A Christian View of Birth Control and IVF
Welcome everyone.It's an honor and a privilege to be able to speak before you this morning and, like pastor Baggett noted about our norm and our churches: we preach systematically through books of the Bible and so the norm is to take a text, explain what the text means, apply it to the church and so, today obviously is out of the norm for that.
So the topic I was assigned today is “How should pastors address birth control and IVF”. Let me give you the short answer. The short answer, pastors, is: we must publicly address those things from the pulpits within our churches. These are not things that we can just ignore any more than we can ignore the truths related to abortion. It shouldn't be that a member of our church has to wonder what membership's view is, as far as membership's view of what the Bible teaches related to the issue of birth control and IVF.
So the short answer is: we have to address it, and we have to address it based on those principles that we're going to hear Pastor Ascol expound here shortly on the authority of God's word. So if you're a pastor and this is an issue that you've either ignored or, maybe, you haven't even realized like what Bradley just gave the example with the legislators – man, I didn't even really ever think about that being an issue – if that’s you today, I hope that the Lord will grant you repentance where repentance is needed. For those of you that are not pastors, based on the statistics that I'm going to bring out here shortly, most of us in this room or our wives will have used the hormonal birth control that I'm going to talk about or participated in IVF. And so if that's you today, you will likely hear some hard truths, but I wouldn't be loving to you if I wasn't willing to share those hard truths from God's word with you.
Foundational Principles
As Jesus told the Jews who had believed in him in John chapter 8, he said: “If you abide in my word you are truly my disciples and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free”, so let us be a people abiding in the truth of God's word today.
I've got 45 minutes to cover perhaps two of the most controversial issues of our day so needless to say we're going to just dive in and get started. Before we do, let's ask for God's help as we open up his word and seek to apply the principles there: Gracious Heavenly Father we come to you in the Name of Christ, Lord I pray that you would give me help, Lord, in the speaking today that I would speak according to the truths of Your word, that I would speak with word clarity, conciseness; and I pray for each person here, Lord, that where repentance is needed, that you would grant that for the pastors, the church leaders here, Lord, that they would, Lord, see their calling to address, to step up, in this area, Lord, to warn their flock where that's needed. And I pray all these things in Christ's name and for his glory, Amen.
Let me just give a quick content warning: I know there's young people here, I hope if you've thought about this: you recognize there's no way to address the issues of birth control and IVF without talking about some of the biological realities that come with that, and so six of my non-adult children are here, so I'm going to be as discreet as I can be in describing those things, but I just want to get that out front.
And so there's much that can be said on both of these topics, each one within the context of a local church would certainly want multiple sermons or teachings, but what I've chosen to do today is really in keeping with the conference theme which is: “Equipping the Saints to abolish abortion”. I want to hone in just on one particular aspect of each one. I want to focus in on how each one of those things birth control and IVF, how some of our pre-born neighbors lives can be and are snuffed out through the use of both hormonal both control and through the normal use of IVF.
Presuppositions
As I mentioned there's certain
presuppositions that we have to come to this lecture with, and I don't have the time to dive in and expound all those; I
just want to give them to you.
The first is: God is our Authority in all things, in all of life and practice, he is King.
As
what we heard pastor Baggett expound, Jesus is not just savior but he is King.
And so
God's word has to be our guide, not our culture, not our tradition, not even our Christian friends, when it comes to these
issues. So I mentioned Pastor Ascol will expound on that here shortly.
Next I'm
assuming that we all agree with the biological truth that life begins at
fertilization; even most embryology textbooks agree with that fact. Here is a
an example of that: this is from “The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology” the 11th Edition from Moore,
Persaud and Torchia. They say: “fertilization is the process by which male and female gametes (sperm and oocyte) fuse to form a
single cell called the zygote. During this process, a series of steps occur that ultimately lead to the mixing of
the maternal and paternal chromosomes and the activation of the
egg”.
