Snowflake Babies
As technology increases, Christians are required to address issues and answer questions that in past millennia were incomprehensible. Recently, a friend brought up the issue of "embryo adoption." Having never heard this term before, in my mind this immediately became one of those questions.
I soon learned that "embryo adoption" was connected to "Snowflake babies", also a new term for me, with both connected to In Vitro Fertilization (IVF). In an attempt to lay this out in a short, linear fashion as to where these embryos come from, it begins with and is the result of IVF. IVF is an artificial process by which a woman's eggs are fertilized with a man's sperm in a laboratory and then injected into a woman's uterus. Admittedly, this is a very simplified definition.
An excellent and detailed article written by Paul J. Barth on IVF may be found here. All the issues addressed in his article carry over into "embryo adoption", whereas this article is intended to focus tightly on this "embryo adoption" concept and the marriage relationship.
Frozen
Since the IVF process frequently fertilizes multiple eggs, it results in many unused or unwanted embryos. These embryos are frozen and stored. At some later date, an unwanted embryo may be "adopted" by a different woman, then thawed and injected into the woman's uterus. If successful, pregnancy results and the child that is born is referred to as a "Snowflake baby".
Since this technology has to do with life, marriage and procreation, this procedure, then, is inherently a moral question that requires a Biblical answer. Christians cannot assume the nature of such issues to be beyond Scripture simply because of the involvement of technology far beyond anything early Christians had to grapple with.
Nevertheless, new technologies are not beyond Scripture's reach (cf. 2 Peter 1:3), and thankfully so. The number of ethical, moral questions this procedure raises are many -- and yet the final answer may, in fact, be very simple. So with Scripture as my only source, my research began. But where in the Bible should I start?
Ensign of Life
To state clearly before moving on, this article is presuppositional: That scriptural truth is God-given, and lays out the normative for life and living. It is constant; therefore, this normative includes marriage and the husband and wife relationship. These are not simply a "pattern for marriage generally" (Wayne Grudem - How IVF Can Be Morally Right).
Yahweh, as sovereign God, established a creational design for marriage to fulfill His command in Genesis 1:28 to "be fruitful and multiply." This normative design has not, and does not change with time or circumstance, new technology or discoveries, man's reasoning or sin. We are not left to our own relative thinking.
From the beginning of life, through death, to the final resurrection, Scripture is the guidepost, the ensign of life showing the way. Therefore, Holy Scripture -- and not the internet -- must govern all actions and decisions. The Bible is comprehensively true and is the standard given to God's creatures as the rule of life.
Normal
Since creation of life and birthing of children is at the core, it is therefore intrinsic to the husband and wife, the marriage relationship and procreation. This being the case, the starting point became clear. Research must begin in the book of Beginnings. The one book, the book of Genesis, provides a precise map, as laid out by our Creator God.
Here, Genesis is most helpful in its clear simplicity. Marriage includes one man and one woman, and within that union is the means to procreate; "Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother, and cleave to his wife; and they shall become one flesh" (Genesis 2:24). God commanded the husband and his wife to bear children; "God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply" (Genesis 1:28a). How are the husband and wife to "multiply"? "Now the man knew his wife Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain" (Genesis 4:1a).
Is this being too simplistic in a modern high-tech age? The answer is an emphatic no. Christians, especially pastors, must trust what Yahweh God says. His Word is not elastic and does not change with time (cf. Hebrews 13:8). The Word is eternally relevant. Past, present or future life issues are not beyond the relevance or authority of God's Word.
By Design
Children, by the Creator's design, are brought into the world. Yahweh was specific and intentional regarding procreation.
Behold, children are an inheritance of Yahweh,
The fruit of the womb is a reward. Psalms 127:3
Reading Psalms 127 in light of today's technology, the question arises, whose womb? Turning a few pages further in the book of Psalms comes the answer: "For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb" (Psalms 139:13). It is easy to discover a consistency: The womb in Psalms 127:3 belongs to the woman -- the wife and mother -- who conceived by way of her husband. This is the same woman who gives the child birth (cf. Genesis 4:1). Scripture never refers to a substitute/surrogate in the modern sense of being a woman other than the one who conceives within her own body and gives birth from that conception.
