Should Pro-Lifers Embrace Embryo Adoption?

00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)

00:00:02.580 | - Good Monday morning, everyone.

00:00:05.500 | We open this new week on the podcast addressing

00:00:08.280 | one of the many questions we have not addressed directly.

00:00:11.240 | Embryo adoption.

00:00:14.440 | There are several versions of this question.

00:00:16.400 | I'll put them all on the table, Pastor John, for you.

00:00:19.000 | A listener named Sveta writes in,

00:00:21.080 | hello, Pastor John, I have a follow-up question

00:00:22.960 | to ABJ1165, what do you think about

00:00:25.200 | so-called snowflake adoptions,

00:00:27.760 | in which a frozen embryo left over

00:00:29.400 | from another family's IVF process is implanted

00:00:31.960 | into a woman to give this child a chance at life?

00:00:35.280 | Laura, a listener, wants to know if there's

00:00:37.640 | a moral difference between adopting the orphaned-born

00:00:41.080 | versus adopting the orphaned-unborn.

00:00:43.500 | Likewise, Audrey asks, should embryo adoption

00:00:47.880 | be considered something that Christians value

00:00:49.500 | as much as after-birth adoptions?

00:00:52.400 | In fact, several listeners have asked,

00:00:53.760 | in essence, are frozen embryos as much orphans

00:00:56.960 | to concern the church with as living, breathing orphans?

00:01:01.320 | And this is a very real question for one couple.

00:01:03.320 | Hello, Pastor John, my name is Kareem from Australia.

00:01:07.300 | I recently read some articles about considering

00:01:09.040 | embryo adoption to help those babies

00:01:10.900 | live their God-given life with a loving family.

00:01:13.900 | My husband and I are considering this option.

00:01:15.600 | We lost our only child in 2019,

00:01:17.920 | and we feel ready to love a child again.

00:01:20.420 | But my husband is sub-fertile,

00:01:22.840 | and the normal adoption process

00:01:24.680 | in Australia is long and expensive.

00:01:27.080 | But my question is, how could I be sure

00:01:28.440 | that adopting an embryo is what God intended for us?

00:01:31.680 | We want a child, but does embryo adoption

00:01:33.820 | allow us to play God and choose parenthood?

00:01:37.080 | Maybe God made my husband sub-fertile for a reason.

00:01:40.600 | I guess I just wanna make sure that this is God's will

00:01:42.560 | and not our own will here.

00:01:43.980 | Also, another concerning fact about embryo adoption

00:01:47.460 | is that the clinic transfers all of the donor's embryos

00:01:50.080 | into the recipient.

00:01:51.360 | What if the donor has three frozen embryos,

00:01:54.240 | and we can only afford to grow one baby?

00:01:56.200 | Then it does not help the other two frozen babies left,

00:01:59.280 | as one will have to decide to keep them frozen

00:02:01.360 | or to destroy them.

00:02:02.340 | Maybe we are overthinking this process,

00:02:04.320 | but we want to do what is right in God's eyes.

00:02:07.320 | - There are so many angles

00:02:09.800 | from which we could come at this question.

00:02:14.160 | I hope the angle that I take will prove helpful in the end,

00:02:19.160 | even though it's somewhat indirect

00:02:22.120 | concerning the question of God's will

00:02:24.400 | for this couple's life.

00:02:26.320 | I assume what they are asking

00:02:29.600 | is not that I tell them whether to adopt a frozen child,

00:02:34.600 | but whether there is anything in God's word,

00:02:38.840 | God's revealed will,

00:02:41.120 | that would make such an adoption sinful.

00:02:44.220 | Now, the angle I want to take

00:02:49.040 | is to make the observation

00:02:51.840 | that when we have a tragic situation,

00:02:55.400 | we who are Christians should feel a desire

00:02:59.600 | to take action to mitigate the tragedy in two ways.

00:03:04.600 | One way is that we should be thinking about

00:03:10.080 | how to get at the causes of the tragedy upstream,

00:03:15.080 | so to speak, from the actual tragedy

00:03:19.000 | and do what we can to hinder the tragedy

00:03:23.760 | from becoming worse by dealing with those causes.