So what we have is: sperm and egg meet, they fuse together, they become something that neither one was before: a
human being at its most basic stage of development. Technically speaking this is
a single cell called a zygote which possesses a full set of 46 human
chromosomes that are going to direct the formation of this little human, all of his or her body structures and functions.
So what we have: the sperm is an IT, the egg is an IT, and when they come together they form a
zygote: a little human being a HE or a SHE.
So this new genetically unique human
being is one whose sex has been determined by the moment of fertilization.
That one statement right
there would get me run out of many places today.
So certainly there are also texts
from God's word that would lead us to this conclusion as well; you're probably familiar with both these Psalm 139
verses 13-6: this is David speaking: “For you formed my inward parts, you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise
you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not
hidden from you when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed
substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none
of them”.
Then Jeremiah 1:5, there God tells the prophet: “Before
I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before before you were born, I consecrated you; I appointed you a
prophet to the Nations”.
What's miraculous is that we
actually live at a time where we can observe this most basic formation of
human development; that's why it's even something that secular embryology textbooks are in general agreement about.
But as Christians, we recognize this is more than just human life in some kind of vague and ethereal sense.
This is now
a he or a she bearing the image of God. Genesis 1:27 says so: “God created man in his own
image. In the image of God he created him; male and female he created them”.
Birth control
So with those foundational principles in mind, we can now turn to our first issue, that of birth control.
It seems impossible for me to address that issue just in a technical sense, without addressing two of the underlying issues which feed into this; and that's our view of sexual intimacy and our view of children. These are two things that are at the heart of the discussion; and I'll share this with you at the end. I'm going to have my email where, if you want me to send you these slides, I've got documentation of every one of the stats and quotes that I'll use, and so you don't have to take pictures or anything, I'm happy to share all this, especially if you're a pastor; hopefully this is like a starter kit for you to be able to take this and use this documentation in your church.
Sexual Intimacy
So clearly these issues of sexual
intimacy and our view of children are at the root of this discussion and I'm afraid those are two things that are
never clearly and passionately articulated in many of the pulpits and the churches in our nation.
First we look
at sexual intimacy, Matthew 19:4-6: “He answered” (this is Jesus speaking)
“Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore man shall
leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer
two but one one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate”.
Here we see that God is the author of sexual intimacy; in the proper context, it's a beautiful gift to be enjoyed by
his people. We see God intends sexual intimacy to be limited to one place and
one place only: the lifelong union of a man and a
woman.
However you don't have to go any farther than the Book of Genesis itself to see what happens with the fall and
the entrance of sin into the world.
In Genesis 4 we see Cain's great great
great grandson Lamech take two wives. In Genesis 19 we see God destroy Sodom and
Gomorrah primarily for their sexual sin. In Genesis 19 you have the account of
Lot and his two daughters.
So before you even get to Isaac's birth, in Genesis
chapter 20, you have polygamy, homosexuality and incest.
Unfortunately things only go downhill from there, and that's why we need a savior, that's why Jesus had to come to rescue
his people.
It wasn't just a problem among the
Patriarchs: we see Paul has to address sexual sin inside the church as well.
Paul tells the church at Corinth in 1 Corinthians 6:18 “flee from sexual immorality”. In Galatians 5 Paul's talking
about the the works of the flesh in contrast to the fruit of the spirit. And where does he start off in the works of
the flesh, he says: “Now the works of the flesh are evident, sexual immorality”. So that's where Paul starts that
discussion.
The word “sexual immorality” is porneia in the Greek and it covers a gambit
of illicit sexual activity that includes adultery, fornication, homosexuality, lesbianism, intercourse with animals and
intercourse with close relatives. I think for most of us that's not really new
Information.
But I'm afraid that there are actually many Christians who have
never heard those truths expounded from the pulpits of the churches or supposed
churches that they are members of. Here's a couple of statistics on the state of
the church.
In a 2020 Pew Research Center survey, 50% of professing Christians said
that casual sex between consenting adults is always or sometimes acceptable and that includes
36% of professing Evangelicals. In that same study 57% of
professing Christians and 46% of professing Evangelicals say that sex between unmarried adults who are in a
committed relationship is acceptable.
