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Stanley J. Grenz
Although certain cautions ought to be used as a general practice whenever
IVF is employed, it would be ill-advised to argue against the procedure solely
on the basis of the high percentage of embryos placed in the womb that do
not finally attain implantation. Even in natural reproduction a great number
of embryos are wasted. It seems that even God is willing to risk the loss of
embryos in the process of bringing new life into the world.
(2) Problems of technological procreation in general. One crucial ques
tion must be raised concerning all procedures involving third parties: Is it
ethical to use a person’s reproductive capacities apart from procreating off
spring within the context of marriage?
Here the issue of personal motivation arises. It is conceivable that a donor
or a surrogate could be motivated purely by altruism, by the desire to assist
a childless couple in having a baby. Nevertheless, it is questionable if such
pure motives actually govern any such action. Technological procedures
introduce the temptation of allowing less laudable motivations to surface
and offer the heinous possibility that the process of procreation could be
commercialized, as donors sell their wares and surrogates rent their bodies.
Steps in this direction are already visible. Donors, for example, are often
students who sell sperm for economic reward. Many past donors have appar
ently later undergone a change of attitude, sensing both a greater responsi
bility for and a greater interest in their AID children.18 Regardless of the
actual motivation of the donor, the child conceived by such means may never
be able to overcome his or her negative feelings toward the donor parent. As
one AID child who undertook a search for her genetic father asked, “Didn’t
he feel any sort of responsibility for the life he was creating?”19
A further issue raised by technological conception in general is that of
final outcome: Where will it lead? Current capabilities are already producing
radical changes in societal attitudes and outlooks. Sperm banks, for example,
are already a reality. Will their acceptance, together with the use of techno
logical procedures, lead to a complete separation of procreation and child
bearing from the traditional context of the inviolate bond between husband
and wife that is so crucial for the psychological and spiritual development of
transferred to a nondonor only with the consent of the donor and an institutional review board
or hospital ethics committee. Frozen embryos should be kept in storage for not more than five
years or until the establishment of relevant public policy. Under such a voluntary arrangement,
experience could be gained with freezing through clinical trials as an adjunct to in vitro fertili
zation but without public anxiety that other purposes might be served that had not been care
fully considered. The purpose of the arrangement would be to avoid precipitate limitation of
freezing for purposes that appear to be publicly acceptable, out of suspicion and fear of unsanc
tioned purposes, such as uncontrolled experimentation.” Clifford Grobstein, et.al., “Special
Report: Freezing Embryos: Policy Issues,”
The New England Journal of Medicine
312, 24
(1985): 1588.
18. Florence Isaacs, “High-Tech Pregnancies,”
Good Housekeeping,
February 1986, 82.