Since the rapid adoption of Darwin’s Origin of Species, scientific research quickly shifted to a model of human driven innovation. Convinced that our sentience was the process of blind, pitiless chance, it became the obligation of humanity to take hold of the reins and secure a destiny of our own design.
What was posited as an advancement of science was really a shift in religious beliefs. If the God of the Bible, an infinite-personal God who created the material world for a specific purpose was replaced with the blind gods of fate, our instinct to rebel would become a sacred duty. Our ability to comprehend nature was no longer seen as a reflection of the Imago Dei, but a victorious theft of promethean fire.
Rather than perceiving this shift in mythos, Christianity retreated to a reactionary role, trying to put the brakes on the fast moving advancement of scientific research, with almost no emphasis on where the train is going.
This thinking was not entirely unwarranted, as history has proven. When mankind seized the reins, it created a division between those who were able to grasp our terrible purpose, and the animalistic masses. This led to many horrors of the early twentieth century eugenics movement, including forced sterilization, and a constant emphasis on the idea that morality was a product of tribal superstitions.
There is a growing group of scientists who are convinced by evidence that an intelligent design/creationist model of the material universe reflects the true nature of reality. If so, it should be able to generate more readily testable hypotheses, and lead towards innovation, which would drastically bolster their claims - though the majority are still focused on proving their thesis to the existing scientific community.
This habit of Christians to act in opposition to new technologies has become deeply embedded in our ways of thinking, almost certainly to our detriment. But the reason for the cautious approach to scientific advancement among Christians is always an ethical one.
Unlike a materialist who merely asks “what is possible?” The Christian is bound to ask “what is good?” This leads to many Christians spending a lot of time and effort trying to stop certain lines of research (and rightly so, when they rely on such practices as abortion), without actually examining the ways that some lines of potentially controversial research could result in good.
There are several areas of such research, with Artificial Intelligence being one area that Christians are wary of exploring (meaning they will certainly fall behind the curve), but the topic that likely raises the highest warning flags among traditional Christians is reproductive and genetic technology.
Ultimately, we must trust God’s sovereignty, as we know He can use evil for good, and unless He miraculously intercedes, we must wrestle with our own convictions about what is outside of our control. Using sinful means to stop evil can backfire dramatically, such as in the case of the attempted assassination of Adolf Hitler. The experience of evading death reinvigorated his enthusiasm and belief in his cause.
Christians have also not had a unified front of these issues. From the damnable case of Black Pastors who took money to let Margaret Sanger advocate abortion to their Harlem congregations, or the apathetic churches who viewed abortion as a “Catholic issue”, Christians have been far too willing to accept progress and scientific discovery as unmitigated goods.
The most consequential technology of the 20th century was the birth control pill. This gave people a level of autonomous control over their reproductive future that was previously unheard of. With this God-like power over the creation of new life, the majority of people decided to scale back drastically.
Now that almost every nation is facing an eventual, if not imminent crisis of population collapse, wise people are starting to discover why God never rescinded His command to be fruitful and multiply, and why cultures corrode when they view having children as anything other than an intrinsic good.
A reversal of this process is in the air; perhaps not everywhere, but in certain pockets of society, including large sections of Christian culture. People are beginning to realize that prioritizing having children is a far wiser path to a meaningful life than postponing it for the sake of things like career and financial stability.
But for many of those who are late to this realization will face difficulty in conceiving, and they will be confronted with how to ethically navigate the booming industry of reproductive technology.
On these issues, I have been weighing arguments from two sources with some overlap, but also serious disagreement. One is Katy Faust, the children’s rights advocate, author, and organizer of the group “Them Before Us”, and the other is Malcolm and Simone Collins, Pronatalists and technological advocates.
On a personal level, they have a very similar telos - a desire for the next generation of children to be born and raised as people who grow up knowing they are here for a purpose, that they were wanted, and that their parents have a responsibility towards them to help them survive, thrive, and help humanity continue to grow and develop culture that benefits future generations.
The differences between the two are based on competing views of morality. While both would categorize their views as religious beliefs, Faust represents a traditionally Christian morality, where parents are responsible for doing right by their children because they are made in the image of God, and God is the infinite personal God represented in the Bible.
Her repeated message is “Children’s needs before adult desires”, and she is an extremely harsh critic of the way the modern reproductive health organizations are motivated by purely financial gains, and the directors of capital resources are the adults seeking children, not the children themselves. This means that any adult with money can acquire as many children as they would like, provided they can navigate the few hurdles of getting a surrogate to consent, which is easy if they are willing to go overseas.
The Collins on the other hand, also have a religious duty, and similarly they have an extremely high sense of responsibility towards their children, as they believe that it will be future generations of humans who will look back and judge them for their actions as deities. The major difference here is that they do not exactly view the moral directives of scripture in the same light, or hold them as authoritative.
