by Katie Schuermann
When considering whether or not IVF was an option for us to use, my husband and I asked ourselves these questions:
What is lost if we do use IVF?
What is lost if we don’t use IVF?
And …
Who is harmed if we do use IVF?
Who is harmed if we don’t use IVF?
The answers to these questions made it very clear that there was no harm done — no lives lost — in not using IVF, but using IVF risked harming, even losing, the very children we hoped would result from it. And in harming and losing our children, we would also be losing sight of one of the basic tenets of the parental vocation: dying to self for the good of our children.
This thought exercise drove home the point that, when it came to IVF, the most loving choice we could make for our children was to suffer the absence of them rather than manufacture them to risk their lives.
However painful their absence might prove to be in the hours and days and years ahead, the preferred path forward was the one that abused no children, the one that risked no lives.
So, we picked up our cross of barrenness and followed Christ in praying, “Not my will, Father, but Thine.”
If your conscience is burdened because you used IVF, know that you are not alone in your regrets. The apostle Paul teaches us in his letter to the Romans that “none is righteous, no, not one” (Rom. 3:10). He also writes that “there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1). Please, talk to your pastor or a trusted Christian friend about your regrets, and put your faith in Jesus’ words from the cross about His work of salvation on our behalf: “It is finished” (John 19:30). Because of Christ’s mercy, we can live our lives looking backward in repentance yet forward in hope.
