Overheard: Two Pro-Lifers Having a Chat

Sally: Did you notice, Harry, how positive that pro-life speaker was about IVF? I was amazed. Granted, he saw some problems with it, but overall he obviously thought it is a great blessing for would-be parents.

Harry: Well, after all, every baby is a blessing.

Sally: Surely you can say that and still think IVF is a bad idea. Do you approve of genetic selection among embryos before implantation? And how about using sperm or ova that have come from third parties? Or even, perhaps, the use of a surrogate to gestate the child? Aren’t there good reasons not to use IVF, even if it might produce a baby?

Harry: Of course there are—as we both agree. After all, we’ve discussed this many times. But it’s certainly possible for an infertile couple to use IVF while avoiding those evils. They can use only their own sperm and ova. They can decline to weed out before implantation any embryos that might have defects.

Sally: You really think they could resist doing some choosing? Once we’ve started down this road, we’re likely to think, “If we’re making a baby, why not make the best one we can?”

Harry: Are we back to worrying about whether to choose a boy or a girl?

Sally: Actually, to be honest, I’m not that worried about choosing the sex. It’s interesting to me (and almost amusing) that this is the only kind of choice many people in our society can get upset about. Anything that has to do with the difference between the sexes bothers us. But I’m much more bothered by the desire to test for genetic problems of one sort or another—to weed out those who are deemed unfit. That seems much more pernicious, and I would think you’d agree with me about that.

Harry: I do, of course. Anyone who’s really pro-life would probably agree. And, by the way, I do agree that once we’ve decided to use IVF it will probably be hard to resist genetic testing of embryos. You’re right about that, and maybe it’s a good reason not even to consider using IVF. But hard is not impossible. Surely it’s possible to resist those evils and still pursue the gift of a child through IVF.

Sally: How about using sperm or ova that come from third parties?

Harry: I admit that also bothers me, though when I think of how it might enable a couple to be blessed with a child of their own—

Sally: Their own? Come on, Harry. Are you really going to start thinking of children as possessions?

Harry: Okay, it’s a strange way to talk. And I already granted that it troubles me. All I said was that I’d want to weigh it over against the possible birth of a baby. You’ve often told me that we ought to regard every child as a gift, no matter how he or she comes into the world. Each is made in God’s image. Isn’t that what it means to be pro-life?

Sally: It’s certainly part of what it means to be pro-life and pro-child. That’s why neither of us can approve of abortion. Sometimes, though, you seem to think that being against abortion is all it means to be pro-life. Don’t we also want children to be conceived and born in a way that respects the human dignity we all share? Doesn’t being pro-life commit us to honoring what is distinctively human in conception and birth, to seeing the child not as one we’ve produced through a reproductive project but as evidence that love-making between husband and wife can also be life-giving? It’s not as if we’re simply in favor of people having more babies, however they manage to do that.

Harry: Distinctively human, you say. That needs a little more thought, Sally. Don’t you think that using our freedom to improve human life is a distinctively human act? Isn’t it one of the ways in which God made human beings special? I know you’re about to tell me that not every use of our freedom is good, not even when it produces something good. That’s why we shouldn’t approve any and all uses of IVF. But maybe we should approve some. I’ll bet there are lots of Sundays when you’re in church sitting next to parents who’ve produced a child using IVF. And I bet they love that child just as much as they would if the baby had been conceived the old-fashioned way. I bet they thank God for the blessing this child has been for them and are grateful that human beings have used their freedom to accomplish this. Do you really want to say that pro-life people like us should disagree and disapprove?

Sally: Sorry, Harry, but I do want to disagree—for two reasons. The first is simply that there’s no stopping the IVF momentum. Once we start down that road—pouring money and emotion and years into the effort to produce a child—it will be very hard to call a halt. If at first we’re unsuccessful, maybe donated gametes or some pre-implantation diagnosis would produce success. Maybe producing more embryos and freezing some of them for another try would help. It’s hard to resist the momentum the process creates.

Harry: Again, hard is not impossible.