However, they do take some scriptural commandments very seriously - more serious than most Christians do, including the first commandment, the cultural mandate of Genesis 1:28 to be fruitful and multiply. In fact, the main thrust of their religions ideology is to promote the creation of cultivars, new instantiations of human community. They want a diverse landscape of traditions to flourish and propel humanity into the future. Personally, they are seeking to build a culture that promotes having as many children as possible, having the best children possible, and devoting your resources to their success and flourishment, instead of towards personal goals.
This leads to interesting conclusions in the area of reproductive health technology, and some thought provoking questions that Christians need to wrestle with. Taking on the moniker of transhumanists, they are ultimately in favor of all the possible advancements in reproductive technology, including selecting certain embryos for desired traits, and editing DNA to produce new traits in future generations.
In most circumstances, those who espouse such views regarding technology have a dystopian bent, such as Yuval Harari, who comes across exactly like a sci-fi villain. There’s a certain blind-spot in that type of futurist, where they see themselves as the creator-god, the irreplaceable inventor of a future race of superhumans.
Of course, such malevolent fiends place no value in imagination, otherwise they would realize that In fictional accounts, it’s often the twist of fate that the created being, finding itself superior to its creator, does indeed exact retribution against their maker. In this regard, there is a certain type of humility in the Collins’s plan, though what defines their standard of morality is a bit unclear.
Of course, these two groups have only a minimal say in what actually happens in this area; the big players are the medical industrial complex, driven by profit, and the opposition groups based on moral absolutes derived from the Bible - that is, pro-life and abortion abolitionist groups and their conservative backers.
These groups represent two different motives, one is an amoral incentive to make money, and the other is a moral imperative to stop research that might result in sin and death.
Christians ought to be aware of the reality that a sovereign God does not always stop evil from occurring, but oftentimes uses it to bring forth a redemptive good. The classic story demonstrating this is that of Joseph, who was beaten and sold into slavery by his own brothers (an unquestionable evil), but through the experience was placed in the position to shield not only his own family, but representatives of all humanity from the effects of a devastating famine. His words spoken to his brothers reveal the wisdom he has grasped - what you intended for evil, God intended for good.
What I will attempt to do is imagine how Christians could ultimately benefit from and wisely make use of these technologies, even if they cannot in good conscience be the ones to drive the progress forward; and try to outline directions that advancements in reproductive technology could be supported in good conscience by most Christians.
First, here are the broad categories of reproductive technology, and the ethical concerns that trouble most Christians who have studied these issues:
Birth Control - There are various methods of birth control that work in different ways. Informed Christians are opposed to methods that allow the fertilization of eggs, but prevent them from successfully implanting in the womb. The invention of fairly reliable methods that prevent fertilization can ease the concern over killing innocent life, but their ubiquity means married Christians rarely contemplate if they should have total control over when they conceive. There is also increasing concern over their negative health effects on women who use hormonal birth control pills.
Abortion - this is considered to be “reproductive health care”, but is actually murder, as it ends the life of a person with a completely distinct genetic identity from their mother. Late stage abortion of viable infants is not truly a technology, it is a legal technicality that removes humans of rights because they reside within the womb of another person. The availability of cheap chemical abortion pills makes murder appealing and quite palatable to women and couples who simply want to forgo the physical changes caused to a woman's body by pregnancy.
Research on aborted fetuses - this creates a continued demand for the abortion industry that could incentivize politicians to forego attempts to outlaw or curb the practice.
Research and destruction of fertilized embryos - the fact that unused embryos can be used for research incentivizes their over production. There is another question that needs to be considered here that has different implications depending on certain theological stances people take (which we cannot know for certain) - but since most Christians hold the view that life begins at conception, living humans are created when embryos are fertilized, and they are killed when destroyed or discarded.
Donation of Sperm and Eggs - This is a cause for concern because it violates the sanctity of the marriage; the child is in essence a product of adultery, as one or the other biological parent is being replaced by another person outside the marriage.1 Legal rights are also dubious in regard to the parent being replaced through donated material; paternity or maternity can not be tested via DNA if the sperm/egg is from a donor.
Surrogacy - This is a problem because the child is removed from the woman who has carried the child in her womb. The intense bonding experience in utero is severed as the child is given to its “biological” or paying “parents”. It also brings into question issues regarding the sanctity of marriage, because even if the sperm and egg are from a married couple, a third person is involved in the life creation of the child, and the child’s rights are being violated by being removed from the mother than has carried him, and bonded with him. The psychological effects of being carried by a mother who does not want the child are unknown, but likely negative, as positive speech and emotion in utero is considered good for children's development.
