Separating Sex from the Procreation of Children, Part 2

Continuing on in my discussion of separating sex from the procreation of children in my last blog, in this post I look at some implications of same-sex marriage. Then, I tackle in vitro fertilization (IVF) and surrogacy.

Same-Sex Relationships and Marriage

Having sex without children includes virtually all homosexual activity. With same-sex marriage, this has required dramatically altering the role of sexual intercourse within the very definition of marriage itself. Formerly, the sexual act central to marriage—the first post-marital instance of which was often referred to as “consummation”—was sexual intercourse (that is, the type of sex that produces children). Failure to consummate was often legal grounds for having a marriage annulled, that is, declared null and void. No intercourse, no marriage. In order to accommodate same-sex marriage, this reality that sexual intercourse is integral and basic to marriage—grounded in eons of human experience and religious teachings—was set aside. Same-sex sexual acts, which are by definition non-procreative were, in essence, elevated to the status of sexual intercourse for gay couples.

We have now further legitimated this form of separating sex from the procreation of children by allowing birth certificates to literally record the legal fiction that a baby being born has two fathers, or two mothers, even though at most only one of these persons could be biologically related to the baby, and many times (see below) neither are. This is literally encoding the falsehood that two people of the same sex procreated a child together, in a basic vital record that will follow the child for life. Currently, thanks to the 2017 SCOTUS ruling in Pavan v Smith, all same-sex married people can register their baby’s birth certificate with both partners as parents. SCOTUS has literally elevated this to the level of a “right.” In fact, as this last link also documents, in five states this is possible even for same-sex couples who are not married, through state forms that have replaced “mother” and “father” with “gender neutral alternatives”.

IVF and Surrogacy

In the category of separating sex from the procreation of children, we are also experiencing an explosion of folk seeking to have babies without engaging in procreative sex, particularly through in vitro fertilization (IVF), sometime also with birth by surrogate mothers.

This is a very sensitive topic, so before diving into details, allow me to say that infertility is a heart-breaking reality for many married couples. It is certainly appropriate for them to pursue fertility treatments, and I know many godly people who have. Fertility treatment isn’t all IVF and that which accompanies it, and it is certainly not all about people using surrogate mothers.

Couples facing infertility are often not aware of all the treatment options other than IVF that are available to them. Too many specialists making recommendations go right to IVF and perhaps surrogacy, while skimming over some of the hard realities of both, and not explaining, and certainly not encouraging, other options.

Moreover, too many churches do not have counseling and teaching that tackle this compassionately, factually, and accurately, leaving many believers without the spiritual and practical guidance they crave and need. And all that despite the fact that infertility is addressed many times in the Bible—from Abraham and Sarah to Elkanah and Hannah to Zechariah and Elizabeth. It is not difficult for me, at all, to understand how even sincere believers could end up going with IVF, much as that saddens me.

Those who undergo in vitro fertilization include more than married heterosexual couples coping with infertility. We have single women wanting to give birth without opposite sex partners, same-sex couples using such methods to have babies, and the use of surrogates by not only heterosexual but homosexual couples, not to mention by single men and woman. The babies may only be biologically related to one intended parent, or neither.

Purchasing and trading eggs and sperm, the creation of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of frozen embryos, supplying and managing surrogates, and more are now multi-billion-dollar industries.

Much of this is even a form of eugenics, as couples increasingly screen out sperm, eggs, embryos, and even fetuses in order to select babies with preferred features. For example, everyone in the fertility industry knows that the monetary value of eggs and sperms used in IVF varies enormously by the supposedly desired traits of donors. As one former fertility clinic employee quoted in Katy Faust and Stacy Manning’s excellent Them Before Us (Post Hill Press, 2021: 166) honestly admitted, “The intended parents are buying genes, and they wanted white, movie star beautiful and diplomas from the right university.”

In fact, just two days ago, a Christian Post news story reported on a new artificial intelligence (AI) software product called EMA, touted on the website of its company, AIVF (with a heart symbol replacing the “V”!) as “fully automated AI-based embryo evaluation.” As David Prentice of the Charlotte Lozier Institute, quoted in CP, dryly remarked, this “AI program is a tool used to pick and choose which embryos are higher quality; this means some human beings are looked at as lower quality, perhaps even discarded as lives not worth living.” Yes, this is eugenics.

Then there is terminating normal fetuses in women pregnant with more than one baby, a practice not exclusively tied to IVF and surrogacy, but certainly strongly associated with both. This is called “multifetal pregnancy reduction” (MFPR). This term is an Orwellian linguistic sleight of hand designed to disguise an awful reality—killing the babies one doesn’t want when pregnant with more babies than one wants. Of course, multifetal pregnancies, and thus MFPR, often occur without the use of IVF. But IVF, as the latter link discusses, has dramatically increased the incidence of such pregnancies and, with them, the use of MFPR. (I addressed this awful practice in a piece I wrote about “two minus one” pregnancies a few years ago.)