Hopefully that's shocking to
you that here you have these professed brothers and sisters in Christ saying, not just some of the time, but in a
majority of the time: it would be okay for two committed people to be having
sexual intimacy outside of the marriage relationship!
And so I have to ask you pastors in the room, have you addressed those issues in your congregation with the authority and clarity that we see the Apostle Paul here providing example for us in the book of 1 Corinthians and in the book of Galatians? I hope for all of you that that answer is an unashamed yes.
And I
want to ask you, Christians: have you placed yourself in a local church where you sit under the teaching and
authority of a group of men, elders, that have openly and unashamedly
proclaimed those truths from God's word? I hope the answer is
yes.
So, based on those numbers that we just saw, it shouldn't surprise us that in a Guttmacher Institute report: “In women
having abortions between 2008 and 2014, 17 % identified as mainline Protestant
and 133% as Evangelicals”.
To put the math to that:
what it amounts to is over 300,000 a year of professing protestant women
murdering their pre-born babies, including 130,000 professing
Evangelicals. When you look at the numbers, approximately 86% of those women having abortions during those years were
unmarried.
So we see that the issue is predominantly an issue of intimacy
outside of the bonds of what God has commanded, that leads to the murder of our pre-born
neighbors.
So it's crystal clear that a wrong view of sexual intimacy is not
only a root cause of abortion in our society, it's a root cause of abortion within our
churches.
The blessing of children
So now let's talk about the second issue that underlies the issue of
birth control, the blessing of children.
Psalm 27:3-5
“Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward.
Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one's youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them!
He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate”.
So
pastors, would your congregation say that they know that you believe that children
are a blessing? And more so, would they know that God's word actually says that
children are a blessing? Christians, do you view children
as a blessing? Do you actually believe God when He says in His word that children are a
blessing? What we see in Deuteronomy 28: here we have a whole list of blessings
that God promises if Israel will keep Covenant faithfulness with him.
This is
Deuteronomy 28:4-5 where we see one of those things is the blessing of
children. There God says: “Blessed shall be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of the ground and the fruit of your cattle,
the increase of your herds and the young of your flock. Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading
bowl”.
So I want to ask us: Christians, how many of us are really willing to accept
and pray and ask for more blessings when it comes to success at our work,
promotions, more money, the additional stuff that comes from that, you know
bigger, newer houses, bigger, newer cars, all the things; instead of the blessing of
children.
So what do we see here? We see, yes, God's going to bless the fruit of the ground and the fruit of our cattle
and the increase of our herds, the increase of our basket fulls
and our kneading bowl; so yes, all those practical things God promised to bless, but the first thing he starts off with:
blessed will be your womb. So how many of us as Christians are saying, yes, God I'll take those other blessings. Well I'm
going to neglect the blessing of the womb over here, not only am I going to neglect it, I'm actually going to thwart
it. I don't want any more of those little blessings that you might
send.
So I'm not saying that every type of birth control is sinful in every
circumstance, but I'm saying that Christians today don't even oftentimes start with that prayerful
thought process of children being a blessing.
Here is some stats that show us how our nation views the blessing of children;
since the introduction of the birth control pill in America in 1960, the total fertility rate has dropped from
3.4 down to 1.8, so almost in half. We might console
ourselves by thinking well we're not as bad as some other countries like South Korea which is at 0.7, Kong at 0.8, Italy at
1.2, Spain 1.2 and Japan 1.3. Notice thus all those countries are
significantly below the replacement rate of 2.1 and so, yes, we have a coming
demographic crisis in many of these nations.
What I think is more pertinent
for us is, according to research done by The Institute for Family Studies, “even in protestant groups where at least 75% of
the people agreed with the statement that ‘the Bible is the word of God’, the total fertility rate is the same as the
national average: 1.8”. So when you look at the actual
numbers, it's hard to see that as a group how protestant Christians that say they
stand on the authority of God's word, see children as any more of a blessing than our pagan neighbors
do.