Sally: But my second reason goes deeper into the problem that is IVF. Don’t you remember that essay we read by Gilbert Meilaender? When a husband and wife make love, they are not trying to “make” a child (even though they may want and hope for a child to result). It would make no sense for them to say, “Now we’ll make a baby.” What they are “doing” is giving themselves to each other—stepping out of their plans and projects. (Isn’t that what the word “ecstasy” means, after all—to step outside oneself?) So they’re not engaging in a reproductive project. But when they give themselves to one another in love, sometimes their mutual self-­giving may be blessed with a child. Their self-giving turns out then to be life-giving. But they didn’t make that child; they received the child as a gift.

Harry: That’s very nice when it happens—and for those for whom it happens. But it doesn’t work for everyone. In particular, it sometimes doesn’t happen for couples who very much want a child (or children) to rear and care for. You don’t seem to have any good word for them.

Sally: Oh, I think there is a good word for them, but I grant you that learning to speak it or hear it may not be easy and almost surely is not our immediate reaction to the problem an infertile couple faces.

Harry: I’m waiting for that good word.

Sally: When a man and a woman marry, they look outward—out, that is, from the stifling concern for ourselves that we often have. Now they each have another person to care about. They really do love a neighbor as they love themselves and thereby fulfill what the Epistle of James calls the royal law. But the point of marriage is not just that they should stare forever into each other’s eyes. Now they are what we call a one-flesh union, and they need ways to turn that union out toward the world. A child is the natural way to do that, almost without our thinking or planning it. But if for one reason or another that doesn’t happen, if their union does not produce a child, then they need to find other ways to look outside themselves toward the world. That may take some thought, and it’s likely to happen in different ways for different couples, but it can be done.

Harry: So that’s your good word for infertile couples?

Sally: Well, it’s part of the good word. But there’s more. The more is the possibility of adoption.

Harry: Look, Sally, I’m just as positive about adoption as you are, but you have to admit it’s not quite like having your own biological child.

Sally: Not quite like, to be sure, but every bit as much a blessing and a gift. In fact, it’s more like the way St. Paul seems to think we become sons and daughters of God—not by nature but by grace. It is, after all, as St. Paul says, the Spirit of adoption that enables any of us to cry, “Abba! Father!”

Harry: Okay. You have Scripture on your side. I grant the point (and even acknowledge that it’s an important point). For those whose marriage, for one reason or another, has not been blessed with the gift of a child, adoption is a good word. And I’ll go even further than that. It can be a good word also for those who do have biologically ­related children. It’s not just for the infertile. And—to return to our topic of IVF—it can be a good word for those who want to adopt one of the frozen embryos you mentioned ­earlier.

Sally: Well, I’m not so sure about that. I wouldn’t encourage people to adopt frozen embryos.

Harry: Surely you don’t mean that. Here we have countless frozen embryos being given no opportunity for further life. Surely you don’t mean that we should discourage people from trying to adopt them prenatally and use IVF to gestate and give birth to them. How could that be wrong? For any of us who call ourselves pro-life that seems like something we should be eager to encourage.

Sally: I didn’t precisely say it was wrong, Harry. I said I wouldn’t encourage anyone to do it.

Harry: Why not? Now you sound as if you’re against having babies.

Sally: It’s more a matter of first things first. If you have the desire and the resources to adopt a child, then just look around. Our world is full of children in need of ­adoption—children already born and in need of a family and home committed to them. If they aren’t given a place of familial belonging, they will continue to suffer harm. Encouraging the adoption of frozen embryos encourages us to turn our attention away from those children. We’re so eager to have babies that we forget the children who are already suffering harm, children who badly need a family.

Harry: Well, not everybody is so eager to have babies. Lots of people in our world abort them.

Sally: You know what I mean, Harry. People can warm up to the idea of a newborn. They find it harder to warm up to a six-year-old boy who brings lots of problems trailing along with him. But if you’re looking for someone who will continue to suffer harm if left without a family, there he is. As I think I said to you before, being pro-life means more than just being against abortion. Don’t narrow your vision too much or you’ll miss some ­important aspects of what it means to be ­human.

Harry: So you don’t want to use IVF even to rescue some of those frozen embryos?

Sally: Come back and ask me that question again when we’ve run out of children who need to be placed in adoptive homes. That will be a day pro-lifers can be proud of.

J. M. Milhauer is the pen name of a father of four who writes from the Midwest.

Image by Priscilla Du Preez, licensed via Unsplash. Image cropped.