00:03:27.720 | The other way we should be thinking

00:03:32.320 | is how to mitigate the tragedy,

00:03:34.800 | not just by looking upstream to its causes,

00:03:38.660 | but looking at the tragedy as it is right now

00:03:43.100 | and downstream to its effects,

00:03:46.200 | and we should be moved to take action

00:03:49.040 | so as to make the present situation

00:03:52.440 | and the future situation less destructive

00:03:56.000 | and heartbreaking than it is.

00:03:58.320 | Now, I think the existence of 750,000 frozen children

00:04:04.720 | in America and 120,000 in Australia is a tragedy.

00:04:14.600 | God's revealed will in his word

00:04:18.320 | for the conception and pregnancy

00:04:21.620 | and birth and rearing of children

00:04:24.660 | is not that it be done in such a way

00:04:28.720 | that results in hundreds of thousands

00:04:31.780 | of eventually abandoned children.

00:04:34.500 | This means that upstream from the tragedy,

00:04:39.740 | mingled into whatever sorrowful situations

00:04:43.560 | may motivate the in vitro fertilization

00:04:46.720 | that results in so many, quote,

00:04:48.680 | "extra conceived children outside the womb,"

00:04:52.760 | there are sinful desires and practices.

00:04:57.760 | They're mingled in.

00:04:59.960 | Nobody forced this tragedy on anyone.

00:05:04.460 | It's not like the result of a hurricane

00:05:07.800 | or a pandemic that leaves orphans.

00:05:11.140 | These hundreds of thousands of orphans

00:05:14.180 | are not owing to the death of their parents.

00:05:18.200 | Choices are being made that result

00:05:22.040 | in this heartbreaking reality

00:05:24.860 | of hundreds of thousands of unwanted children.

00:05:29.020 | Some Christians should devote energy

00:05:34.780 | to looking upstream and trying to reverse

00:05:39.100 | the causes of this tragedy.

00:05:41.820 | For example, Germany has a law

00:05:45.860 | that says only three embryos can be created

00:05:49.420 | in one in vitro fertilization cycle,

00:05:52.900 | and they must all be transferred into the mother's womb.

00:05:57.320 | This in effect prevents the tragic situation

00:06:01.460 | of thousands of frozen children accumulating

00:06:05.320 | and eventually being unwanted.

00:06:07.820 | Some Christians should be looking upstream

00:06:10.700 | to work for those kinds of preventions.

00:06:13.780 | I think Jennifer Lall,

00:06:15.620 | the president of the Center for Bioethics

00:06:18.540 | and Culture Network, is a person like that.

00:06:22.060 | She relentlessly tries to draw our attention

00:06:26.540 | to the moral problems that multiply

00:06:29.680 | when we take the processes of conception

00:06:32.220 | and pregnancy into our own hands outside the womb.

00:06:36.700 | For all the joy that may come for some couples,

00:06:41.700 | we need to be aware of the legal tangles

00:06:44.820 | and the personal tragedies that also result.

00:06:48.900 | So I think one of the first things

00:06:51.020 | that Corrine and her husband need to come to terms with

00:06:56.020 | is that they are dealing with a tragic situation

00:07:00.700 | with some innocent and some sinful causes.

00:07:06.660 | It's not a neutral situation.

00:07:08.920 | If they move forward with adoption

00:07:12.220 | of one of these frozen children,

00:07:14.860 | and frankly, I hope they do,

00:07:17.800 | I think it will spare them future pangs of conscience

00:07:23.420 | if they do it with eyes wide open.

00:07:26.620 | Someone will accuse them of participating in a system

00:07:31.620 | that is shot through with processes and procedures

00:07:36.340 | and priorities that are unwise and sometimes sinful.

00:07:41.340 | Others will point out that children created in this way

00:07:46.020 | will face many difficult and troubling realities

00:07:50.940 | as they come to know and understand

00:07:53.660 | their conception stories.

00:07:55.720 | I think Corrine and her husband need to be ready

00:07:59.780 | just for their own conscience

00:08:02.420 | to respond to such concerns with wisdom and patience.