The Pill
So now let's turn to the issue of birth control itself.
According to data from the National Center for Health Statistics, around 65% of women aged 15 to 49 who have ever
had sex used the birth control pill at least once.
Albert Mohler summed it up this
way, he said: “The availability of birth control in a reliable form -- particularly in the form of the Pill – unleashed the
sexual Revolution. So long as sex was predictably related to the potential of pregnancy, a huge biological check on sex
outside of marriage functioned as a barrier to sexual immorality”.
I think most of us probably
recognize that, but there's actually a much deeper problem lurking beneath the
surface.
The pill is not 100% effective; there's a chance that
you'll conceive while on the pill. So there's a chance that sperm and egg are going to meet, you're going to have that
egg fertilized and you're going to have a new human being formed. The statistics from Planned Parenthood
– who what would you think their likelihood would actually be to understate these numbers? Right!
They acknowledge that around “7 to 9% of women using the pill get pregnant each year”.
When you look at the actual
supposed failure rate, it would be about 0.3%, if the pill was taken properly; but
probably any of us that actually take a medication every day, we recognize, man, we don't always take whatever that is at
the same exact time every day. So we can see how you get from this in a perfect world 0.3% up to
this in the real world 7 to 9%.
So to start putting that in
perspective for us, based on data from the CDC and the Guttmarcher Institute, 14% of women ages 15 to 49 are currently
using the pill, or about 10 million women in the United States.
When you run those
numbers, what that would mean is those women would account for about 700,000 to
900,000 pregnancies each year for people on the pill seeking to thwart
pregnancy. Certainly some of those pregnancies would feed into the abortion numbers. But
something many of us probably don't recognize is that, whatever that number
is, that feeds in to the abortion statistics.
It actually represents a
small minority of the abortions that occur related to the
Pill.
So to understand what I mean, you actually have to get a little technical
and understand the three different mechanisms of the birth control pill.
This is as described by the Prescriber's
Digital Reference – which I didn't realize this until I did this research that it's the new name for what used to be the
Physicians Desk Reference. So here we have the three mechanisms of the pill: first, prevent ovulation so
stopping the release of an egg from the ovaries; the second would be the thickening of cervical mucus making it
harder for the sperm to enter the uterus; and the third, which is the focus of what we're going to look at, is an
altering of the uterine lining, making the lining of the uterus less suitable for the implantation of a fertilized
egg.
So what you see is: the synthetic hormones in the birth control pill, in things like IUDs, birth control implants, birth control shots, patches, in Plan B, what they do is they alter the lining of the uterus where, even if you have this new human being, this egg that's been fertilized, it won't then implant within the uterus.
What happens is, when Christians dive in and start looking at these facts,
it often becomes a really murky and confusing process; and I have no doubt that that's actually
intentional. When you look at major medical authorities, including the American College of ObGyn,
in the FDA, they have found what I would say is a convenient workaround to not classify the birth control pill as
abortifacient. From my research, they don't deny those facts of the mechanism of the pill
that I've just laid out, which would be pretty hard to do, because literally, go home in Google or Yahoo, as pastor Baggett
mentioned, and look: you can find those package inserts, literally online in like 5 seconds and you can look at this
information for yourself.
So instead, the argument goes something like this:
pregnancy doesn't begin until implantation, the pill doesn't end the pregnancy, therefore the pill is not
abortifacient. So you see what they've done: there they've said, okay, from the time of fertilization to the time of implantation. That's not technically a
pregnancy, so if something happens to the embryo somewhere between here and there, well it's not really an abortion. So
we're not going to call it abortifacient. So a pregnancy doesn't really start in their view 7 to 8 days
after fertilization.
So that's why I started with with that definition we have to understand: that whether we want to call it a pregnancy technically or not, that is a little human being. And so in their view, the woman's body altering the lining of the uterus in such a way that a new human being won't implant in the uterus is not abortion; and that's exactly what's happening in many, many cases. Hopefully, if you're like me, you look at that and go, Pastor that is absolutely insane, it looks like some serious scientific slight of hand going on there. And for a lot of us, we probably recognize after what's happened over the last few years, maybe that shouldn't surprise us from the medical establishment today.
