UPDATE
REUTERS reports this afternoon (6/12/2024) that members attending the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention have voted to condemn the use of in vitro fertilization (“IVF”) and to commend its congregants who use alternative fertility therapies or adopt frozen embryos.
The IVF resolution before the thousands of leaders gathered in Indianapolis noted the searing pain infertile couples encounter, but made it clear that “not all technological means of assisting human reproduction are equally God-honoring or morally justified.”
The REUTERS article may be read in full HERE.
Here is the original FGGAM article from earlier this morning:
The Christian Broadcasting Network (“CBN”) reports that members of the Southern Baptist Convention, America’s largest protestant denomination, may vote whether to oppose in vitro fertilization (“IVF”) during its annual meeting this week. Al Mohler, President, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, recently told World Magazine that IVF procedures pose a “huge moral crisis” and that most Christians believe the embryos created during IVF are human life.
Katy Talento, Executive Director, Alliance of Health Care Sharing Ministries, told CBN News that “the IVF industry…feeds this cultural entitlement that we have God-like powers over life and death, and that sense of entitlement is precisely what has fueled the abortion industry.” Her concerns include the millions of human embryos discarded or indefinitely frozen every year, and that sperm donors often sell their sperm for use in IVF procedures.
IVF essentially creates a ‘eugenics market’ for sperm and egg sellers who advertise to infertile parents based on attractiveness, IQ, academic achievement or even race.
The CBN article may be read in full HERE.
My brothers and sisters, except in certain planned situations, IVF produces children who will never know the identity of their biological mothers or fathers, and which prevents sperm donors from even knowing if they are the fathers of IVF-conceived children.
IVF is also a means for unmarried, single or LGBTQ(+) persons to ‘have children’ in a manner contrary to God’s established plan that children are to be created and nurtured through the marriage bond between one man and one woman (see Mark 10:6-9 and Genesis 1:27-28).
There is also the issue of the ‘eugenics market’ in which persons buy and sell God’s gift of human life – lives whom the Father already knows (see Jeremiah 1:5) and for whom He has already established a plan for their good (see Jeremiah 29:11-12). God does not make mistakes, despite the pain some families endure in the face of infertility. It is not up to the created to attempt to take creation into its own hands! My heart goes out to those couples experiencing infertility and desire to have their own children; however, there is a morally uncompromised choice – adoption.
On a personal note, this writer and his wife tried for almost 15 years to become parents, and after years of prayer and medical tests, we ceased striving and rested. Then, one evening in a small church in Moriarty, New Mexico, a guest pastor called us forward and spoke the word of the Lord over us – telling us that it was God’s will (and timing) for us to have a child. Within a couple of months, after nearly 15 years of desiring a child, my wife became pregnant and we were blessed with a healthy and beautiful daughter!
No! I’m not heartlessly suggesting that in every circumstance God will allow for pregnancy. Rather, I’m saying that we serve an awesome God who answers prayer, who desires the very best for us, and who knew us and established His plan for our lives before we were ever formed in our mothers’ wombs (see Psalm 139:13-16)! Pray always. Trust in God. Worship Him with a grateful heart in all circumstances and at all times (see 1 Thessalonians 5:18). Then rest. Amen!
Here are the above-referenced scriptures:
Mark 10:6-9 (NKJV)
“But from the beginning of the creation, God made them male and female. ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’; so then they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore[,] what God has joined together, let not man separate.”
Genesis 1:27-28 (NKJV)
“So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘[b]e fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it…’”.
Jeremiah 1:5 (NKJV)
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you…”.
Jeremiah 29:11-12 (NKJV)
“For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you.”
Psalm 139:13-16 (NLT)
“You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. Thank [Y]ou for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it. You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb. You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in [Y]our book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.”
1 Thessalonians 5:18 (NKJV)
“…in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”