Here’s another sign of the tough economic times: Some clinics are reporting a surge in the number of women applying to donate eggs or serve as surrogate mothers for infertile couples.
The going rate for a surrogate is about $25,000. Egg donors generally receive $3,000 to $8,000. But a few agencies advertise that they’ll pay much more for specific characteristics. One ad running in campus newspapers promises $25,000 for a donor who is “100% Jewish with … High SAT Scores… Attractive, at Healthy Body Weight and Free of Genetic Diseases.”
“Whenever the employment rate is down, we get more calls,” says Robin von Halle, president of Alternative Reproductive Resources, an agency in Chicago where inquiries from would-be egg donors are up 30% in recent weeks — to about 60 calls a day. “We’re even getting men offering up their wives. It’s pretty scary.”
I believe in God’s view, this is adultery.
To adulterate is to pollute, to confuse, to taint a substance or in this instance (and in Biblical terms) bloodlines, kinships, households (and minds – these children won’t ‘fit’ and know who begat them, where they really belong).
God hated adultery, multiple wives because it caused emotional turmoil, conflict, pain, confusion of loyalty, relationships…was an act of disrespect (for all involved and for God) and one of disregard for life. The effects are permanent and cannot be undone. We must respect life, purity, chastity, honor, be truthful, faithful to promises/covenants…
In Vitro fertilization, sperm and egg donors are adultery, are irresponsible and reckless reproduction.
Another hairy tale of this kind of confusion is the one man whose sperm has impregnated 30 lesbians in Adelaide, AU.
These acts can be categorized under ‘my will be done’ not ‘Thy will be done’.
This strikes me as incredibly bizarre. I have no doubt it is true, though, given the New Eugenics of Designer Babies. We expect perfect babies, anything else is unacceptable, and we will pay any amount of money to attain it. The moral and ethical implications of these questions truly boggle the mind.
I wonder if there is a money-back guarantee if you get an ugly one, or if the eyes aren’t blue, or the hair isn’t blonde? I guess you could always go to Nebraska and drop off the unwanted child at a hospital. I do however understand how much some couples who desperately want a child and cannot have one. Such as Zachariah and Elisabeth in Luke, or Father Abraham. Now there was the ultimate surrogate mess.
Tell you how clueless I was: I read the headline and thought “Easter? It’s not even Christmas yet!”
I can understand some couples will want children badly. I know because I have been there. Due to a war injury (being stabbed) I couldn’t father children normally. The doctor collected as much semen as he felt would be needed and used that for the fertilization. Even that did’t work. So, we adopted. My wife died in 1999 from breast cancer. I was sure that I would never experience grandchildren and all that encompasses. WRONG. I remarried in 2004, and now we have 5 children, 12 grandchildren, and one great grandchild. Be careful what you pray for, you might just get it. But I wouldn’t change a thing.
not sure what you make of the account of Abraham as regards sexual fidelity #1 or Solomon’s hoard of beauties….truth is that your understanding of family is very culturally bizarre to what wnet before, in Christ’s day the nuclear family barely existed. It was a throng of people all working together (much as a church should)
So whilst I applaud your horror at infedility and am saddened by this story….I think your understanding of relationships within scripture needs examining
rugbyplayingpriest,
I’m not sure if I follow what you’re saying. Are you referring to Abraham offering his wife to Pharoah, and to the King of Gerar?
Is this a fair restatement?: In the Bible, Abraham offers his wife to another man. Since he is an ancester of Christ, this must be OK. Offering one’s wife’s eggs to a stranger is part of offering one’s wife to a stranger so, [i]a fortiori[/i], must likewise be OK.
Let me know if this is a fair restatement of your reasoning. I’m examining my understanding of relationships in Scripture.
Abraham and Solomon were sinners as was David…just because something happened and is MENTIONED in Scripture, doesn’t mean God approves it. Amnon’s rape of Tamar doesn’t make rape acceptable to God. Rahab’s prostitution doesn’t excuse or affirm prostitution. Onesimus’ slavery doesn’t mean we should sell our children into slavery. Get a grip…Rugby.
I suspect that rugbyplayingpriest is merely saying that multiple wives were common in the past and the the nuclear family was uncommon indeed. The unit was the tribe and then above that the clan. One was a member of the House of David; that is the understood Biblical membership level. The true nuclear family is a relatively modern invention after all, only a few hundred years old, and America has now reduced this family to a parent and child. It can’t shrink much more.
What HASN”T existed is a family unit made of men only. There is no such family, nuclear or extended. Always, always, men and women.
What is also true is that our church has watched technological innovation after innovation and has not addressed the ethical significance of these changes. Consider the savior sibling, made possible the existence of multiple in vitro fertilizations. England has now made it legal for IVF to produce a clone to be born by any mother, a clone which may be used to harvest bone marrow from for the sake of a sick family member. Welcome to childhood! And now, the above, which has been going on for some time now. What is being done constitutes trafficking in human flesh, does it not? This used to be illegal. Children for manufacture and for sale. How is this different ethically and morally from the savior sibling? And the church says nothing while the future bears down on us like a tsunami. We fret over Chane’s spite, and we ignore this. Will the ABC take the bull by the horns and address this issue? Will CCP?
Larry