So when we look at these facts in a biblical light, the conclusion is clear;
and here's what the president of Pharmacist for Life International in his book “Infant homicides through contraceptives”
did: he took all this data and estimated the number of potential little humans that are
aborted: it would be about 834,000 to 4.17 million in the United
States every year, due to this mechanism of the birth control pill. And so you can see how, even if,
according to the the technical abortion numbers, we were abortion free, which
we're not, we're talking about a number that actually potentially dwarfs the number of reported abortions in our nation.
So those numbers are based on estimates. Right? And so, on one hand, okay,
we could argue and, okay, how do we come up with those exact numbers? But the reality is: I don't think that's
actually important. I don't think whether it's 800,000 or 500,000 or 4 million or
40 million that that's not the root of the issue of how that does affect us in our application of this. Because
even if those numbers are overstated, it doesn't change three undeniable scientific facts: first, a new genetically
unique human being is formed at the moment of fertilization; second, fertilization still happens when women
are on the pill; and third, in the package insert a literal stated
mechanism of the pill is an altering of the lining of the uterus, which makes it much more difficult for this newly
formed human being to implant in the uterus.
So to me it seems undeniable that
the use of hormonal birth control results in some number of forced abortions. The only question is:
exactly how many is that?
And so what I would say is, brothers and sisters, what we can conclude from those facts before us is that Christians ought not to use any kind of birth control that would either destroy the embryo prior to implantation or keep that little human being from implanting in his or her mother's womb. And that's exactly what hormonal birth control like the pill does.
So pastors, I would say every Christian in your church should know that information. The reality is: the pro-life establishment's not going to tell them. The Republican party is not going to tell them. I would say it's up to us as under-shepherds of Christ to inform those people that God has placed under our care that they could be very well inadvertently sending their little children to death through the use of hormonal birth control. So in this context, we must heed God's command that we see in Proverbs 24:1 “Rescue those who are being taken away to death; hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter”.
In Vitro Fertilization
I know that's probably pretty heavy, at least for some of you. I
know that's a lot of information, but we're only halfway there.
So we're going to turn the corner from talking about birth control and now look at
IVF.
So on the surface this is actually a much more difficult issue than birth
control.
When we looked at birth control, we talked about those underlying things of
a wrong view of sexual intimacy, a wrong view of the blessing of children, being some of those underlying causes.
Where for Christians in IVF, it's actually a desire to have children, it's
actually a desire to have biological offspring, it's at the root of seeking out assisted
reproductive technologies.
Most of us recognize that
we live at a time where IVF is making headlines, probably more than it ever has
before. President Trump had recently said that if elected he would actually make IVF treatments available for all women
whether that was the government or Insurance paying for it. I'm sure the Democratic party totally agrees with
that they would just change it from available to all women to available for all birthing people or something like
that.
So I would say this is a time where more than ever Christians are talking
about IVF and have it on their radar, so I think that lends to us as pastors: this is a time where we should actually
be thinking about this and addressing it with our congregations.
We should be letting God's word shape their view on
these issues rather than the politicians and rather than the talking heads on
TV.
Once again, there's two facts that we have to set in our mind as we approach
this issue. Again first: life begins at fertilization and secondly: the authoritative nature of God's word. That
God's word is going to be our binding Authority and all of life in practice. So based on that what are some principles
that we could pull out of God's word to seek to apply in this circumstance.
Well I just have two to give us a start.
The first comes from James chapter 2; this says in verses 1 and 9: “My brothers, show no partiality as you
hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of Glory… But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and
are convicted by the law as transgressors”.
To show partiality is
to show favoritism. Here he's talking about treating someone differently, strictly on the basis of something
superficial, something external like appearance, race, wealth, rank
or social status. For the sake of our discussion, I think we could add to that list: treating
someone differently because of their stage of human development. What I mean by that is: we
should apply these principles from God's word equally, whether we're talking about an 8 days old, an 8 months old, an 8 years old or an
80 years old.
