IVF, Infertility, and the Dignity of Life: Guardrails for Christian Couples

Show Notes

In this episode of Wisdom for the Wilderness, Pastors Zack Thurman and Josh Hutchens tackle a listener question: "What do you think about IVF?" Drawing from personal family experiences with infertility, they offer deep compassion for the "unique sorrow" of longing for children in a broken world—echoing biblical stories like Rachel and Hannah.

They explain the IVF process plainly (egg retrieval, lab fertilization, implantation, surplus embryos), then walk through major ethical concerns from a biblical worldview: life begins at conception, embryos are image-bearers of God, routine destruction/freezing of embryos equates to loss of life, genetic selection risks eugenics, and surrogacy often exploits women.

Referencing the 2024 Southern Baptist Convention resolution "On the Ethical Realities of Reproductive Technologies and the Dignity of the Human Embryo," they advocate for strict guardrails: using only husband-wife gametes, creating no surplus embryos to discard, and avoiding selection/abortion. They encourage younger marriage, adoption (including "snowflake" adoption of frozen embryos), foster care, or faithful child-free living poured into kingdom work.

Whether you're facing infertility, considering reproductive technologies, or simply seeking biblical wisdom on family, this episode reminds us: children are gifts from God, but our identity and fulfillment rest in Christ alone—not parenthood. Submit your questions at [e-mail]

Creators and Guests

JH

Host

Josh Hutchens

What is Wisdom for the Wilderness?

Join Dr. Josh Hutchens, director of Gateway Seminary's Rocky Mountain Campus and pastor at Overland Church in Fort Collins, Colorado, as he explores spiritual faithfulness amid life's challenges and suffering. Through discussions on theological questions and inspiring stories, Wisdom for the Wilderness offers guidance and hope for navigating the complexities of faith in a broken world.

speaker-0: Welcome to Wisdom for the Wilderness, a weekly podcast by the pastors of Overland Church, where we talk about the Bible, theology, very practical things, and sometimes we answer questions from listeners. And so that's what we're going to do today. We have ⁓ a question, and Josh, how was that question framed?

speaker-1: It was very simple. What do you think about IVF? In-vitro fertilization. not a complex question, just what do you think?

speaker-0: Not a complex question, but a very complex answer. man. so first let's just, I just want to talk about the fact that when you, ⁓ are dreaming about life and you're thinking about your future and you think you want to have kids, no one really comes, goes in like walks into marriage going, it's going to be hard to have children. Right. and, and the reality is it's not always easy to have children.

speaker-1: That's right, that's right.

speaker-0: Yeah. And what are you going to say? ahead.

speaker-1: Increasingly, for whatever reason, ⁓ infertility rates are rising. And so, ⁓ you know, I don't know what conspiracy theories we want to take on those things, but the reality is that a whole lot of people, a whole lot of Christians are going to deal with infertility in their marriages.

speaker-0: Yeah, absolutely. So I think there are some things we know about that. ⁓ one, we know the, the, the higher the age you are, right. The less fertile you are. And with couples getting married later in life, ⁓ into, into their, like a lot, not even starting into their thirties. Well, this is obviously going to be a problem. And so, ⁓ you know, I think there are many reasons to get married younger. ⁓ the younger, the better. ⁓ that's one of them. Then I think there, also know that there are environmental factors that are causing testosterone rates to plummet. And now what those, all those environmental things are, do we know exactly? There's probably a really good research on it, but I don't know it.

speaker-1: Yeah. Well, I mean, I have my theories, but I don't want to put them out there on the podcast because this is not like a health podcast. We're not health experts.

speaker-0: No, not at all. But, but there, that's a real, that's a real issue. And so then I would just like, right off the gate, want you to hear compassion coming from our, voices.

speaker-1: And just, you know, personally, both of our families have dealt with infertility in different ways. And so, it's something that we know firsthand. It's an interesting sorrow. It's not a sorrow for something you've lost. It's a sorrow for something that you can't have. ⁓ And so, it's... ⁓ one of, I think, one of the most unique human experiences in the world. And ⁓ that's why I think that the Bible ⁓ draws on infertility so deeply and so often, ⁓ because, you know, it's all across Genesis, it's all across the Bible, this ⁓ unique sorrow that is ⁓ essentially creation going wrong.

