IVF

The One Flesh Union

Whenever discussing points of ethical contention surrounding the complex subject of assisted reproductive technology, there is usually one fundamental question in need of answering in the church: What exactly is the one flesh union of marriage?

Thank you to Dr. Gifford A. Grobien, Assistant Professor of Systematic Theology and Director of the D. Min. Program at Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, IN, for graciously thinking through this question and composing an answer for the benefit of our ongoing discussion of infertility medicine:

The instituting text for marriage is Genesis 2:24: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” The English “flesh” translates well the Hebrew bāśār, meaning the material tissue of a creature. It is the organic, biological elements of a person. The Hebrew něp̄ěš refers to a complete creature, not just its flesh, but its flesh and life. For animals (e.g. Genesis 1:20) this includes its breath; for human persons this includes the soul or self. Něp̄ěš is not used in Genesis 2:23-25.

Thus marriage is characterized fundamentally not as a personal union, but as a fleshly union. This union is an organic, biological union of bodies. Marriage is, firstly, the becoming “one flesh,” not becoming one creature or person. Marriage is a union of flesh or bodies. Marriage is not identical to coitus, but coitus is constitutive of marriage.* When Jesus is questioned about divorce, he reminds his questioners about the nature of marriage as union of flesh, quoting Genesis 2:24 (Matthew 19:3-6; Mark 10:2-12). What, then, is this becoming one flesh? How is it different from becoming united in other ways?

Girgis, George, and Anderson (2010) explain that the union of flesh is not just bodily intimacy, in which body parts of one person surround or intermingle with the body parts of another person. Rather, a body serves natural life. The parts of a body coordinate to achieve biological purpose. For two people to have fleshly, or biological, union, “their bodies must be coordinated for some biological purpose of the whole” (p. 254). Nearly all biological, or fleshly, acts can be accomplished by one independent body—for example respiration, circulation, and digestion. Indeed, fleshly union with respect to any of these bodily acts is impossible. Only in coitus do two bodies act for one biological function.

Coitus enacts a unique fleshly existence and accompanying purpose of procreation. Alone, the reproductive system of one person cannot reproduce. Coitus brings together two bodies in a fleshly union to make possible the singular biological act of procreation.

Any bodily touching that is not coitus—even other touching of a sexual nature—is not true bodily union but only juxtaposition or contiguousness, even if this juxtaposition happens to occur inside a person’s body. One might argue that non-coital sexual relations nourish and expresses intimacy and emotional union. Yet such a union would be just that: one of emotion, the will, or the mind. It is still not a union of the flesh, by which two bodies act together as one body or one flesh, seeking a fleshly—that is, organic or biological—purpose.

The union of flesh in marriage, then, consists of coitus. To emphasize this does not, on the other hand, deny that marriage is also a union of minds, wills, and passions. Marriage by design includes all of these. Coitus is not the only element of marriage. Rather, coitus is one of the fundamental, unique elements of marriage.

Nor is emphasizing coitus to reduce marriage to mating, as though human persons were mere animals. Although, on the above criteria, many animals also engage in a union of flesh when they mate, this does not exclude other characteristics from the fleshly union of man and woman: characteristics which qualify human marriage differently from the mating of animals.

The fleshly union of man and woman is fundamentally a bodily union, but it also includes the union of other human qualities such as the will, the emotions, and the mind. Taking the above understanding of union in general to mean the coordination of two or more elements for a common purpose, in sexual relations a man and woman would also properly coordinate their wills, emotions, and minds. Indeed, their souls are coordinated and caught up with one another in the purposes of deepening and nourishing their relationship, of enjoying one another, and of conceiving, bearing, and raising a child. The relational bond is as much a part of the fleshly union as the biological union. To insist upon the biological or organic union as fundamental to marriage does not in any way marginalize the other ways that a husband and wife are united in marriage.

St. Paul explains this in Ephesians 5: “In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body” (28-30). For human beings, fleshly union is more than mating; is it to treat one’s spouse with love, nourishment, and warmth or comfort. These are the human qualities that go along with fleshly union.

Nor does the fundamental character of fleshly union in marriage in any way diminish or annul the marriages of infertile couples. The union of flesh refers to the act of coitus. In coitus, man and woman come together as one organically. Should this act not later result in conception says nothing about the act of union itself. “[W]hether a couple achieves bodily union depends on facts about what is happening between their bodies,” not other factors regarding the effectiveness of the reproductive system (Girgis, George, and Anderson, 266).

