Hermenuetics

Comments

Excellent, well thought-out, and balanced piece. Thank you.

Posted By: Robyn | January 13, 2011 10:21 AM

I am really really disappointed as a fellow Christian by this article. Who really are you to judge Melanie or her husband in regards to her family building choices. And comparing surrogacy to prostitution.

I am just sitting her agape shaking my head.

You need to walk in this woman's shoes before you through those kinds of words around.

Posted By: just words on a page | January 13, 2011 1:40 PM

The definition of prostitution:

1. The act or practice of engaging in sex acts for hire.
2. The act or an instance of offering or devoting one's talent to an unworthy use or cause.

Prostitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. People who execute such activities are called prostitutes. Prostitution is one of the branches of the sex industry. The legal status of prostitution varies from country to country, from being a punishable crime to a regulated profession..

Prostitution occurs in a variety of forms. Brothels are establishments specifically dedicated to prostitution. In escort prostitution, the act takes place at the customer's residence or hotel room (referred to as out-call), or at the escort's residence or in a hotel room rented for the occasion by the escort (called in-call). Another form is street prostitution. Sex tourism is travel, generally from developed to under-developed nations, to engage in other sexual activity with prostitutes.

Do you really think you can compare prostitution to surrogacy?

If you look in the bible you will see that both of Jacob’s wives (Rachel and Leah) asked him to create many children by their maids Bilhah and Zilpah who would count as their own children. That would be found in Genesis 30. Rachel then describes that has having children delivered on her knees. If you look at the language of adoption: “Here is my maid Bilhahl go in to her, that she may bear upon my knees and I too may have children through her” (Genisis 30:3 NRSV).

If you look at the Hebrew bible it talks about surrogate to fatherhood through the practice of levirate marriage. Meaning if a married man dies childless his brother is supposed to marry the widow and father at least one child to inherit the brothers estate and carry on his name. That can be found in Genesis 38:1-11

And finally is the surrogacy around Jesus Christ. Are you beginning to squirm and feel uncomfortable? I apologize ahead of time but I am going to point out to you that the gospel says that Jesus was born of a virgin; and fathered by the Holy Spirit which can be found in Luke 1:26-35. This cleary puts Mary in the role of being a surrogate mother for Jesus does it not? You can’t possible compare what God intended and Mary did as prostitution. Joseph who clearly was not the biological father supported his wife and raised Jesus and fathered Jesus.

It’s really easy to judge and cast aspersions on subject matter that we aren’t comfortable with and don’t agree with. It would I think been much more appropriate to say “You know I don’t agree with or abide by the choices of Melanie and Michael. It’s not something I am comfortable with.” However, to compare what their actions to prostitution – I am sorry I think that’s really crossing the line.

Posted By: Marna Gatlin | January 13, 2011 2:02 PM

Where in the article does Ellen say anything about prostitution? She said "Melanie dismisses the idea that surrogacy is akin to prostitution" which means other people have brought it up, Melanie refuted it and Ellen is reporting on it.

Ellen always writes about reproductive and scientific advances - she has one of the best voices out there for getting people to think about the scientific advances that are going on and what they mean, what they really mean for us as Christians. Ellen, you've written another well done article.

Posted By: Leslie | January 13, 2011 5:06 PM

As a mother, I do not judge Melanie's choice in doing such procedure by asking other women to have her baby. Some parents would rather have prefer having a child by their blood than adopting someone who's not even related, and that was her choice. The important point here is that the people involved were willing because of a worthy cause, plus these babies are loved and well taken cared of. Not like those kids who are neglected and turning out to be troubled teens.

Posted By: Turning Winds Reviews | January 13, 2011 8:19 PM

I did not see this article as judgmental or accusatory toward Melanie and her husband. I saw it as a prudent look at the possibility of reproductive technology running amuck in the future. Sometimes it is not a matter of if we CAN do it, but whether we SHOULD do it. While this is obviously a matter of individual conscience, we must admit that history has proven repeatedly that good ideas often take on a life of their own as they evolve and morph into something with great destructive power as well as the potential for good. An example is an article I read recently about brain research that was intended to produce drugs that could help some of the worst mental conditions. After the research was published, unscrupulous people used the same information to produce potent street drugs that killed people.

Posted By: kay | January 14, 2011 8:50 AM

One of the hardest parts of being a writer is knowing that readers will often disagree, vehemently and publicly, with what I’ve written. Learning to accept and even appreciate that is a necessary part of being a writer.

But when people post comments vehemently disagreeing with things I HAVEN’T said, that is incredibly dispiriting. I welcome comments, even disagreeable ones, but please comment on what I’ve actually said.

