The Southern Baptist Convention didn’t actually vote to ban IVF, Focus on the Family says in a June 13 article posted to its Daily Citizens newsletter site.
The comment comes in response to a resolution adopted by messengers to the SBC annual meeting in Indianapolis June 12. The resolution was titled, “On the Ethical Realities of Reproductive Technologies and the Dignity of the Human Embryo.”
Adoption of that resolution has sparked an outcry among Southern Baptists and others who see in vitro fertilization as a God-given tool to help couples facing infertility. Until recently, the practice has been widely praised among evangelicals.
But there is a group of ultra-conservative abortion abolitionists who oppose IVF mainly on the grounds that the process creates more fertilized eggs — usually kept frozen until needed — than are used. Because these evangelicals believe “life begins at conception,” they see these petri dish embryos as human life on the same level as babies already born.
When the Alabama Supreme Court last year ruled against IVF, the political backlash was severe, even from conservatives. And at the SBC annual meeting, messengers attempted to soften the language of the resolution but failed in those efforts.
Now, Focus on the Family says this is all just a misunderstanding.
What the resolution says
The SBC resolution says, among many other points, that the “biblical creation order portrays the embodied union of husband and wife as the singular normative expression for procreation” and that “couples who experience the searing pain of infertility can turn to God, look to Scripture for numerous examples of infertility, and know that their lament is heard by the Lord.”
It declares “not all technological means of assisting human reproduction are equally God-honoring or morally justified” and says the IVF process “routinely creates more embryos than can reasonably be implanted, thus resulting in the continued freezing, stockpiling and ultimate destruction of human embryos, some of which may also be subjected to medical experimentation.”
This “destruction of embryonic human life” engages in “dehumanizing methods for determining suitability for life and genetic sorting, based on notions of genetic fitness and parental preferences,” the resolution continues.
It then calls on government authorities and medical personnel “to only utilize reproductive technologies consistent with” a pro-life viewpoint and speaks of “frozen embryonic human beings.”
The resolution calls on Christian couples struggling with infertility to “consider adopting frozen embryos in order to rescue those who are eventually to be destroyed.”
What Focus on the Family says
This is not a call for banning IVF, Focus on the Family responds. It is, instead, about “condemning the reckless, careless and widespread destruction of human embryos by countless fertility clinics.”
According to this view, every frozen embryo created through IVF not implanted in a woman’s uterus constitutes a murder.
Focus says the resolution “shines a bright and important light on the many ways the technology is being abused to ultimately commodify and create children who are killed or frozen in perpetuity.”
It continues: “In shirt-sleeve English, the SBC is, in effect, taking the position that should a married man and woman decide to pursue IVF, they should only create embryos they will immediately implant. As it is, fertility clinics routinely create far more embryos than they plan to use. They do this because they want to have as many to choose from as possible, even grading them as would a coin or baseball card collector.”
According to this view, every frozen embryo created through IVF not implanted in a woman’s uterus constitutes a murder.
And this technology is allowing same-sex couples — something Focus on the Family abhors — to have babies as well, the article warns. This is “a development that deliberately deprives the child of a mother or father since donors are always involved,” the article says.
Focus on the Family says national media outlets have misrepresented the SBC’s position because the authors and commentators don’t understand how IVF works.
“Abortion activists see the issue as an opportunity to paint pro-lifers as extremists — a curious and dubious claim given the fact there is nothing more extreme than supporting the unrestricted destruction of preborn life,” the article says.
Related articles:
Here’s what you need to know to understand that SBC resolution opposing IVF | Analysis by Mark Wingfield
What would Hannah say to Southern Baptists about IVF? | Opinion by Patrick Cardwell
What my grandparents would think of the Southern Baptist Convention today | Opinion by Mara Richards Bim