Finally, it is, in fact, only through fleshly union that two people can be completely united. People of all sorts may be united emotionally, according to their wills, or according to their minds. Coworkers united to find the solution to a research question or to a mechanical problem in an automobile have a kind of union in intellect. Friends are united in common activities according to their wills and often according to their emotions. Bodily union, however, occurs only between two who engage in a union of the flesh. Thus, the only relationship that allows the full union of persons—bodily, emotionally, according to the will, and according to the mind—is the relationship which includes fleshly union, that is, marriage. Thus, again, St. Paul’s words in Ephesians 5 express the character of this union: a union of flesh, of love, of care, of growth and nourishment (28-30).

Marriage may be instituted as a union of flesh, a union of bāśār. As a union of human flesh, however, it rightly becomes a union of něp̄ěš, of life. The union of flesh, the ground of marriage, properly stimulates true love for one another, leading to a true union of lives, of both bodies and souls.

*In this essay, coitus means specifically male-female genital sexual relations, not any other kind of use of sexual organs, even that which may occur between a man and a woman.

Girgis, S., R.P. George, and R.T. Anderson. 2010. “What is Marriage?” Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy. 34 (1): 245-288.

Infertility Ethics Symposium in Review

Here are a few intriguing quotes from last Saturday’s Infertility Ethics Symposium.

(mea culpa: I took notes the old-fashioned way – by hand – during the symposium, so please forgive any unintended inaccuracy in my quotes.)

From Rev. William Cwirla’s “Be Fruitful and Multiply: Fertility Ethics Viewed in the Light of Creation and Redemption”:

“We have never said no when it comes to the gift of children, and God has never said yes.”

“Jesus heals a myriad of diseases in His ministry, but He never healed a barren couple.”

“Anything that shapes our identity apart from Christ is idolatry.”

“We are stewards and we are priests of God’s creation.”

“Vocation is not the location of our identity but the location of our service.”

From Rev. Dr. James I. Lamb’s “IVF: from Created to Creator”:

“I believe the place we start as theologians in a discussion of IVF is the incarnation of our Lord…We go to a fallopian tube in the virgin Mary.”

“We have a Savior who was an embryo once.”

“God wants every person, every embryo, to be splashed by the waters of Baptism.”

From Rev. Christopher S. Esget’s “Pastoral Care for Those Experiencing Infertility and Miscarriages”:

“Barrenness is not just a diagnosis. It is an ongoing reality.”

“We must be sensitive to the unintentionally excluded.”

“We must preach contentment in the vocations we have, not in the ones we wish we had.”

From Rev. Dr. Robert W. Weise’s “Embryo Adoption: Helping or Hurting My Neighbor?”:

“The one-flesh union is the blessing that God gives the union of husband and wife. We have it physically and spiritually.”

“Surrogacy is a substitute. This is a disconnect in the marital union.”

“Embryo adoption is troubling, because it involves surrogacy…and the death of embryos.”

Interested in knowing more about what was said by our six presenters at the symposium? Look for a downloadable document of the presentations on LCMS’s website sometime within the next few months.

The Truth which Comforts

This past June, Rev. Todd Wilken interviewed me on Issues, Etc. on the topics of barrenness, in vitro fertilization, and embryo testing. If you are interested, you can listen to the full interview here.

In this post, however, I want to specifically draw your attention to the fact that the most comforting words offered up in that conversation were not spoken by yours truly but, rather, by the interviewer.

“God does not promise to deliver you from suffering; He makes promises to you in the midst of suffering.”

and

“Every vocation, every gift, is given by God, but it’s always given under the cross. We never get out from under the cross. As Christians, there is an attendant suffering that comes along with these things, a burden that comes along with them, always to both remind and to connect us to the suffering of Christ and His cross.”

Thank you, Rev. Wilken, for faithfully speaking the truth which teaches and comforts for the benefit of us all.

Children were harmed in the making of this article.

Embryos are people.

When you read this article found at People.com (Oh, the irony of the site’s name!) about the first baby born from a transplanted womb, you will notice that such people are being unconscionably created to have their lives risked, all for the sake of other people’s – adult people, that is – happiness.

“Earlier this year, Brannstrom began transferring embryos into the seven other women. He said there are two other pregnancies at least 25 weeks along.”

If we put the best construction on this situation and assume that there were only seven total people created for individual implantation attempts in the seven successfully transplanted wombs, then that means there are at least three* people living today (one person born, two in utero) because of this experiment.

That also means there are at least four people dead today because of this experiment.