I never equated surrogacy with prostitution. In fact, I called that analogy (a common one in reproductive ethics, which is why Melanie Thernstrom herself brought it up) “distasteful and unfair.”

Mama Gatlin—The Biblical examples you cite, including the one about the Holy Family as the original family created via surrogacy, were exactly what I had in mind when I wrote,"We know from reading history (and the Bible) that infertility and the conception of children with someone other than one’s spouse, accidentally or on purpose, are not new phenomena. Family life has always been a complicated, messy affair, and God has always managed to work through and be in relationship with the imperfect people who result." I didn't cite the stories specifically because of word-count limits.

I also consider this to be a very fair-minded article, not a judgmental one. (And while I don’t have experience with surrogacy, I do have personal experience with related reproductive technologies, as well as professional expertise on reproductive ethics for Christians.) I questioned this couple’s decisions and their cultural implications—a reasonable response to an article that made the NYT magazine cover precisely because it addressed a current, open, culturally relevant topic of discussion and concern.

Rather than criticizing the couple, I criticized our media culture for covering reproductive technology in a superficial, sensationalistic way. And I criticized the reading public, for buying into this superficial coverage with preconceived, knee-jerk reactions. Several of the commenters here have proven that latter point quite well.

Does anyone have a response to what I actually wrote? I’d love to hear it.

Posted By: Ellen | January 14, 2011 8:51 AM

My only problem with In vitro fertilization is that the couple stop waiting on God and decide to resolve their problem relying on the doctors instead.

God can send babies, but He has His perfect timing! However we want, what we want, when we want, and we will pay for it even with credit cards.

It's not easy to submit to God sometimes. And we justify our decisions saying that we have good intentions or reasons. But we put "things" before God. Stuff, and even babies.

Posted By: Lilly | January 14, 2011 9:48 AM

And thanks so much Robyn, Leslie and Kay for the positive comments. While those are ALWAYS appreciated (and responsible for my not being completely bald this morning, given how much tearing-my-hair-out has occupied the past 24 hours), I really do welcome disagreement as well.

Posted By: Ellen | January 14, 2011 9:50 AM

I thought the article was very well written and informative, not in the least judgmental towards the parents. I think maybe those who criticized it may just not have really read it slowly enough to understand it completely. Good job, again, Ellen!

Posted By: bizymomof6 | January 14, 2011 10:22 AM

The only thing I want to point out is that much of the Old Testament is DESCRIPTIVE, not prescriptive. Just because Rachel, Leah, Sarah, and other women asked their husbands to father children with their maidservants does NOT mean that it was sanctioned by God. God did not tell them to do that. They came up with that on their own. As Ellen says, God can choose to work through anything, but that doesn't mean it was approved by him. We don't condone polygamy just because it was a common Old Testament practice.

I don't mean to say what MY opinion on the "twiblings" is. I just want to point out that using Old Testament practices as a justification for surrogacy is not a very wise argument.

(I have always wondered why people think that it was okay for those men to father children with their wives' maidservants. I would venture to guess that with their subordinate positions in the household as "servants," those women did not have a choice in the matter. And they weren't compensated that I know of. Plus, the children were probably removed from them to be raised by the wives, if the wives were specifically requesting the children for a gain in their own status. That's more like rape than prostitution.)

Posted By: Robyn | January 14, 2011 11:07 AM

I think this is a very interesting topic and I appreciate your challenge to show sensitivity to women struggling with fertility issues. No matter how you feel about reproductive technology, we need to minister to women grieving over infertility and care for them well.

That said, I am curious about your comment that adoption brings with it the same problems of commodification that we confront with in vitro. The movement toward the commodification of children is very troubling to me, and while there are likely adopting families out there who pick out there children like they would a new car, that has not been, in my experience, the predominant language of adopting families. Reproductive technology, on the other hand, is soaked in that language. Given that language has the power to shape our cultural and spiritual imagination, I am worried by this pattern and I am not sure that adoption carries with it quite the same temptation. I would love to hear your thoughts on that, Ellen.

In your previous article on the topic, you also mentioned the deep, God-given desire for women to have biological children, and while I affirm that desire I am hesitant to make it ultimate. Proverbs 30:15-16 tells us, "“There are three things that are never satisfied, four that never say, ‘Enough!’: the grave, the barren womb, land, which is never satisfied with water, and fire, which never says, ‘Enough!’" As this verse and other Scriptural stories remind us, the desire to have children has driven women to sin in some instances, and I think we need to hold that truth in balance. You have addressed both sides charitably in this article and I appreciate your approach, but I also wonder when we need to start drawing a firm line. I don't have an answer, but it is something I ponder often.