Procreational norm, then, is a husband and his wife who join together in sexual union to conceive and give birth to a child through her womb. In other words, there is only one way within God's economy to bring children into the world.
Adoption Redefined
Here we need to pause and consider the term "embryo adoption." This process was first referred to as embryo transfer. A new label was necessary to give the process advocated a palatable, virtuous sound, and invariably plays on emotions. In order to accomplish this, a novel use of the word "adoption" has been applied. Therefore, in the Christian context, the word needed redefining -- or broadening beyond a Biblical definition.
One pastor states, as an example, "embryo adoption reminds believers of their duty to consider adoption in every form." (Embryo Adoption: A Christian Option). In an effort make the unnatural implanting of two strangers' embryo into another woman's body seem virtuous (married or not), a moral-sounding label was invented.
The writer in the above example continues with this expanded definition, applies it to Scripture, and then attempts, by use of faulty reasoning, to justify a past decision he and his wife made. With this skewed conclusion, he takes a step further by attempting to bind the consciences of other believers with the moral "duty" to do the same.
Words Have Meaning
Scottish Presbyterian Matthew George Easton writes: "Adoption, [is] the giving to any one the name and place and privileges of a son who is not a son by birth."
Immediately this raises the question, how can this include an unborn frozen embryo? Easton continues defining adoption as used in three areas in Scripture:
(1.) Natural. Thus Pharaoh's daughter adopted Moses (Ex. 2:10), and Mordecai Esther (Esther 2:7).
(2.) National. God adopted Israel (Ex. 4:22; Deut. 7:6; Hos. 11:1; Rom. 9:4).
(3.) Spiritual. An act of God's grace by which he brings men into the number of his redeemed family, and makes them partakers to all the blessings he has provided for them (John 17:23; Rom. 5:5-8).
Natural adoption includes people -- infants and older children. These are the ones on the outside being brought in, placed into a new relationship. In the case of Pharaoh's daughter and Mordecai, a born baby is the adoptee being brought in.
Looking to the word "orphans": These include the fatherless or abandoned infants and older children. "Pure and undefiled religion before our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction" (James 1:27).
The words "adoption" and "orphan" have well established and common definitions as referring to the fully developed, born infants and older children. For millennia, the understanding and use of these words have not changed.
The word "adoption" as used in the label "embryo adoption" causes confusion in equating it to the Biblical definition by forcing into that word more than the textual meaning. In such instances, this broad labeling used by some influential Christians or Christian organizations leaves open the question of deception -- at best, it is Biblical ignorance, based on faulty reasoning. It is nevertheless misleading. Therefore, this labeling is not a small issue when moral clarity is absolutely vital.
Surrogate Husband
The married husband and wife, and their relationship needs to be at the center of our understanding of this issue, and not the life frozen in embryonic form. Why? Because of the normative design of marriage and procreation and that norm is not to be set aside.
It is the marriage procreation that is disrupted by IVF, by artificially separating the sexual function of the husband and wife and conception. The bedroom becomes a laboratory and conception within the sexual union of husband and wife is replaced with a glass dish. Thus it completely divorces the sexual norm, intimate union and conception from the husband and wife's marriage bed and their marriage relationship.
Further departure from this normative design of the husband and wife occurs by introducing that which is artificially produced by others into their marriage relationship. In other words, an egg and sperm from two other people in the form of an embryo is placed into the womb of the wife, thus separating the husband entirely from the procreation birth process. Therefore, another man has entirely replaced the husband in the pregnancy of his wife.
Here, the normative design of the marriage and procreation is completely sidestepped. This means that within his own marriage, the headship role of the man as husband is reduced to a mere outside spectator.
1 + 1 = One Flesh
The use of such technology usurps the role of a husband to procreate with his wife, as established by Yahweh God in the garden. "God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them, and God said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply'" (Genesis 1:27-28a emphasis added).
The word "them" is referring the one "male" and one "female" that God created as the only two people in the marriage. They are "blessed." They are commanded to "be fruitful and multiply," to have children. Only the man and his wife, "they shall become one flesh" (Genesis 2:24b). There is no third or fourth person in view in this relationship.
