The Africa Review in Five highlights African current affairs from a Christian perspective. Listen and subscribe through Youtube, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.
Today is Friday, September 29th, A.D. 2023. This is The Africa Review in Five, written by Tim Cantrell and presented by Yamikani Katunga.
The Bitter Truth About Test-Tube Babies
In 1978 when the first test-tube baby was born, the media announced that she let out, “a cry round the brave new world”, deliberately borrowing from Aldous Huxley’s book warning about the dehumanising dangers of technology. IVF was a method engineered in the 1970s, putting the sperm and egg in a Petri dish (“in vitro” = “in a glass”) to produce a fertilised embryo (a ‘test-tube baby’).
The world and its ways have progressed a great deal since then. It’s morals have often regressed equally so, in the opposite direction. African countries have not been spared these humanistic ideas and murderous methods as the headlines and court cases reveal, and as the insurance companies gladly cover. South Africa leads the way on the sub-continent, offering some 37 different IVF clinics countrywide. Moving a little further north one article flaunts the headline, ‘Smiles for 45 women after successful IVF at Kairuki Hospital’. But not all parties who contributed to this headline are smiling. What about the embryos that did not make the news on account of them being frozen or discarded? Let’s take a step back and consider what Scripture has to say.
Infertility frames the whole story of the Bible and vexes countless couples with the burden of a barren womb, empty arms, and an aching heart. Of all the severe tests of faith that God sent to our forefathers, childlessness has been one of the most common and most difficult
Nowhere in His Word has God promised a child to every married couple, though He promises His all-sufficient grace and abundant wisdom for every trial (2 Cor. 12:9-10; Jam. 1:5-8). Much wisdom is needed for Christian couples facing infertility and for our churches in how to counsel them biblically. Medical technology offers a wide array of proposed solutions that we must carefully understand, morally navigate, and often, courageously reject in this modern minefield of a secularised, godless culture of death. Why should the Christian Church speak out against in-vitro fertilisation, even for couples with their own sperm, egg, and womb? Here are two reasons I believe the Church must break its silence about the immorality of IVF.
The Sanctity of Human Life
IVF technology raises a host of disturbing ethical questions about what is done to those precious little human embryos: Even if the couple rightly insists that every embryo must be implanted, isn’t it assumed that there is still a high likelihood of some of the embryos perishing? Or will some embryos be frozen for later? How much later? What if the couple then falls pregnant naturally, or one parent dies, or they get divorced, or a hundred other contingencies occur to prevent the future implanting of those embryos? How sure are they that their ‘frozen children’ will not be used for Nazi-style stem-cell research and genetic engineering? Or adopted by a gay or lesbian couple?
Al Mohler writes:
“This may be the most devastating moral reality of the IVF technology. …These embryos are denied human dignity and are reduced to a frozen existence, awaiting either implantation, indefinite storage, or willful destruction. …IVF technologies destroy even as they claim to create, and the termination and disposal of human embryos is a reminder that the gruesome reality of the Third Reich is never far from us.”
The Sanctity of Marriage
For the Church, biblical language matters immensely: God says human life is “begotten”, not “made” (Gen. 5, etc.). From the Garden (Gen. 1-2), our Creator has beautifully designed for procreation within the covenantal, exclusive bond of marriage, not through artificial, man-made devices or an intrusive third party.
Christianity is not anti-science or anti-medicine. Historically Christians have made some of the greatest medical and scientific advances and done the most to defend human dignity. However, any technologies that undermine our Maker’s sacred institutions of marriage and family do far more harm than good.
In conclusion, never is a child a right that we deserve; each son or daughter is a gracious gift of the Creator who opens and closes the womb (Isa. 66:9; Ps. 113; 127). Consider the Feinbergs’ conclusion in a textbook on Christian ethics:
“On the basis of the preceding discussion, we believe that there are enough moral questions associated with IVF to conclude that at the current state, IVF technology is still morally wrong.”
And that’s it for The Africa Review in Five on this Friday, September 29th in the year of our Lord 2023. Subscribe to the Missionary Minds podcast on Spotify or Apple podcasts. I’m Yamikani Katunga. Be not weary in well-doing.