Speaker 1: Welcome to vlat Subject Podcast. Our mission at Vlatimer Subject
Ministries is to reach the world globally and disciple them digitally.
Let's dive into this episode.
Speaker 2: Can a Christian woman become a surrogate mother? And underneath
that question are bigger ones a surrogacy just helping a family?
Or does it cross a moral boundary that scripture and
Christian ethics cannot ignore? What about infertility, real pain, real sorrow,
real desire to have children? Am I just helping someone
to deal with this pain? What about some modern surrogacy
being a business with contracts, agencies and a lot of
money that are being involved in this video? I first
want to define what surrogacy clearly is, show the two
types and give you some real world context as well
as layout a Christian ethical concerns without pretending that this
is an easy topic. What is a surrogate mother? A
surrogate mother is a woman who carries and delivers a
baby for another person or couple who will become the
children's parents after birth. That are two types of surrogacy,
each additional surrogacy. This is where the surrogu's egg is
fertilized by the intended father's sperm or a donor's sperm.
That means that a surrogate is the biological mother of
the child. Now, the second type of surrogacy which is
in high rise in our culture today is gestational surrogacy,
and this is when an embryo is created through IVF
using an egg and a sperm of an intended parents,
and then it's implanted in a surrogate. In this case,
the surrogate has no genetic tie to the baby that
she carries. Now, surrogacy is becoming more common, especially as
it's a solution for infertility and it's an option for
same sex couples pursuing children. The rise is tied to
both reproductive technology and shifts that are happening in our culture.
And here are some snapshots to show the direction that
this is going. CDC reported thirty thousand, nine hundred and
twenty seven surrogate births in the US from nineteen ninety
nine to twenty thirteen. Globally, surrogacy has become a major industry.
Reports describe it as a multi billion market that has
rapidly grown, and there is a disturbing part to this.
In many places, there's no oversight there's no reporting. Surrogates
don't always understand the medical, emotional, and legal risks. Now,
in this video, we will look at five ethnical and
biblical stances on this. But before we do that, I
want to highlight something that there is a compensation that's involved,
and some people do it for the sake of myndy,
others do it to help other couples. And payment may
vary by country and whether surrogacy is commercial or there's
another version of it. But in the US surrogates can
get paid from thirty thousand to fifty thousand dollars plus expenses.
Some countries only allow aturistic surrogacy, where expenses are reimbursed
but there is no additional fee. Here are five Christian
ethical concerns biblical concerns concerning a Christian woman becoming a
surrogate mother. Can a Christian woman become a surrogate mother?
And underneath that question are bigger ones a surrogacy just
helping a family? Or does it cross a moral boundary
that scripture and Christian ethics cannot ignore. What about infertility,
real pain, real sorrow, real desire to have children? Am
I just helping someone to deal with this? Pain. What
about some modern surguy being a business with contracts, agencies
and a lot of money that are being involved in
this video. I first want to define what surrogacy clearly is,
show the two types and give you some real world
context as well as layout a Christian ethical concerns without
pretending that this is an easy topic. What is a
surrogate mother? A surrogate mother is a woman who carries
and delivers a baby for another person or couple who
will become the children's parents after birth. That are two
types of surrogacy. The traditional surrogacy This is where the
surrogus egg is fertilized by the intended father's sperm or
a donor's sperm. That means that a surrogate is the
biological mother of the child. Now, the second type of surrogacy,
which is in high rise in our culture today, is
gestational surrogacy. And this is when an embryo is created
through IVF using an egg and a sperm of an
intended parents and then it's implented in a surrogate. In
this case, the surrogate has no genetic tie to the
baby that she carries. Now, surrogacy is becoming more common
especially as it's a solution for infertility and it's an
option for same sex couples pursuing children. The rise is
tied to both reproductive technology and shifts that are happening
in our culture. And here are some snapshots to show
the direction that this is going. CDC reported thirty thousand,
nine hundred and twenty seven surrogate births in the US
from nineteen ninety nine to twenty thirteen. Globally, surrogacy has
become a major industry. Reports describe it as a multi
billion market that has rapidly grown. And there's a disturbing
part to this. In many places, there's no overside, there's
no reporting. Surrogates don't always understand the medical, emotional, and
legal risks. Now, in this video, we will look at
five ethnical and biblical stances on this, but before we
do that, I want to highlight something that there is
a compensation that's involved, and some people do it for
the sake of money, others do it to help other couples.
