Embryos are People Too

This morning as I was reading this month's issue of The Lutheran Witness (a magazine published by the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod) I came across an article called "Shaped by God" by Rev. Dr. Robert Weise. There are some things I really liked about the article, but there were also some things that made me pretty livid. I will delve into some of the issues in this post.  This month is the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, so the entire issue was dedicated to life issues. The article was about a topic very much on my mind lately; it dealt with the question "Are embryos in petri dishes really human?" 

Of course, my answer and the author's answer is a resounding "yes!" An embryo is fully human - it has a complete set of human DNA and will grow into a human being if in a woman's womb. The point of the article was that if life begins at conception, it does not matter where conception takes place. Life is life, human life is human life, and all human life must be treated with the same level of respect. The article is about the bioethical issues that today's assisted reproductive technology creates. 

In a nutshell, the problem with IVF from a pro-life perspective is that in the process a set of embryos are created in a petri dish, they are allowed to develop for a few days, and then if they are determined to be "viable" they are implanted. The concern is that a doctor looking at embryos and making a call about which one is stronger or more able to survive and destroying the rest is essentially abortion.  Now, my doctor did tell me that when they say "viable" they mean alive. Most embryos created during IVF will die naturally before they get to implantation. But a doctor is still using his judgement to discern which ones are dead and which are alive. Now, since technically the embryos die on their own, no one has killed them and it's still okay, right? I have heard and completely agree with the argument that in a sense, IVF just simulates about 10 cycles of a woman's body taking place in one month instead of 10. It is likely that almost all women have chemical pregnancies at some point in their lives and never even know about it, so this is not really any different. If I was okay with this concept, then I suppose ethically it's still fine. But a major problem for me comes with what they do with extra, viable embryos if they have more than two or three survive. I am not okay with freezing embryos at all. The freezing and thawing process is harsh, and most of the embryos probably will not make it. Plus, how can you put a human life on hold for years just because you aren't ready for it? I personally cannot reconcile this with my pro-life beliefs. If an embryo is a living human being, we cannot freeze it and thaw it out at our convenience. 

Because my husband and I feel this way about IVF, I had a conversation with my doctor about if there were any ways we could do IVF taking these considerations into account. There were. We do have the choice to do a lower dose of drugs to produce fewer eggs, and then instead of having 10 embryos at the outset of the process we could start with five or six, or even just three. If we started with just three embryos, my doctor said that they can just implant all of them when the time comes, regardless of whether or not they look viable.  If we went with this route we would eliminate the issue of a person selecting. 

It makes me sad that the religious leaders who teach on IVF do not ever acknowledge that there are couples who do this type of thinking or take this kind of approach. In this article the description of how IVF works made it sound like there was only one way of doing this procedure or like the couple involved has no voice or say in how it is done. This is just not the case. 

Although I loved the fact that an article was written about this topic, and I feel that it is very important to educate about these important issues, I feel that the article was written in a very unfeeling way. The words "fertility" or "infertility" were nowhere in the article and the author continually used the phrase "assisted reproductive technology" to describe the practices he was condemning. That may be a correct phrase, but wouldn't mentioning infertility treatments or at least acknowledging that the people who seek out IVF are usually struggling with infertility have been more sensitive? To rub salt in the wound he used the word "parents" to refer to these couples several times! These people want to be parents so very, very badly. Most of them probably do not have kids, and you're already accusing them of being bad parents for considering IVF?! I really think the author had great intentions, and like I said, I agree with him on the science and ethics of it all, but I think the article was written with little-to-no tact. We really need to have people who have struggled with infertility themselves write these kinds of articles. 

Our Choice

I did want to take the time at some point to explain why we have decided not to pursue IVF. What I have said above does cover much of our reasoning. We are not comfortable with doctors determining which embryos are viable and which are not, and we are not comfortable with freezing. As I indicated, we still have a few options to do some low-stimulation IVF without raising these concerns. I certainly do not think that to do so would be ethically wrong. I see no problem with couples that do choose to do IVF by this route, and I certainly do not pass judgement on couples that do IVF. I understand the motivations and I understand the struggles. 

The main reason why I could not bring myself to do IVF is that I couldn't stand to know, for example, that we had five or so embryos at one point and then we only ended up with one baby. Since I believe so fully that life begins and has value from conception I feel that I would see the four embryos that did not make it as losses. To me it feels like planning to miscarry. Because you know that your doctor will never implant five embryos, so you know that some of them are going to die, and that is the plan. I just can't get around that concept, and neither can Jonathan. I know that many women miscarry that early and never even notice. I know that this happens naturally all the time. But there is a difference between something happening that you never knew about and something happening because you planned and intended for it to happen that way. Again, I certainly do not think that all women who do IVF are planning to miscarry or hoping to miscarry, and I do not judge them for that. I understand the reasoning that it is a natural process and no different than what might happen over the course of several months naturally. It is just that for me, I know I could not live with that knowledge. I do not want to conceive babies with my husband and plan for them to not make it. I can't do it. I would rather adopt. 

So that is why we came to the conclusion that we did. And a great deal of that decision has to do with trusting God as well. I trust God that it will not be necessary for me to resort to IVF to parent a child. I believe that He has plans for me that are good and that He will reveal in his own time. Does this mean I am patient? Not at all. But I try. 

To Readers

If you want to know more about our reasons or reasoning about IVF, please do not hesitate to ask. I am more than willing to talk about it. If you were offended by anything I said, I am really very sorry. Please, please, please let me know so that we can talk about it. I certainly never want to be insensitive. I know many women who have done IVF and I promise I have great respect for them and do not think any less of couples who chose this route. 

Also, incidentally the author of this article is a professor here at the seminary my husband is attending. I think I will probably send him an email at some point, so don't think I am talking about him behind his back! I am sure he is a great guy and does not mean to be insensitive.