speaker-0: Right. That's right. It's a, part of the broken world. Yeah. Genesis 30, Rachel's crying out in this deep anguish. Right. First Samuel, you've got Hannah crying out, but you see it. in, know, the desire to have children and, you know, and the other thing that we would acknowledge that sometimes there's infertility, you can't get pregnant. There's other times you can't stay pregnant. There's miscarriages, there's, you know, birth defects and those kinds of things are really, really hard, hard losses. So we want to be compassionate there. ⁓ I also want to say it's a right thing to desire kids. it's a, are a blessing from the Lord. They are a gift. It's wild to me sometimes it seems like.

speaker-1: Absolutely.

speaker-0: In the brokenness of the world, seems so unfair that there are people who can get pregnant that don't want to have children, and there's people who want to have children that can't get pregnant. And so we just lament those things and that brokenness. If you're listening today and that's you, man, just know that your church loves you and cares for you. A lot of times, I have watched pastorally people who are trying to get pregnant. ⁓ And can't they recluse? Yeah, they draw back because if you show up to small group and someone else's, you know, we're pregnant again with their fifth child, like it can get a bitterness in your, in your heart. think that's natural. Absolutely. think you need to fight against that. Yep. And you don't need to recluse and you need to be open and like we can, you at the same time, your community group can pray for you and love you. and be sorrowful for you and to share in grief with you and celebrate someone else at the same time.

speaker-1: And I think ⁓ in order to have people do that with you, there does need to be at least some level of openness about it. ⁓ You know, this is obviously a very private issue, but at the same time within your community, whether that's community group or just your closest friends, like you need to be sharing, hey, we're having trouble getting pregnant. This is what we've been through.

speaker-0: see.

speaker-1: ⁓ people would love to pray with you and walk through that with you. There's plenty of couples, ⁓ including, you know, ourselves and our wives, that have been there and can feel what you're feeling with you, and you don't have to bear it alone.

speaker-0: That's right. So that's just a, that would be the encouragement where don't do this, do this alone, do this in, in community. ⁓ now as we kind of like start answering the question, let me give a brief explanation of what IVF is. Right. ⁓ I remember the first time I looked this up. Okay. It's because I had, ⁓ A family member, extended family member, not like, not like my sister or anything, or brother and his wife, but a family member that had it done. Yeah. And, um, that family member was in a lesbian relationship. So it was two women. And so like, it was a real head scratcher for me. I'm going like, wait a second now what's going on here? And, uh, I still have questions about some of the things there. anyway, um, so here's what happens, uh, in vitro IVF is what it's known for in V. in vitro fertilization. And it means that fertilization happens outside the body in a lab. so doctors will, they use a hormone for the woman. They stimulate, ⁓ the ovaries produce a bunch of eggs. They basically go in with a needle and they harvest those eggs. ⁓ then after they've been retrieved, they're brought into the laboratory. ⁓ and they're fertilized with. Sperm now where that sperm comes from we'll talk about that later and that we think I think ethically that that matters Yeah for sure And then as they're fertilizing those eggs several embryos are created A few then are implanted into the back into the womb of the woman So now she's got you know it so it was her eggs removed fertilized outside the womb brought back in the womb for her then to grow those babies. And it's typically multiple embryos that are implanted. They do that because often not all of them make it. But sometimes you do have families that will have triplets or quadruplets or...

speaker-1: But they also are expecting a lot of times that if there are multiples that they'll plant, they will abort some of them. And I assume that's based on the cost and the. Right. But but the reason that kind of the standard way of doing it is that way is because it costs a lot of money in order. So you want to make the chance of success as high as possible.

