A Biblical Theology on the Use of Donor IVF for Christians: God's Yes to Donation in the Face of Infertility

The Bible does not and cannot possibly address all of the ethical dilemmas we face today in the 21st century.  However, that does not mean that the Holy Spirit is not continuing to "lead us into all truth" (John 13:16) just as Jesus promised. And there are a surprising number of passages in Scripture where, when the spirit of the text is faithfully applied, it can give us some potential insights into the issues of the day. I believe one such issue is the question around the use of donor IVF to treat infertility today. I know many question IVF as ethical for Christians and the Roman Catholic Church has condemned it as immoral regardless of whether donors are used. I have yet to see anyone take a serious look at the Bible however in addressing this question, but I believe Scripture is clear that donor IVF is acceptable for Christians.  Let's address the issues of IVF first however.

While some practices in IVF are indeed ethically questionable, it is not inherently so.  As long as there is a plan in place to give every embryo that develops a chance at life, it can actually be a great gift to infertile couples and, I truly believe, a blessing from God. Couples have the ability to control what happens to their embryos when they undergo IVF.  Just as the majority of eggs fertilized in the womb (in vivo) will never become children because they do no successfully develop and/or implant (50-80%), so the majority of eggs fertilized in vitro will never become children for the very same reasons.  But for those that do develop in vitro and have the potential to successfully implant, they can either be used by the couple (not transferring more than would be reasonable to birth and raise at one time) or be given away/donated to infertile couples. The waiting lists for donor embryos are very long and there is no shortage of infertile couples wanting to accept/adopt donor embryos. Couples can also control how many eggs are fertilized and not fertilize more than they plan to transfer.

Assuming then that a couple undergoing IVF does so in an ethical way and ensures that all their embryos are given a chance at life, then there is is no reason why IVF should be prohibited on moral grounds.  Sometimes a donor is needed in IVF however- either a sperm donor or an egg donor due to medical problems with a spouse. Is it possible that God could use this as a means to bless an infertile couple with the gift of a much longed for child?

We already view organ and tissue donation as a gift, a sacrifice to assist others in great need - what about egg and sperm donation?  In this case a donor is donating their tissue (sperm or eggs) and while this tissue carries with it a genetic blueprint of the donor, the recipient is the actual mother: she carries, produces, births and raises the child. It is truly hers (and her spouse's) child legally and otherwise, regardless of the genetics.  There is no question or fuzzy lines here.  Intention matters: donors do not intend to be parents but desire to gift another couple to take on this role and be the parents of any child produced. The role of a donor is that of a helper...helping another couple in need. The doctors, nurses, staff, embryologists, etc. are all helping and contributing something to help the infertile couple in this process.  If you ask a couple who has been given the gift of a child through a donor, you will know that the donor is viewed as "angel" - a gift from God that allowed them to carry and bring their child into the world...and this is the greatest gift imaginable- it is the gift of life, a child of God.

So what light does the Bible shed on this subject?  In ancient times, before pregnancy "in vitro" (outside the body) was possible, what can only be described as donors were used regularly and this was clearly blessed by God in Scripture.  In Genesis 29 Jacob marries both Leah and Rachel and initially Rachel is infertile while Leah is not. Rachel is so distressed that she says, "Give me children or I shall die!"(30:1). Jacob is angered by this but Rachel gets a donor to assist them by offering her servant Bilhah  to Jacob (30:3) so that she can give birth on Rachel's behalf. Bilhah is both an egg donor and a surrogate in this case, and she bears a son on Rachel's behalf. Rachel names the boy Dan (which means "God has given me a son").  Rachel soon seeks to have a second child through Bilhah who conceives and bears another boy for the couple whom Rachel names Naphtali.

Her sister Leah then experiences secondary infertility and determines to bear more children for Jacob through the use of a donor as well using her servant Zilpah who conceives and bears two boys named Gad and Asher (30:9-13) by Leah.  And in case you haven't noticed, these 4 boys, all born via donors on Leah and Rachel's behalf, also become 4 of the sons of Jacob through whom the 12 tribes of Israel are born!  God makes no distinction between the sons born of Rachel and Leah biologically/directly and the sons born to them through their servants who act as donors and help them build a family in the face of infertility.