Genetic selection - This is a cause for concern because the parents are making choices on behalf of who is brought into the world for their own purposes. Selection for things like sex on the basis of cultural preference could create lopsided populations with their own problems in the future.
These are some of the technologies that are currently available, and the issues surrounding them. But not too long into the future, technological innovations could also include new categories to wrestle with.
Gene editing - modifying embryos to enhance certain aspects like physical appearance or IQ will likely be possible in the future. One concern is the creation of genetic classes, with the propensity to develop laws built around these distinctions. Another is that the long term effects of these changes will not be known for many decades into the future. Widespread adoption of such techniques could make large swaths of humanity more vulnerable to unforeseen diseases or other issues.
Cloned/modified/constructed Artificial embryos - it could be possible in the future to create embryos out of cells other than sex cells. This could mean creating a child who is biologically derived from two people of the same gender, or more than two people. Long term consequences would be unknown.
Artificial wombs - This could allow people to create humans with no relational connection whatsoever. Human beings could be manufactured and used as commodities. This could lead to the creation of slave classes, or organ harvesting farms, or any other number of unforeseen consequences.
These last items are what scares many people about those who are unabashedly forging ahead with new research and advancements into reproductive technology. Because continued research into these fields of study will likely require the creation and destruction of many fertilized embryos, ethically informed Christians will not be advocates for these new technologies. But if they were available right now, what could Christians do?
Lets go over them again and consider a positive case:
Gene selection/editing - some married couples have the bad luck of both parties carrying recessive genes that produce serious birth defects. While Christians hold that there is dignity in all human lives, if a parent can choose to have a child, while avoiding a high chance of that child inheriting a degenerative disease, it’s not a bad thing, especially if it means removing the risk from that child having to worry about the same thing.
Constructed embryos - while the exotic use of such technologies to create children with same sex biological parents, or extended numbers of parents would not be ethical by Christian standards, a technology that allows embryos to be created from non-sex cells could be extremely beneficial to married couples who have problems with their own reproductive capabilities. Instead of relying on a donor sperm or egg, they could have children that are biologically theirs. This could also be useful for people who have lost their reproductive organs through tragic means, such as veterans, or de-trans people.
Artificial wombs - The idea of Corporations crafting babies for nefarious purposes is always looming behind the talk about artificial wombs, but like the construction of artificial embryos, such a technology could be extremely useful for married couples who are unable to carry their own baby. Unlike surrogacy, which necessarily involves a third person into the creation of a child, an artificial womb could help women who have lost their own wombs have children, especially if combined with the technology above. There’s another big case for the utility of artificial wombs - reducing abortions. If women who do not wish to carry a child to term could have their embryos safely relocated to an artificial womb, the child could be adopted and raised by others.
Most Christians have come to accept the idea of things like blood transfusions and organ transplants as life-saving technologies that do not carry huge moral concerns if done properly. While the path to achieving these reproductive technologies could be dicey, if they do come about, there will be opportunities to use them for good, even if the intention of their creators is evil.
The last case is especially useful. In the days of the early church, the practice of infant exposure was widespread. Christians would take abandoned children and raise them as their own. The advancement of safe and reliable abortion has made people less aware of their cruelty, while also eliminating the possibility for their children to be rescued, unless they are willing to bring the baby to term. This was one of Satan’s greatest victories. We shouldn’t be so dogmatic about the particular way that this evil is defeated, that we aren’t willing to explore all the possibilities.
There are also some ways that the researchers of reproductive technology could optimize their research to gain the support of Christians. If their focus was on:
Working to understand and Increase the success rates and viability of individual embryos implanted by IVF, so that excess embryos are not created simply for destruction.
Selecting and editing healthy genetic markers from the egg and sperm samples prior to fertilization, rather than after they have been fertilized.
Researching solutions to heal adult reproductive systems, to allow married people to conceive naturally
Promoting and incentivizing the adoption of excess frozen embryos to people who are unable to produce embryos without donor eggs/sperm, rather than seeking new donors.
Lastly, there is some theological wrestling that Christians need to do in regards to these technologies. If a married couple is unable to conceive naturally, should they pursue IVF with their own sex cells, even if it means the creation/destruction of certain embryos?
The difficulty surrounding this question is one reason why improving the success of single embryos would be beneficial to Christians. If one egg is fertilized, successfully implanted, and born there really is very little ethical concern. But when dozens are created for one to be used, what becomes of those other embryos? The Collins have decided that rather than viewing conception as the beginning of life, they assume that life begins before conception, with the intent and potential for life. In this way, they see it as their ethical responsibility to try to have as many children as possible, even if this means creating many more embryos that are never allowed to develop.