speaker-0: The parents choice. And so then because you have, you've got multiple embryos then that don't get implanted as well, then, and this is where we'll talk, get in the ethical question of it later on. The embryos are either frozen or discarded. And so that's how the process, process works. And then the woman would carry the baby to term. Now there's other things that happen in IVF. We've got surrogacy. That's another, another thing to look at. So a lot of celebrities are doing this. So rather than the woman carrying the baby, they take her egg and the husband's sperm and they put it in a surrogate mother. And the mother brings that baby to term. that's just so that the, the, the mom isn't slowed down by the pregnancy. Now there are other times that Sarah surrogacy happens for health, like legitimate health reasons, but that's another part of the question. And so. There's like, can already hear in all of that, ethical concerns beginning to, to, to come out. Right. And it, in my mind, it seems like we begin to, are beginning to play God a little bit. So, ⁓ especially when, when you just start imagining it out, you know, the science and eugenics and the selection and, yeah. So Josh, walk us into the ethics.

speaker-1: Absolutely. ⁓ goodness. So, I think, you know, we start biblically with understanding that every human being, from the time of fertilization to the time of natural death, is made in the image of God. And so, when we talk about embryos, we are not talking about some little, you know, squiggly in a, ⁓ I don't know, science thing.

speaker-0: A test tube or whatever.

speaker-1: ⁓ We are talking about human beings made in the image of God.

speaker-0: So we would just pause there to say, we believe the Bible teaches that life starts at conception. Right. Right. So when, when the sperm enters the egg and, and, and the magic is happening, God is doing his thing. He's knitting them together in the womb. We believe that's when life. ⁓

speaker-1: And the general revelation, ⁓ which is the science, behind this backs that up because, ⁓ you know, you have a, the male has certain DNA, the female has certain DNA. Once that sperm and egg come together, that embryo has unique DNA. Does it come from the father and mother? Absolutely. But it is a unique DNA. It is not the mother. It is not father. It's not just some parasitic cell from the mother. It is a unique human life. ⁓ So, general revelation and special revelation both back that up. Then, ⁓ the next step is, you know, God had a certain intention in the creation of male and female to be fruitful and multiply, and the normative way that God designed this to work is through the sexual union. And so, ⁓ we're just kind of marking out, like, we're already outside of what is normative. That doesn't mean that it's always wrong, but it does mean that this is somewhere we should tread very, very carefully when we are interfering with the normative way that creation was designed to work. So all of those things said, I think there are three issues. in what you were describing that ⁓ are problematic with IVF. ⁓ So number one is the freezing, stockpiling, and destruction of embryos. So they're making more than they will implant. And some estimates, I don't know if we actually know the real numbers, but some estimates are between 1 to 1.5 million embryos are being stockpiled in freezers today.

speaker-0: Yeah, they're being frozen.

speaker-1: and they have, ⁓ they are essentially going to be destroyed at some point. ⁓ And that's highly problematic. That is equivalent to abortion. mean, that is abortion.

speaker-0: Right. And so if you look at it that way, that's like mass genocide. Right. When that would happen.

speaker-1: Yeah, so that's the first problem. The second problem is genetic selection, which is increasingly becoming a part of this. So, ⁓ they have the ability now to analyze the DNA of those ⁓ embryos, and they can choose which ones they want to keep, and sometimes that's based on, well, this embryo has a marker for a certain disability, whether that's Down syndrome or ⁓ autism, ⁓ and there's even questions in terms of when people are pregnant naturally, some of the genetic testing that is being done in advance. There are ethical questions about that.

speaker-0: Absolutely. And that's getting pushed way down their line, way faster than I feel comfortable with. you know, there's certain countries where like there are no Down syndrome babies born anymore because they're, they're aborting them. There are, you know, if they, if they can figure out that there's something wrong, we'll get rid of that, discard that child.

speaker-1: Yeah, and the medical community is trying to increase the number of markers they can identify, even though a lot of these markers aren't a quote-unquote death sentence for that disability, it's just a predisposition towards that disability. ⁓ But then, you you take it a step further, there are people, they want a child with blonde hair and blue eyes, and so they are only taking embryos with that those markers, or they only want ⁓ a male. And in some cultures, ⁓ this, you know, there is a much higher desire for boys than girls.

speaker-0: Yeah. Well, that's, mean, the abortion statistics in America would show there are way more girls aborted than boys aborted. So, and to me, I mean, all of that is so damning. Right. Absolutely. Yeah. And scary. Okay.

