What society once naturally recoiled from — designer babies, artificial wombs, and the termination of disabled children — is today the source of misguided compassion. In assisted reproductive technology, the desire to overcome the natural limitations of procreation has led researchers to develop startling new technologies.
Embryonic polygenetic screening allows scientists to test how multiple genes interact and predict an embryo’s likelihood for conditions such as hearing loss, obesity, or insulin resistance. Genetic researchers claim this technology can discern an embryonic child’s personality traits such as kindness, creativity, and intellectual aptitude.
In vitro gametogenesis genetically modifies human cells into viable egg and sperm — regardless of the person’s sex or age. This means that one man could father a child he is 100% related to, or two women could be the genetic parents of the same child.
Such technologies subvert God’s good design for human procreation and undermine the inherent worth and dignity of each child. In reproductive technology, embryonic polygenetic screening and IVG are attempts to substitute the human person. Humans should oppose these new technologies.
Embryonic Polygenic Screening
Embryonic polygenic screening allows prospective parents to test an embryo’s genetic makeup with unprecedented detail. Unlike traditional preimplantation genetic testing that only looks for specific single-gene disorders or sex, polygenic screening looks at how multiple genes interact to assess an embryo’s risk for more complex conditions.
New tech companies give each embryo a polygenic risk score that shows an embryo’s chances of developing a range of health outcomes. Parents are given a polygenic “score” that shows an embryo’s likelihood of developing heart disease, insulin resistance, or even hearing loss. This score, of course, entirely overlooks the role of “nurture” in favor of the embryo’s genetic “nature.”
This desire for a healthy child, however, may quickly give way to a dystopian world where parents can select embryos based on their potential IQ or personality traits.
Not only does this technology reject the inherent worth and dignity of each child, but it gives parents a false sense of control and security from the natural vulnerabilities of childbearing. Is the desire for the healthiest child worth the cost of all those whose lives will be deemed unworthy?
In the name of their children living their healthiest life, this technological worldview has trained many in Silicon Valley to view the human person as individual parts or raw material whose genetic makeup predetermines their values, beliefs, capabilities, and identity. Nurture plays a secondary, or unimportant, role in the development of each child. Such conclusions, which ignore both religious insights and sociological findings, enable parents to free themselves from the personal responsibility of stewarding their child’s development. At the same time, it heightens their self-imposed responsibility to create and select genetically superior children.
Instead of pursuing treatments that may heal or improve a child’s health, such technology merely discards embryos with potential health problems.
In Vitro Gametogenesis
The legal structure that governs IVF — namely, that anyone has the right to create and parent a child — sets the legal precedent for in vitro gametogenesis.
With IVG, doctors can reprogram any human cell into viable egg or sperm. In 2016, Japanese researchers Katsuhiko Hayashi and Mitinori Saitou made history when they announced that they had conceived mice from genetically modified skin cells. Many mice were able to naturally conceive their own pups. While researchers have not successfully replicated this with human DNA, Japanese and American scientists are working on it.
Hayashi and Saitou, for example, cite their desire to help women who, due to cancer, injury, age, or an at-birth defect, are unable to produce viable eggs. In the U.S., researchers at Conception hope to use this technology to enable same-sex couples to achieve joint biological parenthood.
Procreation would no longer require a distinct man and woman with healthy gametes to create a child; instead, cells from an embryo, child, elderly person, single adult, or group of adults could be used to create viable embryos. Worse, skin cells could be taken from people without their knowledge or consent, including from those who are dead.
Dr. Sonia Suter of George Washington University said, IVG would enable:
- Same-sex couples to have children biologically related to both partners;
- Single individuals to create offspring without needing another genetic contributor; and
- “Multiplex” parenting, where multiple individuals contribute genetic material to one child.
Such technology, if applied to procreation, would fundamentally alter the Bible’s “package deal” of marriage, sex, and procreation where children are received as a gift within the bond of man-woman marriage.
With IVG, generational identity could be lost as multiple generations of embryos are created — and destroyed — within the span of a week. It will be children, unmoored from traditional relationships with their mother, father, and ancestors, who pay the price for our reproductive “progress.”
Defending the Dignity of Creation
When men and women champion technologies that affirm or restore the human person — from ultrasounds, life-saving surgeries in utero, and beyond — they actively work to further God’s kingdom on earth. Likewise, when researchers pursue technologies that substitute or destroy the human person — even with the best of intentions — their efforts will ultimately crumble, at great cost to those harmed. Dystopian developments in reproductive technology will continue to threaten the lives and dignity of unborn children, including those who do not exist yet. We must equip ourselves with proper knowledge, understanding, and godly wisdom to thwart these developments in favor of life-giving alternatives.