As an aside, thanks to modern technology, donors no longer need to have intercourse in order to donate their eggs or sperm---it is all done without the intimacy of sex in a laboratory, which is surely better on a marriage. Additionally, we ought to recognize that God's own Son was born of a virgin, and so apparently conception can and does occur in some irregular ways as a means by which God offers us tremendous blessings. According to the Bible, with God...there IS more than one way to conceive and bear children.

If we believe that God is the author of all life and that God has blessed couples with children through donors in ancient times, we can give thanks to God for blessing couples with children through donors today. The end result of a child born via donor IVF is a child that is intensely wanted and will be nurtured and loved by a couple that otherwise would never have the opportunity to carry, birth, and raise a child of their own.  We ought to thank and praise God that this option exists today and that God can use modern medicine and technology to bring healing and new life in so many amazing ways.

"God gives the childless woman a family, making her a happy mother. Praise the Lord!"  - Psalm 113:9


This topic is important to me because my husband and I were diagnosed with infertility for medical reasons and were offered assistance through the use of donor embryos. I had to pray about it for quite awhile and ask God for guidance as I read through Scripture. I felt lead, oddly it seemed at the time, to read the book of Genesis during my search and was absolutely struck by the story of Rachel and Leah. I have never seen anyone lift this story up as one way infertility is handled so very clearly in the Bible. There are other examples that are similar (like Hagar and Ishmael), but I believe God gave us our answer through this passage most clearly. My husband and I welcomed a baby boy through the gift of embryo donation in mid 2013 after suffering for 5 years with infertility and 8 consecutive miscarriages. I give thanks for our donors and the doctors who helped us.  Our son is and always will be a blessing from God.  

Infertility and Miscarriage...a Punishment from God?

"There are three things that will never be satisfied....death, a barren womb, and the Earth for water." 
~Proverbs 30:15

I have to do some theological reflecting...it is time. I am going to open this new blog with a reflection I have needed to write for awhile. Nothing I have experienced has rocked my theological underpinnings and faith in God as a Christian the way my recurrent pregnancy loss and infertility has.  There is a misconception that infertility is something God causes, like a curse or punishment. I think this is especially true when the cause is "unexplained" infertility (the most common kind). People even say things to infertile women like, "If God wanted you to have children, he would open your womb."  Or "it will happen in God's time."  This is strange since we don't tell people with other physical ailments, like cancer or a physical deformity, that if God wanted them healed, it would happen spontaneously and miraculously or in God's time. Infertility is a health problem.  And there can be an abiding fear when you're facing infertility or recurrent loss that maybe you've "done" something to deserve it....that maybe you are being punished or that you're not worthy of motherhood or fatherhood and so God is not allowing it.    But infertility and miscarriage are not a curse or a punishment from God.

Let me say it again: Infertility and recurrent miscarriage are not a curse or punishment from God. There are many, many cases of suffering in Scripture that ultimately reveal some other purpose and are not due to any kind of punishment for sin. An obvious example is found in Job. Job loses everything he has: his health, his home, and even his children, not because he was a sinner, in fact, he was a righteous and faithful man, but because Job was able to prove his faithfulness to God in the face of the mystery of suffering. As Job said in the face of his many horrible losses, "The Lord gives and the Lord takes away, blessed be the Name of the Lord!" After Job's ordeal, God restored him and blessed him in far greater ways than he had known before.

