Is Artificial Insemination a sin?

 posted by revelife.com

 

Artificial Insemination: Following God's Will or Your Own?

Scientific breakthroughs have made so many medical procedures possible. People are living longer, recovering from preventable diseases quicker and ultimately improving our evolutionary fitness. Science, when used appropriately, is an amazing asset to the human experience.

Artificial insemination and various other methods of scientific impregnation have allowed sterile or same-sex couples to start a family. Who wouldn't agree that two loving people should be able to start a family? If someone has a problem with this idea, they indeed have a major issues themselves.

When you read the Bible, "barren" women were a marginalized community during the time that the Bible was written. A woman who couldn't have children was looked down upon. A few times, we read that God gave women past prime children that they never thought that they'd have.

Abraham's wife Sarah and Mary's cousin Elizabeth were two older women who became "great with child" even when they didn't believe it was possible. I can't even imagine the hurt, isolation, anger and frustration that these women may have felt in their prime when they couldn't bear children. They must have been full of angst and suffering---the very cocktail that God uses to turn people's worlds upside down for the better.

God looks after the world's rejects in a special way. The ones who the world tends to throw away, cast down, and trample upon are the ones that God uses to do the bravest and boldest things in His Kingdom. God allows us to experience pain and heartbreak so that He break down the doors of our suffering and be our comfort. Restoration wouldn't feel so good if you were never lost.

Isaiah 54: 1 says "Sing, O barren woman, you who never bore a child; burst into song, shout for joy, you who were never in labor; because more are the children of the desolate woman that of her who has a husband" says the Lord. In this verse, we read that God acknowledges the status of a desolate or barren women. God has His eyes on these member of His kingdom. Even more importantly, God is telling them to rejoice! Why would God do that? I believe that God is telling barren and desolate women in this verse that they need to mother the orphans and the fatherless. Those without children of their own can mother orphans in a way that another women couldn't. God has a special place for the orphan and the barren women. Both of their shortcomings bring them together.

Is artificial insemination a selfish way of "getting your own way" no matter what? If you really believe that God can do anything, why would you result to a medical procedure to give you a child? Do you disagree that God has your best interests at heart? Do you feel the need to intervene? Trusting God completely is trusting Him with your body. Couples who can't conceive naturally and then seek artificial insemination may be seen as "poo pooing" God's perfect plan for them.

God looks after the orphans and widows but He does that through us on Earth. God works with all the hands that we give Him. What if a couple becomes so wrapped in the child that they had due to a medical procedure, that they don't even consult the local adoption agencies to give birth to God's plan for their lives? Being a childless couple can be socially stigmatizing I imagine. But God still works miracles and He still wipes the tears from all faces. Perhaps God wants the couple to know Him in a new way by being childless. But the newly conceived couple will never know that now.

Two loving parents are the only type of people who should start a home. But does that home have to be made up of children from their own bodies? How much greater of a calling it is to love a child that was not born of your body but of your heart? That requires the love of Christ. An adopting couple is called to love a man (child) as you love yourself (your own child). If couples get so busy with artificial insemination and procedures, what happens to the orphaned and the fatherless? Who will look after God's little one's of whom the Kingdom was specifically made for?

What are your thoughts on artificial insemination? Is adoption a legitimate option or is artificial insemination the only way to start a truly loving family?