speaker-1: Yes. Absolutely. What's the third? The third thing is the, is the, ⁓ the aborting that takes place after the implantation. So, ⁓ so, you know, we said already, the, way that IVF, ⁓ technicians want to do this is they want to have the chance of there being multiple implantations. then they're going to advise you, well, you can't have five babies, you can't have triplets, let's just ⁓ terminate, ⁓ that's the nice word, ⁓ terminate three of those, and you can have twins, or you can have one, and obviously that's the termination of a human life. So, I think those three issues are the problematic issues with the way IVF is normally done. Then you bring up surrogacy, surrogacy is another issue in terms of the women that ⁓ are, tend to be used as the surrogates. ⁓ These are women who are taken advantage of, who come from a lesser, you know, economic strata, ⁓ that are taken advantage of by wealthier, like you said, celebrities, gay men, and they are are taken advantage of, and then obviously this is incredibly emotionally and psychologically damaging to surrogates because you naturally as a mother have a bond with that child, and then it is taken from you. ⁓ And so, it's highly problematic ⁓ in all of those four areas.

speaker-0: Yeah. Yep. So what do you, what do we think about it? so two, two years ago, Southern Baptist convention, ⁓ pastor resolution on this, you had, you, you pull it up the resolution. I was there for it. ⁓ let me explain what a resolution is and, and, ⁓ in some ways, I mean, it is.

speaker-1: That was the question. What do you think?

speaker-0: when Southern Baptists convene for two days out of the year, they will put forth a number of resolutions that just say, these are some things we want to emphasize, or these are some things that we may be concerned about that seek to be kind of ⁓ culture-shaping, informing resolutions both inside and outside of the Southern Baptist Convention. Now, do they do any of that? Only to a small degree, I would argue. And they put these up and we talk about it.

speaker-1: And that can happen on a national level. At the SBC, we do the same thing at the state level. Even at the associational level, we could pass resolutions. ⁓ they don't bind churches to those viewpoints necessarily unless they're a change of the statement of faith, the Baptist faith and message. But the

speaker-0: That would be, yeah, that would be a bylaw.

speaker-1: Okay, so resolutions also, they do however guide entities,

speaker-0: funding. They do. So we could put forth a resolution, say, on college ministry and say that we believe college ministry is really important. And then the North American Mission Board will go, okay, we need to put more emphasis on college ministry. when particularly ones on ethics get put forward, the Ethics and Religious Liberties Committee, then pick up those resolutions. And this is the type of things that they're thinking about and helping churches think about. So read the resolution.

speaker-1: You want me to read the whole thing? No, you have to read whole thing. Okay. I mean the title of it if somebody wants to look it up is on the ethical realities of reproductive technologies and the dignity of the human embryo. ⁓ And it every resolution starts with kind of like a foundation these statements that start with whereas. Yeah, so there's a bunch of these whereas statements and these are these are these are the things that we know to be true or come from ⁓

speaker-0: That's the whole.

speaker-1: our statement of faith or past things we said, and then it switches to resolved, which are the statements of, this is what we think ought to be the case. whereas statements cover essentially everything we've already talked about, so I won't repeat that, but I think here's the meat of it. Resolved, that the messengers of the Southern Baptist Convention meeting in Indianapolis, Indiana, June 11-12, 2024, call on Southern Baptist to reaffirm the unconditional value and right to life of every human being, including those in an embryonic stage, and to only utilize reproductive technologies consistent with the affirmation, ⁓ that affirmation especially, in the number of embryos generated in the IVF process and be it fur further resolved that we affirm all children, no matter the circumstances of their conception, are gifts from God and loved by Him." And it goes on ⁓ to promote adoption, including the adoption of frozen embryos, what's sometimes called snowflake adoption. But the meat of it is there that, and this was picked up by the national media as kind of an anti-IVF statement when it wasn't really an anti-IVF statement. It was a statement that was saying, ⁓ we need to ⁓ only utilize IVF within certain boundaries. That's right.