How often do women undergoing IVF have more than one embryo implanted? Quite often, actually. In one 2016 study of such women ages 40 to 43, most were implanted with more than one embryo. At age 43, about 30% were implanted with three. One fertility clinic, relying on CDC data, gives these overall figures: “…half of the IVF procedures in the U.S. involved transferring two embryos, 23% involved three, and 10% involved four or five.” Thankfully, the use of multiple embryo transfers is declining, but the incidence of this is still incredibly high.

So, we aren’t surprised that, as of 2020, one in five IVF pregnancies were “multifetal.” And the legality of MFPR makes it much easier for women to contemplate multiple embryo transfers, even if they only want one baby. For many (though not all), knowing they can “get rid” of the “excess baby(ies)” matters.

Overall, it is telling that most surrogacy contracts specify the rights of intended parents to demand that their surrogates abort babies they are carrying. A huge reason for this is the risk of multifetal pregnancies. As one clearinghouse site for surrogacy information bluntly states:

“In many surrogacy journeys, any decisions regarding pregnancy termination or selective reduction fall to the intended parents… For many intended parents, this means terminating unhealthy pregnancies or selectively reducing pregnancies in which more than one egg implants.”

These facts were bluntly stated in a February 18, 2016 piece in The Atlantic, entitled “When Parents and Surrogates Disagree on Abortion.” After admitting that the “vast majority” of surrogacy contracts require the surrogates to abort babies if ordered by the intended parents to do so, the author lays out why this is viewed as necessary by most of these parents:

“In surrogacy cases, the most common reason for abortion is multiple pregnancies. And of course, the likelihood of becoming pregnant with twins, triplets, and even four or five fetuses increases once IVF enters the picture—doctors will often implant multiple embryos at a time, to increase the chance that one will take. For various reasons—health, financial, or otherwise—parents whose surrogate ends up carrying multiple fetuses may request to ‘selectively reduce,” or abort one or more.”

It is also telling that last year’s Dobbs v Jackson decision striking down Roe v Wade has created consternation in the IVF and surrogacy industries. The availability of abortion is crucial to both, as one NYU law professor brutally and honestly admitted. And in cases like MFPR, these must be surgical abortions. Thus, obtaining abortion pills outside of clinical settings (as discussed in my last blog post) to dodge abortion restrictions will not work. That should tell us something about the surrogacy and IVF business, even as we recognize that there are certainly some IVF and surrogacy providers and consumers who are opposed to abortion.

We also have the nightmare of all those frozen embryos, and what to do with them. Some facts from Them Before Us (pages 180-81): about one million frozen embryos are in storage, less than 8% of these will ever be born alive, one-fifth or more are simply abandoned, and there are only three options for embryos that are not needed for future attempts at pregnancies: “thaw and discard,” “donate to research,” or “donate to other parents.” And how do we wrap our minds around that fact that parents with “excess” frozen embryos are more than two times more likely to donate them to research than to give them to other families?

It appears that both the “right” to have sex without having babies, and the “right” to have babies without having sex, lead to no right to life for millions of innocent human beings.

Then, of course, we have the “problem” of all the half-siblings, possible or real, of many of these donor-conceived children, as Them Before Us sets forth in graphic detail on pages 156-59. Apparently, assuming the children are given the truth about their origins, they are not supposed to wonder about these half-brothers and -sisters? They aren’t supposed to be impacted by knowing that many of their half-siblings are trapped in deep freeze limbo? They never worry that they might have half-siblings living around them whom they don’t know, one of whom they may, unknowingly, fall in love with and wed? They never need to be afraid of what they might discover about their genetic relationships if and when they get a DNA test done through any number of simple, low-cost services like Ancestry or 23andMe?

One donor conceived male quoted by Faust and Manning had discovered forty-nine half-siblings through DNA testing. A donor-conceived woman quoted by them had at least twenty half siblings living near her. If this quote from this woman isn’t heart-rending, what is?

I’m grateful that I didn’t accidentally marry one of them, and I worry that my own children will accidentally enter into a romantic relationship with one of their many (hundreds, maybe?) of cousins. They won’t know they are related without DNA testing. Can you imagine having to screen dates for potentially being your unknown cousin?

However, the reality is that much of IVF literally involves commercially creating embryos to be used or destroyed as intended parents see fit. Much of it involves willfully choosing to separate children from their biological mothers, fathers, or both, not to mention leaving many of them to deal with the unknown extent to which they have half-siblings, and the consequences of all of that. Moreover, much surrogacy involves taking advantage of poor, often third world, women.

Can’t we address these hard truths without dismissing the very real suffering of those dealing with infertility? I think we can.

It is hard to watch what has occurred over the past several decades and not see how quickly things spin out of control when our culture keeps pushing harder and harder, in one new way after another, to separate sex from the procreation of children. First, we had the contraception revolution, including providing them to minors. Then widespread abortion-on-demand. Then same-sex couples and many others pursuing procreation through IVF and surrogacy supported by creating frozen embryos, many of which are discarded or given to research labs, and supported through abortions designed to eliminate fetuses unwanted by their purchasers. False information on permanent birth records. This is a powerful illustration of the “law of unintended consequences,” and quite often, noble intentions that have gone wrong.