Then, based on the principles that we've already laid out, we should apply these principles from the moment
of fertilization to our little pre-born neighbors.
Another guiding principle for
us here: I think we can pull from Romans chapter 13 verse 10 where Paul tells the church at Rome: “Love
does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law”; the
great Baptist pastor and theologian John Gill concisely summarizes the
application.
Here he says: “That is, the man that truly loves his neighbour, will
contrive no ill against him, nor do any to him; he will not injure his person nor defile his bed, nor deprive him or
defraud him of his substance; or do hurt to his character, bear false testimony
against him, or covet with an evil covetousness anything that is his; but on the contrary, will do him all the good he
is capable of”. So we ought to do no wrong to our neighbor and in fact we ought to do him
all the good that we are capable of. That includes our pre-born neighbor; it includes our IVF neighbor.
So with these principles in mind, let's take a broad look at IVF and see where and how they would come into play.
IVF Facts
Therefore some
perspective: according to usafacts.org, in the US in 2021
there were almost 100,000 babies born using IVF, which amounts to about 2%
of the births in our nation. So that shows us the scope of the issue that we're talking about here. Something to
note when you look at those facts: this article also points out that there was 413,000 is IVF cycles that were started
In 2021, about 168,000 of those were for egg or embryo banking.
So that means that
one of the problems with this is: we don't have all the details and so it's like you start, you sort of take what you have, and start coming up with estimates
to start guiding us as to what's really going on here. So when you take those numbers, okay there's somewhere
between a 23% and a 39% success rate from IVF and leading to a live birth
from a single IVF cycle.
So I have just one specific
example that'll help us to see this reality. This is from the
Center for Assisted Reproduction in Bedford, just a few miles away from here. So these are their numbers from 2021, and again I've
got the link, you can go to the website, you can see all this for yourself. You can actually see this for IVF
Labs all across the nation.
So in in their particular case, there was
1,147 total cycles less 32 pregnancy preservation cycles. Those are cycles
started with the intent of freezing and banking the eggs or the embryos for at least 12 months for future use. So, based
on my math, I get to about 1,115 full cycles; their number say 349
pregnancies: that's 32%, and 279 deliveries: that's 25%. That gives you a perspective of
the actual numbers.
When you talk to IVF fertility specialists, they're going to
admit going through two cycles is quite normal and sometimes even three to four,
which lines up with that math. And when you talk about tens of
thousands of dollars each, you can see the big business here that we're talking about.
So again, the exact numbers are
going to be hard to compute, because there's no regulation, there's very limited reporting when it comes to these
things, which I think again is intentional, like they don't want us to know exactly what's going on within
these places.
Basic Summary of the IVF Process
So now, let's do a brief overview of the IVF process
itself.
The process begins with a woman being given hormone injections to stimulate her ovaries to produce multiple eggs, rather than the
single egg that she normally releases each month.
After around 10 to 14 days, the eggs are retrieved from her
ovaries. Ideally that number would be 15 per cycle; in practice it's somewhere
between 8 and 15.
On average about 75% of those collected eggs are going to be
fertilized, so the eggs are then going to be combined with sperm in a lab, that is what the
the moniker IVF means: under glass, that's why, when I was younger, we talked about test
tube babies; it’s where that comes from.
And so around 16 to 18 hours later,
any of those unfertilized eggs are removed and, on average, you're left with around eight fertilized eggs or embryos,
or in other words, little individual human beings that are image bearers of God.
So
now we have human beings here that have
entered the picture. They've joined the party, so to speak, and so, at this point, what we have to do is: take those
principles that we just talked about, about partiality, about showing love and
doing good to our neighbors, and ask ourselves, as we look at how this process continues: are we doing that with
these little image bearers of God? One of the ways that might help us to do that
is: we could just ask ourselves: would we treat a toddler in the way that
these embryos are being treated? So from days 1 to 3, the
embryos live in a Petri dish, in an incubator; about 95% of those initial embryos continue to grow until
day 3.