speaker-0: Ethical guardrails. And so let's talk about then, so this would be our, not that I'm necessarily swayed by this, but going into it, like I agreed, I voted for this resolution. So let's talk about what those guardrails are just real plainly. It's the husband and wife, egg and sperm that are making the baby. So that's ethical issue number one. Right. I think more importantly, probably one of the most important pieces of this, then embryos should not be destroyed or treated as disposable. Absolutely. Right. So that's the... We can't abort those. We can't destroy those. We can't pretend those aren't life. so every embryo created should be given the opportunity for life. So we have a family connected to our church. don't go to our church, ⁓ they have, in the pursuit of having children, have chose to do ethical IVF.

speaker-1: That's right.

speaker-0: And so every one of those embryos that is fertilized is sitting in a container and they plan to have every one of them. And the doctor, you the doctor said there's 10 of them and they went, okay. You know, that can mean you have 10 children. they said, praise God. know, okay. And so like they're, they're pursuing it under, the ethic guidelines there.

speaker-1: Yeah. And let's just note that there are countries that have these guardrails in law. And so, I think Italy is one of those. Of course, it's Catholic country. Catholics have a very robust doctrine, ethic of human life and reproduction. And so, ⁓ in Italy, I don't believe you're allowed to to have this kind of Wild West version of IVF. It is within those. And one of the things that I think as Christians we ought to, when we are able to push towards, is ⁓ for there to be these types of regulations of the IVF industry put into law as well, not just personally, but because this is a human life issue, no one should be allowed to abort ⁓ children. No one should be allowed to freeze children indefinitely and destroy human embryos. Those things ought to be stopped ⁓ by the government as well.

speaker-0: Yeah. So those, I mean, those are essentially the guardrails that you put on them. And so you're limiting it. You're, we're not talking about eugenics. We're not talking about, ⁓ you know, Aborting the child. we don't like the genetic markers, those kinds of things. we're that that's, that's where we'd say, okay, this, this would be ethical. This is where it would, would be ethical now pastorally. ⁓ there's just. some advice that I would give and, ⁓ not everyone listening who, may be struggling with this can control this. Right. have them babies early and often. That's the number one thing. I would just tell you the world has told us a lie that we need to wait to have children. I just don't believe that to be true. I think that's an employ of the devil. So have them early and often.

speaker-1: you know, this is, IVF is becoming the security policy for a lot of women who are pursuing a career. So that in their 20s, because they know they're going to have to put in a decade or two to get where they want to career-wise, they're having their eggs frozen with the anticipation that when they're in their 40s or 50s, they're going to have children then. which is highly problematic as well and should not be a Christian standpoint towards family and towards career.

speaker-0: If I'm not mistaken, there's a reason they're harvesting their eggs and they're 20. Obviously they just have more of them, but health reasons, knowing that in 10 or 15 years, they're going to try to have kids. to me, then I just think we ought not think that way.

speaker-1: And even when we're having counseling with couples, ⁓ premarital counseling, and we're talking through ⁓ sex and children and those types of things, one of the things that I say, I imagine you say something really similar, is ⁓ no matter how you land on the ethics of birth control, ⁓ you should, even if you use birth control, when you are getting married, you are saying to God, we are ready for the gift of children. And so, if that birth control fails on the honeymoon and you get pregnant on the honeymoon, then praise God. That's where your heart has to be going into marriage. So, you you don't go even go into marriage with the idea of, well, we have to be married for five years before we'll even consider having children. Like, that should not be your mindset. Children, marriage, and sex are a whole package that God gives us together.

speaker-0: And they are a gift. They are a blessing and they come together. So that's the first thing I would say. The second piece of advice I would say is, I think you really should consider adoption, ⁓ foster care, in any of those things, I would, I would actually push you as if you're a young couple more in the adoption lane, right. ⁓ over the foster care lane, maybe you and I can, we have pretty strong opinions.

speaker-1: Yes.

