The technologies available to people who want to have a baby but struggle to conceive naturally are many and growing, such as medications, intrauterine insemination (IUI), in vitro fertilization (IVF), donated eggs and sperm, surrogacy and genetic screening of embryos.
Reproductive technology raises many questions -- medical, emotional, financial and moral -- that can be particularly vexing for people who want to make decisions in line with their religious faith. Based on my own experience with reproductive technology, and conversations with others, here are five recommendations for people of faith who are considering using reproductive technology.
1. Be clear about your hopes, desires and goals.
People considering reproductive technology have a straightforward goal: To have a healthy baby. But given the many choices available to today's aspiring parents, it's helpful to dig a bit deeper: What motivates your desire for a child? Do you see parenthood as a vocation (a "calling")? How important to you is the experience of pregnancy and childbirth? Or that there be a genetic link between parents and child?
Once you walk through the doors of a fertility clinic, you will face pressure to avail yourself of any and all treatments to achieve pregnancy. It is vital that you enter those doors with a solid sense of why you want to have a baby, and how your faith informs that desire, so that you can evaluate your many options for building a family.
2. Consider moral questions.
Moral questions around reproductive technology encompass, but go far beyond, traditional concerns raised in abortion debates about embryonic life and reproductive choice. For example, what are the implications of our being able to control certain aspects of procreation (such as screening embryos)? Does fertility medicine tempt us to view children not as gifts, but as products manufactured to parental specifications? The market orientation of fertility medicine raises questions about stewardship of resources, and the potential exploitation of patients desperate to have a baby, gamete donors, surrogates and the children themselves.
The news media tend to alternately gloss over or sensationalize such questions. Clinicians, committed to their discipline and focused on achieving pregnancies, are unlikely to raise moral concerns with patients. But moral concerns remain (in fact, as reproductive technology grows in scope and capability, they are multiplying), and are highly relevant for people of faith.
3. Take your time.
Pursuing technological reproduction is like stepping onto a treadmill; once you get on board and get going, it can be hard to step off. Protestant Christian bioethicist Gilbert Meilaender has observed that, "[Reproductive] technology carries its own momentum which, if not irresistible, is nevertheless very powerful."
Such momentum comes hand in hand with a clinical focus on achieving pregnancies. Patients can also be eager to move ahead quickly, particularly if they have been "trying" for a long time or are older. Nevertheless, taking time to talk through decisions with your partner, family, friends, religious advisors and/or counselors, as well as to pray, do your own research, and ask your medical providers plenty of questions, will ultimately help you take control of your decisions, rather than being hustled along from one step to the next.
4. Ponder decisions before you have to make them.
Pursuing reproductive technologies requires dozens of concrete decisions: How will you decide if and when to jump from lower-tech interventions (medications, intrauterine insemination) to higher-tech interventions (such as IVF)? What will you do with embryos left over from IVF? Do you want to limit the number of eggs your clinic fertilizes to prevent having many leftover embryos? How will you decide when to stop treatments if they don't succeed?
No doubt there will be surprises along the way, and you may change your mind. But as much as possible, think about the decisions you'll make before you have to make them.
5. Seek help ... but know that you might not find it.
Pursuing parenthood despite barriers to natural conception is a draining, difficult process. You'll need support, and lots of it. Seek out people with whom you can share your anxieties, frustrations and grief, as well as talk through decisions -- friends, family, a trusted counselor or pastor.
However, be aware that many people are ill-equipped to help with decision-making. While some faith traditions (such as the Roman Catholic Church) offer clear guidance on reproductive technology, others offer only inconsistent, incomplete resources. Many people, including well-meaning and well-educated clergy, don't even know enough about what reproductive technology can (and can't) do, much less the daunting questions it raises.
In addition, reproductive dilemmas tend to draw out the most unhelpful clichés from family and friends: "If it's God's will, you'll have a child." "Just relax and you'll get pregnant." "Why don't you just adopt?" (While adoption is a wonderful choice, this question, with its implication that adoption is a simple remedy for those struggling to conceive, is misguided.)
