believers, pray that God would bless them with children, even as we maybe seek different paths of adoption or other things, we do need to guard against saying, like, you know if only I had kids, everything would be good in my life. If only I had kids to recognize that, yeah, that that's a crucial part of what God might be calling you to. But we also have to be careful that we don't make that the be all and end all. Because that's when it gets dangerous. Because that's when we start to be become willing to do whatever where we where we don't stop and ask should I do this? We just say I want this. And so I'm willing to do whatever I can to get that. Fourth, we also need to recognize the struggle of others to actually say, those who struggle with infertility may have a powerful Ministry of comfort to others who are struggling with infertility. And so to recognize that if, if that is part of your story, then God might be using that, to equip you to speak words of healing and comfort and strength into the lives of others. And so it's, it's oftentimes, people can feel very alone as they walk through this, but helping them to recognize that they're not alone is crucial. And then finally, fifth, we affirm God's call to self giving love, that even if for whatever reason, infertility is something that you struggle with, and we want to say God is still called you to self giving love. It may not look like this, like in your mind, you might have thought that part of what that self giving love means is not only my love for my spouse, but love for children that are the fruit of our union. I saw this in a powerful way in a former colleague of mine, he and his wife did not have any children struggled with infertility. But what I saw in their life is that they they in their Church among the college students they were connected with. They were committed to self giving love, they had this amazing ministry of hospitality where they would welcome people into their home where they would take care of them in such amazing and concrete ways that they really they, they wove their lives together with these folks that they were called to minister to. And so even as they walked through the heartbreak of infertility, there was also this recognition that, okay, if God has hasn't blessed us with children in this way, we still recognize this call to self giving love in a different way. So for some others, maybe that includes adoption, for others. That includes, I think, thinking about, where's God calling me to invest in that way. But it's recognizing that children aren't the only way in which you can exhibit this kind of life giving love that God might call us to. So in the next video, we're going to think in a little bit more detail about assisted reproductive technologies, and think through some of the ethical questions around use of those. So until next time, blessings