Thanks again for your thoughts and research!

Posted By: Sharon Miller | January 14, 2011 3:34 PM

Thank you for a very relevant, thoughtful article. I am puzzled by some of the initial comments.

I do agree that there are ethical questions around the various options for creating a family, even having your own children. My mother has struggled with mental illness and addiction for decades. Should I procreate and pass those genetics along? Is it selfless to spend $30000+ to adopt a child from overseas or is that as much a sign of affluence as driving a BMW? What will the child adopted from another continent think/feel of this major translocation when they grow up? What would be the impact on impoverished people/countries if, instead spending money on international adoption, that same amount of money was funneled into reputable organizations who could support parents to keep their children with them in their own country?

The questions are multitude and for this reason, anyone who suggests they have "the" answer is probably not sufficiently informed on the topic.

Posted By: Brenda | January 14, 2011 7:49 PM

Thank you all! Now we can have a conversation...

Robyn - Yes, yes, yes to everything you said about the Old Testament stories being descriptive rather than prescriptive.

Sharon - The language of commodification is certainly much more apparent in assisted reproduction than adoption or natural conception, although even then, parents-to-be who use reproductive technology don't necessarily speak in that language. Most of them (us) speak in the same terms that biological parents and adoptive parents do: We want a baby to love. We want to provide a loving home. We've always wanted kids. We'll be good parents. etc. I also think that commodification of children permeates all types of parenting in our culture to some extent (which I hinted at when I referred to the child-as-project mentality in the article). There's this prevailing ideal that we can create and nurture children to become what we want them to be (successful, productive, smart, healthy) if we control all that goes into their "production"--from conception, pregnancy, and birth to diet, education, and playmates. Again, most of us don't use that language day to day. We love our children. We want them to be happy and healthy. But there are tremendous cultural pressure and expectations for parents, of all kinds, to control the outcome of our procreation.

Specifically looking at adoption and reproductive technology, both have become big business. Both require huge sums of money and are generally only available to people of means. Both processes have the potential to exploit those with less money and power (e.g., an Indian woman who agrees to be a surrogate for a Westerner because it will allow her to educate her child and buy a house; a mother from a poor country whose child is far from "unwanted," but who relinquishes parental rights so the child can have a better life). Both adoption and technology tempt unscrupulous people to make a buck by taking advantage of people's deep desires for children (e.g., fertility doctors who ignore professional guidelines regarding multiple pregnancies, offer genetic screening for non-disease traits, and advertise gender selection services to immigrants from patriarchal cultures where boys are more highly valued than girls; or adoption brokers who don't ensure that birth parents' rights are legally, and voluntarily, relinquished before matching children with adoptive families).

That's not to accuse individual aspiring parents of deliberate exploitation or consumerism. In comparing the two processes, I was referring less to the motivations of individual parents, and more to commonalities between the two processes, both market-oriented, and how they play out in a consumer culture.

And I also agree with what you said about parental desires, while real and significant, not being ultimate. I firmly believe lines DO need to be drawn. I do think, however, that in our culture, we're still at the stage of needing to convince people that the ethical concerns are significant and worth discussing. We're still at this point where people see healthy babies and happy parents, chalk it up to "personal choice," and don't think much more about it. We have to keep raising the important questions before we can start trying to answer them.

And Brenda - Terrific observations. Whether, and how, to have kids are questions faced by everyone, especially given the technology available to control so much of the process.

Posted By: Ellen | January 14, 2011 9:18 PM

"The only thing I want to point out is that much of the Old Testament is DESCRIPTIVE, not prescriptive"

I think the 10 commandments are not descriptive and are prescriptive, just as one example to refute the above statement.

Posted By: Jennifer Lahl | January 17, 2011 9:18 AM

Sure, Brit. I'm happy to have this conversation. Sure, the 10 commandments are prescriptive. Is the rest of that story? Building a golden calf and worshiping it? Would you also say that David and Solomon's hundreds of wives are prescriptive? Would you say that Ahab and Jezebel's story is prescriptive? I didn't say ALL of the Old Testament is descriptive. I said MUCH of it is. MUCH of it is the story of the people of Israel. And MUCH of it isn't something we should emulate, including, perhaps, asking our husbands to father children with other women.

Posted By: Robyn | January 21, 2011 3:02 PM

Oops. My above comment is for Jennifer. Not Brit. Mea Culpa.

Posted By: Robyn | January 21, 2011 3:05 PM