Again, the Genesis account is not be be understood as a "general pattern." They "shall" declares a fact that is to take place -- cleave as one flesh. This establishes what is indeed natural and commanded by the Creator. We are given a specific fix and permanent normative. God's direct involvement in creating life is to be mirrored in the direct involvement of the husband and wife procreation.
A husband is not to willfully lay aside his headship responsibility to another man in order to achieve a pregnancy by artificial means. In other words, the man as husband is not to hand over his wife's body, subjecting her to a foreign sexual process.
Marriage Purity
What cannot be ignored is that the sperm and egg are produced by a man and woman's sexual organs. Of particular concern, is the means by which a man's sperm is collected in the IVF process -- for the very fact that it is impossible to know when lustful imaginations of fornication or adultery on the part of the man were involved (cf. 1 Corinthians 6:18; Matthew 5:28). Since greater than 90% of sperm is acquired by means of masturbation (a sexual function), this must be of concern.
Further, the only flesh to enter into a woman is to be that of her husband. It raises serious questions regarding marriage purity. Has not purity been lost by what is introduced into the body of a married woman, the product of another man and woman's sexual organs? And therefore, into the sacred marriage relationship between her and her husband?
No Marriage
An alarming thought is that using the same reasoning as quoted above, why should this "embryo adoption" not then be taken up by single women? If this process is merely an adoption (as used in the broadened sense), what would prevent an unmarried Christian woman from having herself impregnated with a frozen embryo?
This is the logical next step, if it is not already taking place. How long will it be before these Christian agencies begin to solicit single women, who have not married, yet have a strong motherly desire to have children -- "Do you want to give a home to an abandoned life?? Adopt an embryo!"
Words matter. Right reasoning matters. Virtue is not determined by man. When the instruction and means by which God creates is ignored, evil lies ahead.
Marriage Bed
Speaking specifically to Christian marriages: The wedding and marriage relationship of the first man and woman is the capstone of creation. Only after the first wedding did God declare "all that He had made, and behold, it was verygood" (Genesis 1:31, emphasis added).
Further, the spiritual nature of the marriage as a sacred relationship must not be overlooked. A fuller understanding of our Creator's intent for marriage is found in the book of Ephesians:
FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH. This mystery is great, but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church (Ephesians 5:31-32 emphasis in the original).
For the husband and his wife to bring into their marriage a technological substitute, takes the creation God declared very good and the beauty of His creational order and sets it on its head. Further, the imagery of the great mystery in the intimate and pure union of Christ and His bride is completely lost (cf. Revelation 19:7-8).
Husbands then, have a high and noble responsibility:
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she would be holy and blameless (Ephesians 5:25-27).
Given that marriage is the spiritual imagery of "Christ and the church," the highest priority must be given to purity within marriage to prevent anything impure from entering the marriage relationship. His bride must be kept pure.
Marriage is to be held in honor among all, and the marriage bed is to be undefiled, for the sexually immoral and adulterers God will judge (Hebrews 13:4).
Christian couples must understand the necessity of purity and what purity consists of, that nothing be brought into the marriage that pollutes. In our modern times, this requires dependency on, coupled with deep thought concerning Scripture. Nothing short of a full-orbed understanding is called for. Here in the book of 2 Peter are words of much help:
Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the full knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord; seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the full knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence (2 Peter 1:2-3).
The word "everything" in verse 2 means everything. From "the full knowledge of God," His Word gives the Christian man and wife the tools to enable them to understand and address the complexities of life. We are not left to ourselves to navigate the shifting sands of technology. Therefore, Scripture as the standard, is relevant at all times and all places.
Since purity within marriage is directly tied to "life and godliness", it necessitates the seeking of what God says before subjecting their marriage to an artificial process that is based on a man-contrived virtue.
Womb
Here it must be said that child adoption as it has been understood and practiced down through history, is indeed right and good. Giving these boys and girlscreated in God's image a place within your home, along with the privileges and love of a Christian family, is indeed a noble calling. And, should be viewed as God's good, and therefore commendable.