speaker-0: On that we could share that at later date, but I would push you towards adoption. There are children that need a mother and a father out there and it would be a great blessing to you. I just think this all the time as an adoptive father, it's one of the greatest blessings in my life. And I don't look at my son and think, well, You know, this is my biological son and this is my adopted son. That division does not exist. We would not love our adopted son more if he would have been from my sperm and Jennifer's egg and she had them. there wouldn't, there would not be the, so, I would say in that, young married couple, would tell you to adopt a baby. Yeah. Right, would tell you to adopt a baby as early as you can adopt a baby.

speaker-1: Yeah. And I would say that the snowflake adoption is also another great option. I know that one of the great kind of burdens for women with infertility is not just having a child, but having the experience of pregnancy and giving birth. And so, that is one of those, you know, strange modern opportunities. And these are 1 to 1.5 million children that are going to be killed. ⁓ And so if you can be part of the solution to that, that's another option as well.

speaker-0: And then the last thing that I would say is ⁓ that not having children and not ever being able to have children is also okay. You you hear me talk a lot about a man named Harris Presley and Harris and Karen Presley tried to have kids and never could have kids, never felt led to adopt.

speaker-1: Yeah.

speaker-0: But man, did they pour into their church. Man, did they disciple families in their church. You know, I worked for Harris. He gave me a job when I was like a seventh grader and I worked for him on and off for, for years. know, if I called him, you know, he's like a dad to me. Yeah. And, ⁓ he even, he calls me son. Hey son, if I called him today, I hadn't talked to him in six months. He'd say, Hey son, you know, so, you can. be fulfilled. It's foolish to think that having a child is going to fulfill you anyway, and that your identity is rooted in being a mother or a father. It's not.

speaker-1: Yeah, and what you're talking about, just to be clear to our listeners, is not ⁓ a decision to be childless, but it is when the circumstances of life mean we can't have children for some reason, then it's okay to make that decision to not pursue adoption, not pursue other things. And you're making that decision not for the selfish reasons that a lot of people in the culture are deciding not to have children. ⁓ we want to have two incomes and be able to, you know, go to Europe whenever we want to. You're making it for the kingdom purposes of we're going to pour our life into others through our local church.

speaker-0: Right. Yeah. You're not setting out to be dinks, double income, kids. You're, you're, you're setting out to go, well, it wasn't in God's plan for us to have children. We're still going to make disciples. We're still going to, because I want you to hear this and this is, think something we struggle with, but your, your identity is in Christ. is not in whether or not you're a mother or a father. And man, lot, a lot of things go wrong when you are. parents and your identity is in parenting. Yes. Like a lot goes wrong with that. No, you are a son or daughter of God made in his image created with a purpose given a mission. there are going to be some people who are single and you will be able to fulfill the mission God gave you. There are going to be some people who are, who are married and no kids, and you're going to be able to pursue, fulfill the mission God gave you. I mean, obviously, we've got great examples in Scripture of people who were single and did incredible things for the sake of the gospel. There's a lot of things that come back in here into trusting God, trusting His plan, just being faithful. If the Lord does lead you down that path towards ethical IVF, I would just say in community, in conversation with the right people around you, pursue it the best, most ethical, God-glorifying way you think you can. Got anything else?

speaker-1: Amen. I just want to commend the person who asked this question, that asking questions like this, ⁓ especially around reproductive technologies, and that's what we have to do. We can't be a people who just accepts what has become normative in the culture without questioning it. And there's going to be things that you and I have not even imagined that are going to come up in the next 10 to 20 years, ⁓ and we're going to have to say, well, slow down. Let's look at this carefully and biblically.

speaker-0: I remember, ⁓ ethics class in college and some of the questions that would get asked. you're like, that's never going to happen, but let me, and then so many of those things have happened. It was like, ⁓ gosh, this is crazy. Yeah. So yeah.

speaker-1: happened. What do you think about ⁓ using robots for pleasure? mean, like those types of things and now that's coming out. That technology is coming out.

speaker-0: Yeah, it's wild. Well, thank you so much for joining us today for wisdom for the wilderness. ⁓ That was a wild one in some ways, you know, not, one that we would have answered without the question being asked. And so thank you so much for joining us. You can always submit questions to us and ⁓ we'd love to answer them. And until then, we'll see you next week.