00:08:07.420 | That's why I introduced the second way

00:08:12.020 | of approaching a tragedy like this.

00:08:14.940 | Not just looking upstream for ways to prevent it,

00:08:19.220 | but looking at it for what it is

00:08:21.580 | and asking how we might mitigate,

00:08:24.980 | at least in a small way, the tragedy right in front of us.

00:08:29.460 | And one strategy of taking that approach

00:08:34.260 | is the strategy of adoption.

00:08:37.500 | I know two couples who have embraced this way of life

00:08:41.740 | and I admire them for it.

00:08:44.220 | They are not naive and they are moved

00:08:48.980 | both by their principled opposition

00:08:51.840 | to the destruction of these frozen children

00:08:54.720 | and by their loving longing

00:08:58.220 | to have some of these children in their own family.

00:09:02.460 | I wrote a little book one time called "Risk is Right."

00:09:06.580 | I didn't mean that anybody should jump off a cliff

00:09:10.300 | thinking an angel would catch them,

00:09:12.580 | but I did mean that for the sake of love

00:09:17.580 | and for the glory of God and for the peace of conscience,

00:09:23.580 | it is right to look all of the possible future heartache

00:09:28.260 | and pain in the face that may come with such an adoption

00:09:32.300 | and then to act like Esther did.

00:09:35.740 | For the sake of saving her Jewish kinsmen,

00:09:40.300 | she approached the king, which was illegal,

00:09:43.980 | and the only way she would survive this disobedience

00:09:48.420 | is if he graciously lifted his scepter.

00:09:52.660 | She asked her family and her friends to fast

00:09:55.260 | and pray for her, which is what we should do

00:09:57.940 | when we adopt children.

00:09:59.280 | And then she said, "If I perish, I perish."

00:10:04.420 | That's the kind of risk I think glorifies God.

00:10:09.620 | She wasn't trying to make a name for herself.

00:10:12.180 | She wasn't trying to be a hero.

00:10:15.180 | She was trying to save people who were gonna perish

00:10:19.900 | if she couldn't change the king's mind.

00:10:22.640 | And so it is with thousands of these frozen children.

00:10:28.800 | They're going to be disposed of sooner or later

00:10:32.280 | if they're not adopted.

00:10:33.740 | It is a wonderful thing to be a Christian

00:10:38.220 | and to know that Christ died for our sins

00:10:43.080 | so that even if we are not completely sure

00:10:47.380 | about all our motives and all our tactical efforts

00:10:52.380 | to be loving, even if we're not sure

00:10:56.720 | that we have all the wisdom we need,

00:11:00.260 | we can be sure of this.

00:11:02.640 | The record of our debts is nailed to the cross.

00:11:07.260 | With that assurance, we embrace the ambiguities

00:11:11.620 | of this fallen, tragic world,

00:11:16.300 | and we do our best to act in love.

00:11:19.960 | I do not doubt that God will guide Corrine

00:11:24.700 | and her husband in the path of love

00:11:26.820 | and meet every need that they have for the next 50 years,

00:11:31.820 | according to his riches in glory

00:11:36.200 | and according to his promise.

00:11:38.680 | - Thank you, Pastor John, for those cautions

00:11:40.220 | and sobering words about the tragedy of this situation.

00:11:42.520 | And thank you for all the great questions.

00:11:43.860 | Keep them coming in to us.

00:11:45.340 | Speaking of reproductivity tech

00:11:46.940 | and embryo adoption and IVF practices,

00:11:49.900 | see also APJ's 1165 and 1450 in the archive,

00:11:54.060 | both closely related to what we talked about here.

00:11:56.460 | APJ's 1165 and 1450 can be found in our online archive

00:12:00.240 | at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.

00:12:04.340 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.

00:12:06.460 | We will see you back here on Wednesday.

00:12:08.620 | Thanks for listening.

00:12:09.660 | (upbeat music)

00:12:12.240 | (upbeat music)

00:12:14.820 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

Should Pro-Lifers Embrace Embryo Adoption?

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