On average, about five out of a hundred of them die in that Petri dish,
right there next to their siblings.
And we can ask: would we treat our toddler, our group of toddlers in that way on day three? The remaining embryos are evaluated for growth and in many cases tested for chromosomal abnormalities; only about half of the viable embryos from day three continue to develop until until day five or six.
What does that tell us? Already in this process, this couple has lost
half of their children that were created in the process. So, again, would we
sacrifice half of this group of toddlers in this way in an attempt to achieve the
birth of one of their siblings? Maybe
you're sharp, you're on point, you're thinking: okay pastor, but if if these
children were conceived naturally, some of them might die as a part of that natural process anyway. And that's true
to some degree; but we can't presume that. Right for those ones that that does
happen to, it's in God's normal means of reproduction according to his Providence.
Not because we've literally paid a lab to create our children, and do
this crazy experimental type treatment on them. Those are two fundamentally
different things.
So with that point, only those
that have the highest potential of being successfully implanted continue on in the
Process.
What happens to the rest of those that are deemed not up to par
to continue on? Well, again, they're going to be thrown in the dumpster or given for scientific
research.
So, again, the question: would we treat our group of toddlers in that way?
Would we throw them in the trash bin, or would we turn them over for scientific
research for scientists to experiment? On day five or six, most embryologists
recommend freezing whatever embryos are left before transferring.
The reason why is: if you implant frozen embryos, there's
actually a higher success rate. Which that tells you: how wonky this whole thing is, right, like you started this
process where you actually have to freeze the embryos and that's better than just leaving them as they
are. And so those remaining embryos are thrown in the freezer many of whom will
never come out.
Based on the current technology, 5 to 10% of them won't even survive the
thawing process. In the older technology that's still in use at some clinics, the
survival rate or the death rate is actually: between 15 and 40% don't
survive the thawing process.
So let me ask you again: would we treat our group of toddlers in that
way? Think about it: if in our nation it came to light that there was a series of
freezers that had a couple of million toddlers frozen in them, it might be even
that our nation, as wicked and depraved as it's become, might have a problem with
that.
I think especially when you added facts like this: in March 2018, there were two major fertility centers in Cleveland and San Francisco where, in the first case, over 4,000 eggs and embryos from nearly 1,000 families were lost, and in the second case, approximately 3500 eggs and embryos were destroyed. Again, we don't know the exact numbers, because they don't publish that kind of information. But we can estimate that it rivals the number of American lives that were lost on September 11, 2001.
And so now in our scenario we're
left with a handful of frozen embryos from this particular IVF
cycle. The results from the genetic testing take about a week to come in, so at this point, embryos that are deemed
unviable – meaning they have some kind of genetic or chromosomal disorder like down syndrome – they join their siblings
in the trash bin or are given over for research.
If you haven't seen choice for those,it's
okay. Find that after this, or talk to me, I'll be happy to share it with you.
So
once again: would we treat our group of toddlers in this way? Would we genetically test them? And for the ones
that showed markers, the things like down syndrome or maybe even Alzheimer's, would we go ahead and just,
you know, put them out of their supposed misery? View them as life unworthy of
life? It takes about four to six weeks to prepare the lining of the uterus, so after about five to seven
weeks on ice, today the average is somewhere between one and two embryos who are implanted, but, again, the reality is:
we don't know that, in Texas, we have no idea what the actual numbers are.
You know whether IVF labs are implanting
one or five or six, we don't know, but, when you look at the stats in
cases where you end up with pregnancy with multiples, with twins, about 15% of
the time, one of them is selectively aborted, and in the case of more than two, that number jumps as high as
60%.
So hopefully, what you see is that as you pull back the curtain, this is just a wicked process from beginning to end.
The Math
So let's see if we can frame and
take the big picture here of how our pre-born neighbors are treated during this IVF process.
According to an article by cnyfertility.com, there's an average of
eight embryos created per cycle for women under 30 and four to five for women ages 35 to 40.