The apostle Paul discusses an affliction that he suffered from, that he called a "thorn in the flesh."  Paul prays and asks God many times to take it away, but God does not. Instead Paul receives a word from God that I have always loved, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." (2 Corinthians 12:9)

Jesus most clearly addresses the question of why people suffer in John chapter 9.  In this story, Jesus and the disciples encounter a man born blind. The disciples assume, falsely, that the man is blind because either he or his parents have sinned. (This sounds more like karma than Christianity, doesn't it?)  Jesus dispels this misunderstanding and says that the man was not blind because of anyone's sin. In fact, he was blind so that the "work of God could be displayed in him."  The way Jesus speaks here, it sounds as if the man's blindness was actually a blessing of some kind.  In this story, Jesus heals the man and restores his sight. Jesus is demonstrating the point that suffering can in fact be a state of blessedness.  This goes against what we feel or cling to in our culture. But just look at Jesus' most important sermon, the Sermon on the Mount, found in Matthew 5 and Luke 6, where Jesus says definitively that those who suffer (in a variety of ways) are actually "blessed."  Jesus says that you who are impoverished, poor in spirit, who mourn, who hunger, who weep, who are hated and persecuted....you are BLESSED. The kingdom of heaven is YOURS. As Bishop TD Jakes is fond of saying, "Why do you suffer? Because you are anointed."

None of the conditions that Jesus talks about though...blindness, poverty, grief or suffering seem or feel like a "blessing" at the time. And I cannot bring myself yet to say that my miscarriages have been a "blessing."  Losing my babies, my children, has been the most painful experiences imaginable, nothing short of hell on earth over several years.  I have been living in grief for so long that I have begun to think it is normal.  I miss our children every day and wonder what it would be like if they were here with us, growing up in our family, being loved and nurtured. I will never know.  But even if I can't fully wrap my mind around my loss and infertility or call it a blessing, I can say with all confidence that infertility and miscarriage are NOT a punishment or curse because of the clear witness of Scripture. This does bring comfort.

One of the most well known stories of infertility in the Bible comes from Genesis when Leah and Rachel both struggle at different times with infertility in their hopes to have a child with Jacob. People will sometimes point to the description in this story that God "closed the womb" or "opened the womb" of the women as evidence that pregnancy or infertility are blessings or curses. What people fail to notice in this story, however, is that both women ultimately resort, at one time, to using a "surrogate" -they give their servant-girls to Jacob in order to have a child (just as Sarah did with Hagar in her marriage with Abraham). When their servant/surrogate has a child, Leah and Rachel rejoice and see this too as a blessing from God. Differences in culture aside, the bottom line theologically in the story is that both women are blessed, in very different ways, with the gift of children, and it does NOT depend on whether or not their wombs were "opened" or "closed" ...whether they were fertile or infertile. There is a great story line going on here.  Clearly God can bless an infertile couple through other means (but more on this topic in another post). And from these women and their unconventional ways, came the 12 tribes of Israel.

I share these stories and texts from Scripture because my faith has wavered the most when I believed a lie, or several lies....lies that come from the enemy.... that my losses were due to my having done something wrong, or because God did not love me, did not care about me, or even because God simply didn't exist.  None of those options brought comfort, only more pain and suffering. And none of those lies are true. But I promise that the enemy will try to get you to believe some lies and to use your pain, loss, and suffering to fatally damage your faith. Don't let him. You are a beloved child of God, fertile or infertile.

Now... once we accept that infertility and miscarriage are not a matter of punishment or curse from God, where do we go?  How do we make sense of it? I wish I had a one-size-fits all answer. I don't.  I can only share my own thoughts at this time...and they have taken me years to come to and have required some hindsight in order to embrace.  They may not be terribly satisfying to anyone but me....but I think we all have to do the work of wrestling with God, like Jacob did, in order to come to some kind of peace and understanding we can live with.

I have now had 8 miscarriages in a row. Two were after excellent ultrasounds and good heartbeats, when we thought we were in the clear, and those were the hardest. But certainly I have prayed through every single one of my pregnancies, and truly believed that God could save my babies if God chose to intervene. I have deep faith that God can do miracles. I have seen and experienced God perform miracles in my life and in other's. The question is, why didn't I get a miracle in any of those 8 pregnancies?  I believe now that biologically speaking, those pregnancies were all doomed due to a variety of physical factors that we have been diagnosed with since our losses began. We have been dealing with everything from diminished ovarian reserve (poor quality eggs), to poor sperm quality including low morphology (2-4%) and high DNA fragmentation. In addition, we have 6 HLA matches and a complete 4.1 DQ Alpha match. My Natural Killer cell activity is elevated, but it is unclear if that is due to the losses/HLA matches or is independent. Regardless, it would have taken nothing short of total divine intervention in order for us to have any of our pregnancies develop into healthy, take-home babies. Many couples suffering from unexplained infertility/RPL suffer from multiple obstacles as well.

