The New York Times reports today on a myriad of problems associated with in vitro fertilization. Seriously folks, the risks–not to mention the troubling moral issues–of this type of emotional appeasement are far, far too great. Better to accept the Lord’s will and to adopt children who are already here. From the article:
While IVF creates thousands of new families a year, an increasing number of the newborns are twins, and they carry special risks often overlooked in the desire to produce babies. While most twins go home without serious complications, government statistics show that 60 percent of them are born prematurely. That increases their chances of death in the first few days of life, as well as other problems including mental retardation, eye and ear impairments and learning disabilities. And women carrying twins are at greater risk of pregnancy complications.
Yet curiously, The Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod’s Commission on Theology and Church Relations in their 1996 report on procreative issues find it difficult to say either Yea or Nay:
The Commission is troubled about the potential for abuse opened up by this technology. We understand why some Christians urge us simply to reject the entire practice. But we are reluctant to locate the problems that arise simply in the medical technique itself and to suggest that Christians could never faithfully use it.
Our discussion of the previous cases outlined the scriptural basis for taking into account the divinely established one-flesh union of marriage. We agree with the synodical representatives who argued that faithful use of in vitrotechnology will involve sperm and eggs only from within the marriage. This conclusion is consistent with the advice we offered in the cases involving surrogacy and artificial insemination by donor.
Why is it so difficult to see and believe that the divinely instituted means for the procreation of children is through the proper use of our created bodies, that is, the one-flesh union of male and female? It seems that the CTCR’s argument is similar to those who want to offer grape juice and rice cakes for the Sacrament, and then justify such because the Words of Institution were added.
Source: Christians and Procreative Choices: How Do God’s Chosen Choose? September, 1996, p. 37 (accessed October 11, 2009)
