Infertility and Desire for Motherhood: Our Recommendation

Infertility and Desire for Motherhood
Yesterday we looked at the problem of infertility and desire for motherhood. We dealt with several causes of the problem. We looked at the possible solutions of adoption, test-tube babies, and surrogate motherhood. We have more thoughts to add, and we want to share our recommendation.

Before going any further let me say that no matter what you do, no situation is fool-proof. My wife and I adopted a baby boy who was examined at birth by three doctors, one of whom was our family doctor. My son Timothy was deemed a ”normal newborn.” The biological mother had no special medical problems, and the father was unknown. When the baby was six months old, some medical problems became obvious. To make a long story short, my son Timothy was found to be mentally challenged, had a form of muscular dystrophy which made leg braces and wheelchairs necessary. He also had a form of cerebral palsy which led to tremors and visual problems which eventually left him blind at age 16.

The Roman Catholic Church has taken a strong position opposing surrogacy. The Conference of Catholic Bishops has declared, “Because of the dignity of the child and of marriage and because of the uniqueness of the mother-child relationship, participation in contracts or arrangements for surrogate motherhood is not permitted. Moreover, the commercialization of such surrogacy denigrates the dignity of women, especially the poor.”

The National Catholic Bioethics Center said, “…children are not engendered by technology or produced by an industry. Children should arise from an act of love between a husband and wife in cooperation with God. No human being can ‘create’ the image of God.” We suggest that this statement is not true. No matter how a baby is conceived, he or she is in the image of God. God places the soul in the child whether it is in a test tube or in a woman’s body. No human is an android no matter how conception takes place.

There is no question that the ideal way for a child to be born is the old-fashioned way. The problem is that for many young couples that just isn’t possible. Should the fact that a woman had cancer stop her from ever becoming a mother? Many women face the problem of infertility and desire for motherhood. My wife was a full-time mother. Her three children were all chosen children.

The dangers of surrogacy are huge. Abraham, Sara, and Hagar are the biblical example of those dangers. We will let the theologians argue about the ethics issues. For us common people, I suggest that adoption is the best solution for both the abortion issue and the needs of women facing infertility and desire for motherhood.

Many women have had babies but are not really mothers. The mother is the one who changed the diaper, read Bible stories to the child, took the child to the doctor, bandaged the cuts, and kissed the bruises. No matter how the child came into this world, it is a child with a soul created in the image of God. Every child needs the love only a mother can give.
–John N. Clayton © 2018
Data from Christianity Today, March 2018, Pages 28-35.

Infertility and Desire for Motherhood: The Problem

Infertility and Desire for Motherhood
What does a married couple do when they want to have a child but are unable to do so? There are many reasons for the problem of infertility and desire for motherhood. A woman who has had cancer and yet desperately wants a child even though the chemo has made her unable to conceive is very common. Male infertility is a major cause of couples not being able to conceive a child. Diseases like diabetes may make it impossible for a woman to conceive or to carry a pregnancy to birth. My wife was an insulin-dependent diabetic from age ten, and the disease made it impossible for her to conceive a child even though she desperately wanted to be a mother. There are several movie stars who don’t want to have their physical appearance disturbed by pregnancy, or maybe they don’t want to spend nine months carrying a child. The list goes on.

For my wife and I, the answer to this problem was adoption. We adopted three wonderful children, and that in my mind is the best option. But there are complications and issues in adoption. Some couples desperately want the child to be from the husband’s sperm and the wife’s egg. “Test tube babies” where fertilization occurs in a petri dish and the egg is implanted in the woman are very common. However, the failure rate is high, and some women simply cannot carry a child.

In this latter case, what a couple sometimes does is hire a surrogate. A surrogate mother is a woman who will allow the baby to be implanted in her womb and carry the child to birth, but the child will legally belong to the couple. The surrogate mother is, in essence, an incubator and has no claim to the child, but is paid for her services. The American Society for Reproductive Medicine says that 2807 babies were born that way in 2015. That is four times more than in 2014, and when data becomes available for 2017, it will probably be well over 8000.

The issue becomes very complicated when the woman is not producing any viable eggs or if the man is sterile. You then are dealing with donated eggs and sperm which means the genetic background of the baby may be unknown creating all kinds of implications. When a genetically carried disease shows up in the child, there have been lawsuits.

There is no simple solution to the problem of infertility and desire for motherhood, but we will continue our discussion tomorrow.
–John N. Clayton © 2018
Data from Christianity Today, March 2018, Pages 28-35.