Moving beyond common adoption is where husbands and wives faced with infertility need to be especially careful. What others say or do, even when it sounds virtuous or is based on what pastors, professors or what Christian leaders write in their books, or because modern technology makes it available and possible, is not validation. Given the moral nature of marriage, conception and birth, extra-biblical reasoning or reasoning aimed at stirring emotion will lead to error and sin.
Those struggling with infertility must consider the words of the first mother in Genesis 4:1. Why at the birth of her first child did Eve say "I have gotten a man with the help of Yahweh"? Because as a mother she understood that children are from God. This is affirmed in Ruth 4:13: "So Boaz took Ruth, and she became his wife, and he went in to her. And Yahweh granted her conception, and she gave birth to a son." The creational norm is in clear view and Yahweh is directly involved.
Other women also understood that pregnancy is dependent on God: "So Sarai said to Abram, 'Now behold, Yahweh has shut my womb from bearing children'" (Genesis 16:2a emphasis added). Sarai was simply stating the obvious. "Then God remembered Rachel, and God listened to her andopened her womb" (Genesis 30:22 emphasis added). Rachel understood as well, which is why she prayed, called out to God.
What all three of these women have in common is, they understood their dependency on Yahweh God for conception and birth. Therefore, the husband and wife are not to set God aside and step outside His creational norm.
One God
Paul J. Barth writes: "By seeking to reproduce outside of God’s design, we tacitly deny God’s unique position and attempt to usurp His glory and authority. [This act] is an audacious attempt to challenge God’s rightful position as the creator of life. It is a challenge to his lordship, majesty, and his royal prerogative and sovereign right to ordain the means and context for procreation" (citation link above).
"One of the greatest witnesses in our age will be Christian couples who faithfully meet the struggles of marriage with the grace and power of God" (Dr. Richard Phillips; Reformed Expository Commentary). Arthur Pink adds: “Contentment is the product of a heart resting in God. . . . It is the blessed assurance that God does all things well, and is, even now, making all things work together for my ultimate good.”
Yet You are He who brought me out of the womb;
You made me trust when upon my mother’s breasts.
Upon You I was cast from birth;
You have been my God from my mother’s womb. Psalms 22:9-10
In short, husbands and wives cannot play God when it comes to the womb. Yahweh is sovereign, to whom alone creation is reserved.
Fixing the Problem
IVF and the innumerable embryos created in a laboratory is man meddling with creation way beyond what he should. The aftermath of this meddling challenges comprehension. The reality is, the magnitude of some evils far exceed our ability to correct on the backend. The by-product of IVF, life frozen in embryonic form, is one of them.
For husbands, impregnating our wives with someone else's frozen embryos is not the same as Christians in Roman times taking in abandoned babies, nor traditional adoption.
It is arrogant for the Christian to think he can and must fix the product of sinful man's corruption. Trying to fix this problem by means of the same technology that got us into this situation, is itself to play God.
The only solution may be that forwarded by Matthew Lee Anderson:
There is only one way out, I think, for our society to come to terms with the tragedy we have created: own it. The grave moral wrongs we have inflicted by creating life in laboratories cannot be remedied by our own hands. Abandoned embryos are not homeless, after all: they belong to God, and we ought face up to the reality of our complicity in evil by placing them in the ground and letting them return to Him, to be comforted by the inscrutable mystery of His grace (Embryo Adoption and our Moral Imaginations).
As one pastor stated: "We have the sneaking suspicion that we are more loving than God." Such inward thoughts can easily give birth to foolishly doubting our gracious, sovereign God, and cause us to try to take matters into our own hands. The novelty of "embryo adoption" is one such case.
IVF and the countless leftover frozen embryos is a technological horror in numbers quickly rising second only to abortion. Nevertheless, Christians cannot present a solution that violates God's creational norm. Sinning will not fix sin.
Marriage is sacred and must be held in high honor. Hebrews 13 is directed specifically to the husband and wife. Their duty is to purity, which is only accomplished by following God's design and never departing from it. Our God is a Holy God. The life He expects us to live is one that doggedly follows after Him.
I am God Almighty;
Walk before Me and be blameless. Genesis 17:1