Seek out safe places in which to talk about your struggles and decisions, ask for prayers, and receive tangible support such as rides or meals. But if people aren't helping, or are making things worse, don't hesitate to look elsewhere for help.
Reproductive decisions are some of the most emotional and complex decisions we can make. Reproductive technologies offer hope to aspiring parents, while raising many difficult questions. These questions touch on core religious concerns about human purpose, dignity, suffering, love and worth. Religious faith also offers the promise of comfort, additional resources and supportive communities within which people can make these most intimate, life-changing and ethically fraught choices.
Ellen Painter Dollar is the author of 'No Easy Choice: A Story of Disability, Parenthood, and Faith in an Age of Advanced Reproduction' (Westminster John Knox). She blogs about faith, family, disability and ethics at Patheos. Visit her website at www.ellenpainterdollar.com.
Mara Leventhal: When One Women's Health Advocate Is Pitted Against Another, No One Wins
Well, yes. They're professionals at what they do - getting women pregnant. It's a little extreme to assume that a clinician should be able to answer everything for you, including your own doubts about the morality of your choices. That's between you and your spiritual guides, or maybe just yourself, I don't know. It's different for every individual.
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The article wasn't bad, but it wasn't that fantastic either. I was expecting something more... concrete? Precise? I'm not sure. It doesn't seem too terribly connected to religious people in general, and could easily apply to any woman who is thinking about fertility treatments, IMO. On the other hand, the little religion there is only really applies to the Abrahamic faiths (chiefly Christianity, to be fair).
Overall, it could be better, and it could be worse. The points should have been elaborated on more, and there should have been a stronger description of why there are so many "issues" with reproductive services and religion for those that are unfamiliar with particular religious teachings. For example, the little I know about religion and reproductive services is mostly constrained to Catholics hating on birth control.
See how circular and illogical it is? No matter the outcome it was in god's divine plan for you, so how can you ever say you acted out of free will? So forget all of that.
Technology is the answer to your prayers in this instance, not god.
'Jesus then revealed to Mary the circumstances in which he was born.'It was during the time of the Roman occupation of Israel.Enki confided in his sister Ninurti, and they decided she would make the necessary arrangements,as they had done in the beginning to genetically design the human race.This time she would use her on ovum and Enki's semen.The only other requirement was a surrogate earthling female. She chose a young junior priestess,officiating in the Temple at Jerusalem;her name was Mary.
'When the news got out that she was pregnant,Mary vehemently denied that she had known a man(meaning had sex).This was to become known a few thousand years later as "The Immaculate Conception)
If one's faith denies stem cell research and use, then one's faith should deny efforts of technology to get past one's own deity's choices for one.
If your g-d wanted you to have children, or bear children, you would get pregnant. Why would people of faith try to go against their g-d?
Live by the sword, die by the sword.
What fascinates (and disgusts) me is that the Church claims it is based on free will and freedom. However, the Church would not exist without its never ending pursuit of control and repression; not only of its followers but of the rest of the world, too. The rote response I hear from Catholics is that "freedom is the ability to choose 'good.'" Of course, they don't really mean "good," they mean what their Child-Molesting, Money-Hungry, Costume-Wearing leaders tell them is "good." Forgive me if I don't take their definition of it seriously.
As a progressive Christian, my main agenda regarding reproductive technology is to foster more informed and robust conversations around this technology within faith communities and the culture at large. While I don't accept the Roman Catholic full prohibition of all repro tech, I think much of it raises some serious moral questions and that people of faith should think long and hard about the choices they make to use or not use this technology.
7. No really, question your faith
Then let the statistics speak for themselves.
If you buy a lottery ticket, you have a 1 in 43 million chance of winning. If you pray and then win, is it your imaginary god who made you win? Or were you just lucky that you were that 1 in 43 million?
It might hurt at first but using your brain to think might help from time to time.
one of the biggest
fears I have
is of someone
knowing how to clone our DNA
and having to contend with a clone WHILE I am STILL here on earth
working on DEFINING my spirit...
Luckily, my NURTURE argument is seamless.
Hah!