The obvious must be pointed out, as the media continually fails to do so:

We are quick to laud and celebrate the people that are born from such experiments, but we fail to acknowledge, mourn, and defend the people that unjustly die.

And our intentionally ignorant silence is to our shame.

* Best construction assumes that there are not additional living people currently frozen and waiting in liquid nitrogen.

Symposium Schedule

What do IVF, embryo adoption, and miscarriage all have in common?

They’re topics which will be addressed at the Infertility Ethics Symposium at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis on Saturday, November 8th. Please, do everything you can to make sure your pastor can attend.

Here is an itinerary of the day’s events as well as descriptions of the papers which will be presented.

You can find out more information about the symposium as well as how to reserve your pastor’s spot by visiting LCMS Life Ministry’s website.

It’s time for the Church to speak on these things.

The Wisdom of Melissa

I was such a chicken in the beginning.

I really didn’t want to write about IVF.

“I think you have to,” Melissa gently encouraged. “It wouldn’t be responsible to write a book on barrenness and not talk about the medical side of things. It’s a part of the whole issue. Every woman ends up there at some point or other.”

Melissa was right. She usually is. Her wisdom is 3 parts Scripture and 1 part grit, shaken in a tall tumbler made strong as iron from countless barbell cleans, burpees, and a life lived under the cross of Christ.

I ceased splashing my filmy, water-color impressions of infertility medicine on the page and, instead, drew careful, measured lines through the landscape of infertility ethics. It was scary at first – I felt so alone and inadequate as an artist – but Melissa helped me choose which colors to use and tutored me in the art of shading. After all, there were foggy, gray areas in the world’s portrait of infertility which would benefit from less darkness and more of Scripture’s light.

One thing is certain. I couldn’t have written that book without the help of someone as sage, smart, sympathetic, and strong as Melissa.

I’m so glad I didn’t have to.

The Wisdom of Kristi

More than a few times along this HRTB blogging journey, I have been broken in such a way that required someone else putting me back together. That someone was almost always Kristi.

“I don’t think God’s going to give us any children,” I remember sobbing into the phone to her one afternoon. I felt so worthless to the world as a childless, married woman, and the guilt and shame of barrenness and failed adoptions and empty arms threatened to overwhelm me.

“I love you just the way you are,” Kristi spoke evenly into my ear. “I wouldn’t change one thing about you. God has given you what you have today, and He works all things for your good. You are blessed even without children.”

When scathing correspondence began pouring in from IVF advocates around the world, Kristi kept me on task.

“People need to be educated in a gentle yet honest way,” she cheered, “one that points them back to Christ, Who keeps them.”

There were even times when Kristi seemed almost telepathic, as if she could sense what particular burdens and doubts I was struggling against that day.

“Your marriage has been blessed by God,” she pointed out, “despite not being blessed with children either biologically or adopted. Your marriage is a gift from the Lord, and that is something to be cherished.”

But there is one little bit of correspondence from Kristi that, still to this day, moves me more than anything else. It’s just so selfless and generous. For, from across an ocean and in the middle of a sleepless night just after her adopted baby girl had finally been put into her arms for the first time, Kristi emailed me – insignificant, childless me:

“I know there is joy and pain for you personally on this day. Know this, dear sister, you are loved for who you are TODAY. Your worth is found in the shadow of the One who has borne all of our suffering. His gifts are yours each and every day, despite your earthly pains and sorrows. You. Are. Loved!”

Even now, the fact that Kristi put her own joy on hold to sit with me in my grief, stings my eyes with liquid salt.

Kristi is that person who tells me the truth – the unpolluted Truth which comforts and restores – when I need to hear it the most, and I am better for it.

That’s why, whenever I sit down to write a post on this website, I try so hard to be like her.

Rejection of Unborn IVF Babies Is for Real

Please, read this article which appeared in yesterday’s Breitbart News.

What is it about?

Well, to pull a quote from the article given by Robert Oscar Lopez, professor of English at California State University at Northridge: “‘Our republic can’t function if human beings are the objects of property rights until they become adults.'”

Surrogacy does this to human beings.

Lord, have mercy on us all.

Infertility, In Vitro Fertilization, and Embryo Testing

Thank you to Rev. Todd Wilken for talking with me about infertility, IVF, and embryo testing this afternoon on Issues, Etc.

You can listen to the interview here.

Infertility Ethics Symposium

Thank you to Andy Bates and KFUO’s His Time show for interviewing Dr. Jeff Gibbs and me this morning on the upcoming Infertility Ethics Symposium at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis.