Sometimes you come across a news story that allows you to simply repeat the article and doesn't really require commentary. This is one of those stories; I will comment anyway.
This takes place in Connecticut, and involves a young woman named Crystal Kelley, single, and an un-named married couple. Ms. Kelley decided to rent her uterus out as a surrogate mother for the couple who could no longer have children of their own. Kelley was currently unemployed and would receive $22,000 by becoming pregnant with the couple's child.
The couple had previously gone through the in-vitro fertilization process and had some leftover frozen embryos. They thawed them out, placed two in Kelley, and one survived to create a pregnancy. At twenty-one weeks, an ultrasound was performed that showed that the fetus would likely be born with severe birth defects. The parents wanted Kelley to have an abortion; they told her that she, "...should be God-like and have mercy on the child and let her go." Ms. Kelley felt that was the wrong thing to do... at least at that point.
The agency coordinating all of this, Surrogacy International, then became the go-between for communications between the parties. First they told Kelley that the parents wanted her to know that if she carried the child to term, they would not accept the defective child as their own. Secondly, the parents offered her an additional $10,000 to have an abortion. Ms. Kelley felt that was the wrong thing to do... at least at that point.
She later decided that for $15,000 it would be the right thing to do and made a counter-offer to the parents, offering to abort the child for an additional five grand. (As best I can tell, the fetus was not involved in the negotiating process, but even if she had been, it is doubtful that she would have had the cash to make an offer for her own life.) The parents rejected this counter-offer. Kelley then continued to carry the child.
Time was a-wasting, as the pregnancy neared the twenty-fourth week, and after that, it would be illegal to have an abortion. The parents got lawyered up and invoked a clause in the surrogacy contract that Kelly had signed stating that she had to have an "abortion in case of severe fetal abnormality." Absent the $15,000, Kelley decided that abortion was not the morally correct thing to do, and would not abort under any circumstances. The parents now wanted their surrogacy fee and the child back after it was born, so they could turn her over to the State of Connecticut for foster care. In Connecticut, the genetic parents are the legal ones entitled to custody.
Different states have different laws, so Kelley absconded with child in-utero to Michigan, where she would legally be considered the parent. She got on Medicaid, and the deadline for a legal abortion passed. Kelley found another couple to adopt the child after it was born. Then it turns out that the parents weren't exactly the genetic parents; they had used an egg donor for the in-vitro fertilization process. By now, the lawyers were having quite a time arguing over who was really the legal parent of the child, who insisted on being born in the midst of the arguing. The little girl has indeed had multiple surgeries for birth defects and faces an uncertain future. She has since been adopted by the couple friendly to Kelley. As far as I know, her uterus is currently vacant and available again for rent.
This child was constructed under contract with sperm from the father, an egg from a donor, and raised in the womb of a surrogate. In vitro fertilization carries with it an increased risk of birth defects, and apparently Ms. Kelley had two prior miscarriages, often associated with embryonic abnormalities. In an effort to engineer this pregnancy using extreme measures, it would seem that the odds were stacked against the little girl. We talk of "taking out a contract" on someone to mean hiring someone to kill another, but this child had a contract taken out on her before she was conceived, to ensure her death should she be less than perfect.
In the Bible, many times there was talk of the "barren" womb and how this was often seen as a sign of divine disfavor. In Leviticus Chapter 20, certain sexual sins were to be punished by the Lord by childlessness. There were many women in the Bible who were anguished by not conceiving. Sarai in Genesis 16, stated that, "the Lord has restrained me from bearing children." She encouraged Abram to have a child with her servant Hagar, leading to great distress in their household. In Genesis 30:1-2, we hear Rachel cry to Jacob, "'Give me children or else I die!' And Jacob's anger was aroused against Rachel, and he said, 'Am I in the place of God, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?'" We learn of Hannah, in I Samuel 1:6, "And her rival also provoked her severely, to make her miserable, because the Lord had closed her womb," and in verse 10, "And she was in bitterness of soul, and prayed to the Lord and wept in anguish." And when Elizabeth finally became pregnant, we see in Luke 1:25 "Thus the Lord has dealt with me, in the days when He looked on me, to take away my reproach among people." Many of these women were Godly; Elizabeth was, "righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord, blameless" (Luke 1:6).
My wife and I are childless, and like many other similar couples, we looked for medical assistance with conception. The fertility business deals a great deal with statistics, and many of the proposed medical regimens have different success rates. You are advised not to waste too many precious cycles on treatments that have lower chances, and encouraged to move towards in-vitro fertilization, for it has better prospects. This requires creating embryos, often many, and each is a life-- only some are implanted into the womb for a chance of being born. My wife and I did not consider this approach, and have accepted the answer that God has given to our many prayers. Medical science continues to advance, and we can now create life in a test tube from people that never knew each other, implanting that life in yet another stranger. In the near future, I forsee that we will be able to replicate ourselves with cloning, re-creating a life that God has already established. You could clone yourself, and implant the embryo in a womb, yet change your mind and abort the fetus; would that be murder or suicide?
One day my wife and I will see the Lord and know why we did not have children. Although for many infertility is seen as a curse, we do not consider ourselves to be suffering. For now, we are completely at peace with His will for us. We have a contract with Him, a covenant through His Son Jesus Christ, and would not seek to usurp His power to create life. There are others who will create life here on earth and give themselves children, only to lose their own lives for eternity because they reject His Son. They are taking out a contract on themselves.
1. http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/04/health/surrogacy-kelley-legal-battle/index.html?hpt=hp_c1
2. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/251768.php
1 comment:
Awesome blog, Tim. Well said.
Post a Comment