Epilogue

I began the research that led to this book mainly to assist many friends and acquaintances who had asked me questions about the appropriate use of modern reproductive technology. I had no idea what I would find.

What I found left me deeply unsettled as I realized the extent to which our society has decided to accommodate selfish adults at the expense of the children involved. We want ‘perfect’ children through genetic screening, freedom from inconvenient pregnancies, and the ability to override normal human biology when it suits us—all at the cost of embryonic and fetal human life. Personally, I consider it a travesty that medicine is being used for these ends. This is not what I signed up for when I became a doctor.

Consider, for example, the decreasing tolerance for imperfections in our community. When did we decide that any of us were perfect specimens? We are all of us damaged; it is just more noticeable in some than in others. And why is physical brokenness tolerated so poorly while moral brokenness is not just tolerated but chronicled, accepted and even celebrated in magazines and newspapers?

At the heart of the problem is the persistent human desire to be in control of our own lives, and to determine for ourselves what we should do and be (the Bible has a word for this). We plan our families carefully to fit in with our dreams, and then feel put out when things don’t go according to schedule. We expect to be comfortable. We expect to be safe and prosperous. We do not want needy children who will change our lifestyle for the worse. In a society that has lost touch with any higher purpose in life which might give significance to suffering, we are left with no other purpose than the avoidance of suffering and the maximizing of pleasure and comfort.

As Christians, we know that far from dispensing with the vulnerable, God carries the weak and the helpless close to his heart. And he wants us to do the same: “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world” (Jas 1:27). How can Christians express this care for the weak and defenceless?

One thing we can do is speak up. There is a conspiracy of silence and euphemism surrounding many of the unethical practices I have described in this book. Political correctness has prevailed and we have not named these interventions for what they are. Most people don’t realize what is going on, for example, when doctors say that they can prevent the birth of children with Down syndrome. It sounds like a new cure. It isn’t. It just means that they can now tell (at least most of the time) when a developing fetus has Down syndrome, and can kill the fetus before he or she is born. We need to educate and inform, so that people can make wise and ethical choices with the information in front of them.

We also need to learn and communicate our history. I have ended up including more history in this book than I had originally planned because it seems to me that our society, including the Christian community, has the lowest opinion of developing human life than of any other time in Western history. At a time when we have more understanding than ever of the intricacies and wonders of intrauterine life, we see it wantonly destroyed in the name of freedom and choice and autonomy.

Christians can also offer genuine and practical support to couples that struggle with the brokenness of life. We can help men and women talk about their dilemmas and share their deepest needs and concerns. We can get alongside those who are faced with hard decisions and help them with the day-to-day consequences of their choices.

Christians also need to model a richer understanding of what it means to be human—including an understanding of responsibility for the little ones who depend on us to protect them. We can slow down and accept the relationships we are given, and find joy and contentment in service and obedience even though we know it will often be costly.

In choosing to love and serve at the cost of our comfort, we are imitating the God who loved us and gave himself up for us (Eph 5:2). Dorothy Sayers puts it strikingly:

For whatever reason God chose to make man as he is—limited and suffering and subject to sorrow and death—he (God) had the honesty and the courage to take his own medicine. Whatever game he is playing with his creation, he has kept his own rules and played fair. He can exact nothing from man that he has not exacted from himself. He has himself gone through the whole of human experience, from the trivial irritations of family life and the cramping restrictions of hard work and lack of money to the worst horrors of pain and humiliation, defeat, despair, and death. When he was a man, he played the man. He was born in poverty and died in disgrace and thought it well worthwhile.[1]

I hope that as we make decisions about pregnancy and childbirth, we will also think it worthwhile to live in faithfulness and love. And I hope and pray that this book has provided the necessary information, as well as the biblical ethical framework, for you to do just that.

~

I can vividly remember the nights each of my two daughters was born—lying in bed in a quiet room, just the two of us, with the yellow light of a lamp allowing me to savour every detail of the perfect little person before me. Dark eyelashes on the cheek, tiny little nails that already needed cutting, soft little breaths that caressed my bare arm. I could barely contain the sense of amazement and love I felt at each occasion. Is there anything more wonderful that holding your own baby for the first time?
It is so good and normal to long for a child. I thank God that I have had this blessing of being a mother. I look forward to the day when all children are as welcome as ours were.