So we're just going
to pick six as a number to use as an average; again, the exact number we come
up with is not really important, you know, we're getting an idea; so we can
grasp the horror of what's going on here, and so, we're going to use six.
We've
already determined that there's about in 2021 anyway about a 23% success rate and
bringing about a life from a single IVF cycle including those egg harvesting and
embryo by banking cycle, and so, using those numbers: it gets us to about 26
children created for each life live birth.
So 26 children created to get
this one genetically perfect child that you
Wanted.
So again, brothers and sisters, back to our toddler analogy; I know that for many Christians
the IVF is born out of a good desire to have children, to have biological
children, but would we ever think of having 25 toddlers that
we would knowingly sacrifice so that one of their siblings would
live? To do that, we would be taking something that God calls a blessing and
seeking it using means that run counter to His word; and I love you enough to tell you
that what the Bible would call that is: idolatry.
If that's you sitting here today or
maybe listening later, I also love you enough to tell you that there's forgiveness for that to be found in the
Cross of Christ. Jesus died even for the sins of people murdering their own
children. So if that's you today, repent and flee to the Cross.
Rescue the frozen prisoners
Part of that repentance means
righteously dealing with those little humans that may still be held in frozen
prisons, either by having them implanted or, if you are past childbearing age, finding
a way to get them adopted to someone
else.
Maybe you sit here today and you're a product of
IVF? Well, it doesn't change the fact that you are indeed an image bearer of God.
The circumstances of your birth in no
way detracts from that. He ordained your birth before the foundation of the world, even though it happened by means that he
does not approve. If that's you today, and you're not in Christ, I would plead with you to
come to Him to find yourself, not just as an image bearer of God, but as a child of
God.
Maybe you're here today and you're struggling with infertility; I know that's a difficult
and heartbreaking experience. That's you crying out to God.
He is the one who sovereignly open and closes the womb. And you may be surprised at what He
might do, even if He chooses not to do so.
We
know the promises of His word, that it is for your good.
So in that case, explore adoption.
Maybe even, explore snowflake adoption, where you can take one of these little frozen embryos that are a byproduct of
the IVF process.
Conclusion
So pastors, I hope that what you've seen here is that this issue, along with birth control, is not something that we can ignore; it's something that has to be addressed with your congregation, the one that the Lord has put you in authority over, the one whom you're called to care for their souls. We cannot remain silent. Before I close, I want to give a few additional resources related to IVF.
Resources
Our church hosted a “prolife is not enough” conference, back in 2022, and this is the topic we dealt with: IVF, for the whole conference. So those messages are available online. My slides have the Youtube link on there.
“Rescue Those” has a booklet, they have some out in the lobby. It's right here, “Loving Your IVF Neighbor”, by pastor Dusty Deevers. He will be closing out the conference this evening, put together. My friend Jon Speed gave a message at the 2024 Abolition Now conference titled “Is ‘ethical IVF’ a thing?”; short answer was no. You probably glean that from what you've heard today. That message is also available for free on Youtube, Jon actually regularly ministers at an IVF lab just a few short miles from here, and so, brothers, put your hand up back there people don't know you if that's something you'd be interested in finding out more: what does that look like to go out and minister in front of an IVF lab because, especially in a state like Texas, where the abortion mills are closed, as Christians, where do we actually go to engage these issues? I think that's an excellent place to go, talk to Jon about that.
So friends, I hope I've done a faithful job in at least beginning to answer the question: how should pastors address birth control and IVF. I hope it will spur you not just onto further study of this issue but to action. action. So again, for if you want copies of my slides, you can email me at pastorphilgeorge@gmail.com.
Bless you and thank you for your attention.Pastor Phil GEORGE
Phil George is pastor at Grace Life Church of Dallas, Texas. This is the transcription of his message
at the "Equipping the Saints to Abolish Abortion" conférence,
organized by the
FAA (Foundation to Abolish Abortion) on October 18, 2024 in Dallas, TX (USA). Reproduced with authorization.