Since our having a baby together would have required a spectacular miracle, nothing short of supernatural divine intervention, the question, instead of "Why didn't God give me a miracle?" could just as easily be, "Why do I deserve special treatment from God?"  I don't ask that question lightly or with the idea that God doesn't love me as an individual. God loves all of God's children, whoever we are.  But clearly, the majority of people, regardless of how wonderful, prayerful, and faithful they may be, do not experience extraordinary miracles every time they pray...or even very often.  Those that do are certainly blessed, but I believe miracles of divine intervention are usually performed for greater reasons than a personal answer to prayer...they happen for the glory of God.

We can look at the world today and recognize the extremely high rate of infant mortality, infertility, and pregnancy loss. Women living in impoverished nations experience high rates of loss in pregnancy and after birth. In fact, it was not long ago in the United States that most women experienced multiple losses in pregnancy and of their infants and children because they lacked the healthcare we have today. The fact is, miscarriage and infant and child mortality is extremely common on both an historical and global scale. Why do I deserve to be an exception?  Why should I have a healthy baby while a poor woman in Africa cannot?  Or, to look at it in a different way: why should a drug-using-unwed-mother be able to have a healthy baby while I cannot?  Really, no matter how you look at it, it is unjust.  And the world if full of injustice and inequity. There are no promises of equity in this lifetime...the Bible certainly doesn't share the view that our world is "fair."  "God causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rains on the righteous and the unrighteous" (Matthew 5:45).   Jesus was the only sinless man, the Son of God, and yet he died at a young age from an incredibly unfair, torturous crucifixion: talk about injustice!

And so when I begin to lament the "injustice" of my own infertility and recurrent loss....I can't help but recognize that I never did anything to deserve special treatment or a miracle that other women in the world over have been denied.  My faith is a gift from God, a wonderful grace, and it is the best gift I could ever have, even when having a baby seems like it could rival that, I know better. And I have so many blessings that others don't have...it is truly "not fair."

So, I have come to the point of accepting that my husband and I are infertile. We will not be able to have children together, we cannot contribute our genetics to create a son or daughter as a couple. All of the children we conceived together have died. But this is not a punishment or a curse. And this does not mean that God doesn't love us or want good things for us.  For some reason God has chosen not to intervene in a special way, like the prayers of St. Paul to remove his affliction that is never removed:  our prayers have not been answered in the affirmative.  Still, God is there, God is faithful, and God will and has seen us through. And so we can move forward with other options that lie before us, free from fear or doubt about God's loving presence in our lives, but with faith and the incredible knowledge that God loves us and is with us...no matter what happens.

Miscarriage and infertility are not a curse or punishment from God.

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(An aside and footnote for those who need it: I am not saying that God would never allow suffering in the case of sin as a punishment, but it is clear that if and when God does, anyone who actively seeks after God will know immediately why it happened and will experience restoration upon repentance.  An example of this is found in 2nd Samuel, when King David murders a man (orders his death in battle) to cover up his sin of adultery with the man's wife, Bathsheba.  I think we would be hard pressed to find a more serious sin. But in this case,  the infant born from this sad union does not survive.  David is very clear in his understanding about why this event took place, he repents, and he receives forgiveness from God. In fact, David immediately marries Bathsheba and they have a healthy baby boy soon afterward, who becomes none other than the future King Solomon.  And so we know that God forgives our sins and even blesses us after the fact. As Christians we have great reason to hope in forgiveness: whenever we repent, we can trust in God's grace because of the sacrifice, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, which has made forgiveness available to us all at any time and place.)