The Woman and the Petri Dish

Monica Slinkard

Louise Brown, the first person conceived through in vitro fertilization, turns twenty-nine this year. Since her birth the field of assisted reproductive technologies has marched ahead with little regulation and, until recently, little discussion in either the public square or religious circles.

Emerging reproductive technologies range from the various types of in vitro fertilization—joining sperm and egg in a Petri dish and introducing the resulting embryos into the uterus or fallopian tubes—to experiments with full ectogenesis, that try to accomplish everything from conception to birth outside the body. In the U.S. the President’s Council for Bioethics has recently been addressing these technologies and has recommended regulation and further research, but overall policy is still lacking.

As policy discussions evolve in an environment where these reproductive technologies become more popularized, it is worth raising the question of what God thinks of them. I do not pretend to know what God thinks, but I do suggest that this question is not asked often enough. Though the events of Roe v. Wade and the birth of the first IVF baby happened within five years of one another, the Christian churches have focused much more on the former. While abortion is an issue deserving thorough consideration by people of faith, it must not monopolize discussions about reproductive issues.

Technologies are emerging too quickly for churches to be entangled in the pro-life debate alone. Preimplantation genetic diagnosis, for example, is becoming increasingly accessible, allowing embryos to be screened in the laboratory to avoid disease and even select for desired traits. Every day more serious, and not so serious, conditions and diseases are added to the list of identified material that can be manipulated or avoided in this way. A new form of eugenics may be on the horizon, where only the “best” are even allowed to develop into fetuses. Is such use of technology promoting or compromising life?

Not only is the use of emerging reproductive technologies begging the questions of the meaning of “life” and humanity, it is also indiscriminately pushing the redefinition of sex and family. Procreation, once an intimate act, is routinely placed in the hands of technicians. In the case of in vitro fertilization, a child can have up to ten people invested genetically or legally as a parent. In the instance of preimplantation genetic diagnosis, implied promises about a child’s genes bring unreasonable expectations that can displace familial responsibility for the development of the engineered child. In this way ideas of procreation, parents, and family are being manipulated, but so gradually that we do not think about their ramifications on the place of men, women, children, and families within community and more broadly as human beings.

If not discussed and regulated, these technologies will begin to infringe on Christian and even democratic notions of family and community. It is thus critical that people of faith engage with these issues on the local and interpersonal level while they simultaneously help craft policies that will maintain the integrity of relationships and set thoughtful limits on the role of these technologies in the reproductive process.  

Monica Slinkard is a recent graduate of Davidson College and a current fellow at the Trinity Forum Academy where she has explored the theology behind providing housing for women in unplanned pregnancies among other bioethical issues. She will attend Yale Nursing School in the fall where she will receive her Masters in Nursing and Nurse Practitioner's license in Women's Health.

6 Responses (comments are closed) • Provocations, Science and Technology, Mon 23 Apr 2007