— Friday, April 17th, 2009 —
The desire of infertile couples to pass on their genes should not be underestimated. The emotional associations people have with fertility treatments are positive. They have brought great joy into a lot of homes. It is nothing like abortion, which most people, wherever they stand on its legal status, see as a sad event.
Sophisticated defenders of embryo-destructive stem-cell research have frequently suggested that pro-lifers are morally unserious in their opposition to it, because otherwise they would have to take on IVF. Pro-lifers have for the most part brushed off this debater’s point, instinctively concluding that there is no reason that they should be the only political actors who are not allowed to pick their battles. But a reform of the industry ought to be among the long-term goals of the pro-life movement.
Ramesh Ponnuru in his article “Out of the Freezer” in the 6 April 2009 issue of National Review.
Few Christian leaders have spoken kindly but truthfully about IVF but hopefully that will change.
Elizabeth, Yes, but there are some. I would commend the writings of Robert George and Gilbert Meilaender on this issue. They are excellent.
I thought Oliver O’Donovan’s handling of IVF in his work “Begotten or Made” is absolutely stellar, and prophetic in terms of Christian Ethics. He hammers home the same truth that Ponnuru touches on, namely the connections between how we come to “think” about children and procreation as “making” rather than “begetting,” and the direction that such scientific/secular thought is headed. In the end (or in the case of life, in the very beginning), consistency demands that we seriously consider the ethics of IVF in light our larger doctrines of life, marriage, sex, procreation, and children. That IVF is possible (even with joyous results), is far from enough proof that it should be ethically permissible — not to mention the fact that IVF is the fountain from which countless other morally questionable practices arise, like cryopreservation, AID, abortive selective reductions, embryonic stemcell research, etc., etc. Such scientific “fruit” from a technology like IVF should be enough to give any Christian great pause…
Brother Hank, You are quite right, both about O’Donovan’s great book and about IVF.