Why is this a theological issue? Christians wrestle with the idea that these embryos are living human souls. When a pregnancy ends due to miscarriage, the parents can mourn the loss, but they do not have to feel guilt, because the life of that child was decided by the Lord. The Bible does not explicitly say that infants and unborn children go to be with the Lord, but it is a widely held belief of many Christians.
There is Biblical support for this idea, but its ambiguity does give wisdom for how we live. A zealous belief that children of a certain age are united with God could easily lead to a madman concluding that the killing of innocents was a command of God. Or that Abortionists were justified because the babies went to heaven. More likely, if God in his graciousness takes those souls to be united with Himself, it is another echo of Joseph’s words - what you intended for evil, God intended for good.
This then leads us to weigh the two views of how best to honor God. Is the destruction of life the ultimate evil that God despises, and therefore Christians must avoid things like IVF if it results in the death of embryos? Or is it more important to honor the command to be fruitful and multiply, and let God judge us for our imprecision and excess?
We know He can raise the dead, but for some reason He has put the responsibility of creating children in our hands. One of the parables I often think about is the story of the talents. Three servants are given large sums of money by their master.
One receives five talents, another two, and another one. The first two double their investment, and they are rewarded with greater responsibilities in the future. But the last man says that he was afraid of the master, and so he hid the gold. The master is furious, rebuking his foolishness, because even placing the gold in the bank would have yielded some return. So he takes the gold and gives it to the man who earned five talents instead.
We can deduce that if the man had doubled his investment, he would have received the same praise as his peers. But what made the master furious was his inactivity; his misunderstanding of what the master wanted. I think it’s safe to say that the master would have been more pleased if the man had lost the whole sum, if only he had shown the initiative to risk it on a venture with the possibility of a return.
The Collins notion that life begins with the potential for life is something rarely contemplated by evangelical and protestant Christians. The catholic church has a reputation of opposing non-reproductive sex, but somehow protestants simply adopted the cultural position on having children.
There are Christians that have used both IVF and destructive forms of birth control without ever thinking of the repercussions. Culture doesn’t tell them, because culture doesn’t care. Learning is a double edged sword. Responsibility increases with wisdom and knowledge.
My wife and I were fortunate that circumstances outside our control dictated how we would navigate these issues. When we first got married, she was taking medication to shrink a tumor that would harm any developing fetus, so she was taking hormonal birth control. When she was able to get off medication, we had no problems conceiving naturally.
Having a child changed our outlook dramatically. I always knew that raising children was a great responsibility, which made me wary, because I didn’t want to fail. What I didn’t know was how great a joy it is; I felt cheated that Christian community around us had neither emphasized nor prioritized parenthood as something to pursue above career and ministry accomplishment. As our family has grown, the sense of sacred duty to raising these children, and our desire to have more has only increased.
The command to be fruitful and multiply truly is a command. Our reproductive systems are gifts, and God will hold us accountable for what we do with them. The culture we create around the purpose and value of children is also something we will answer for. For thousands of years, children were seen as an inherent good by moral people. The twentieth century has changed that outlook dramatically.
To circle back to the other side of the debate, Katy Faust is taking the right approach. There is an ideal for children. They have a right to be raised by their biological parents, and if those parents can stay together in marriage, with other brothers and sisters, it’s even better. But we all fall short of ideals.
The answer is not to throw up our hands in despair. We must direct what is, towards what ought to be. Prevention of all harm is an enormous task; but forgiveness and reconciliation are available to us all. At the end of the day, there are still children being born, even in less than ideal circumstances. Evidence shows that they are more likely to embrace traditional family roles after growing up in bad situations.
Is it better to shut down fertility clinics, and destroy the embryos in storage, or allow them to remain open, so those embryos can be adopted, even if it means allowing ethically questionable practices to continue? Perhaps over time, those who view children as lifestyle accessories will cease to be the main clients, and those who desperately want to serve future generations of humanity will be using them instead. We can’t prevent all evil, so we must allow God to use what was intended for evil to produce good.
As people become more aware of the mistake we have made in taking children for granted, will Christians act as theological gatekeepers, or will we become evangelists for life? Consider Christ, who did not sin, but suffers for us, because the future He desired was worth any cost. Can we, if not actively participating, encourage those outside our theological framework in seeking the good of parenthood, even if we aren’t thrilled about the means?
This is an area where one could consider the implications of something like the Biblical concept of Levirate marriage, where a younger son or close kin marries the widowed spouse of a deceased brother who has not fathered a child. If the brother is not dead but his sperm is, is this acceptable? What about sisters and eggs? It has different implications when the child will be raised in contact with his “true” biological parents as an uncle or aunt. Is it more or less ethical if the donor is a relative? Alternatively, what if deceased sperm donors are used, as has become more common when soldiers die in Israel? Should sex cells be part of the organs routinely harvested from those who die tragically young? Technology continues to test our moral ideals.