And payment may vary by country and whether surrogacy is
commercial or there's another version of it. But in the
US surrogates can get paid from thirty thousand to fifty
thousand dollars plus expenses. Some countries only allow aturistic surrogacy,
where expenses are reimbursed but there is no additional fee.
Here are five Christian ethical concerns biblical concerns concerning a
Christian woman becoming a surrogate mother. Number one is God's design.
Procreation belongs inside heterosexual monogamous marriage. From a creation point,
God sets this norm, and it's clear he designed children
to be conceived and raised in a covenant un union
of husband and wife, and God's command from the beginning
was be fruitful and multiplied. The creation story from Genesis
one to two sets this pattern male female marriage and family. Now,
God does appear to have allowed exceptions in the fallen world,
like divorce was permitted by Moses, but Jesus still said
it was not God's original plan. Even polygamy existed or
was allowed in certain ways, though the reasons aren't fully
clear in the Bible. What we have to understand is
that just because something happened historically does not mean it's
justifiable today. A lot of what we see in the
Old Testament after Genesis one and two account is a description.
It's not a prescription as what God would want to see. Now,
some might argue and say, well, surrogacy was actually in
the Bible. Surrogacy like arrangements were used by patriarchs. Example,
Abraham in Genesis chapter sixteen, and he had a relationship
with Hagar, but it was disastrous Jacob in Genesis thirty
with Bila and Zeppla, but it also created a lot
of disastrous results. Now, some may argue, well, that's not
surrogacy because it involved sex with servants or concubines, and
they are right. It's not identical to modern IVF surrogacy.
These women were part of the ancient household structure, and
because Hagar belonged to Sarahi, according to the worldview of
that day, it was seen differently than adultery outside of
the household. And so what makes this even more sobering
this account of surrogacy is that these people weren't paid,
it was most likely not consensual, and it involved servants
who had very little or no choice. So these examples
do not give modern Christians a green light. If anything,
they actually warn us how messy and how painful surrogate
type arrangements become. The second thing is creation. Does carry
massive weight in Christian ethics. So not only dorees a
creation story in Genesis, and we see the mess that
surrogacy arrangement type created and families. All you gotta do
is just read Abraham's and then Jacob's accounts. But we
also see throughout the New Testament that creation is not
a minor detail in the scripture. It's one of the
main foundations for Christian moral reasoning. For example, Jesus appears
to creation to define God's original intent for marriage. Paul
argues against homosexuality by appearing to God's creation design. In
the Romans Chapter one, in light of Genesis one and two,
Paul addresses women's roles to explicit a to Genesis one.
Paul also describes elder qualifications with one wife language, again
driving point back to Genesis one. What does this mean
Genesis one and two. It's not just history, it is
God's blueprint. Therefore it carries weight in how we view
what is allowed and what is not allowed. Number three,
The womb is not a neutral rental space. This is
where the modern surrogacy tries to normalize something Christians should
not treat as neutral. The womb is not just a
container that provides nutrients and shelter. Pregnancy is deeply formative physically, emotionally,
and psychologically for both the mother and the child. So
with the traditional surrogacy, the surrogate is legally recognized as
the mother because she has both the aspects of the motherhood,
generic and gestational. Now, with the gestational surrogacy, where the
embryo is implanted, the surrogate is often treated legally as
a prenatal babysitter, a human incubator with no rights to
the child. But biblically and humanly, pregnancy is not detached,
just like that a womb is not like a room
you rent from somebody in the house. You bring your
furniture and you get out. What we must understand is
that fatal cells can cross from the placenta into the
mother's bloodstream and remain in her body for years, meaning
the mother can carry the cells from the child with
the child's DNA long after the pregnancy. Also, mother's cells
can cross into the baby and integrate into the child's
tissues and potentially influencing child's development. So a surrogate experience
is carrying the child, bonding with the child, and it's
forming a relationship, even if she tries to not create
that bond. So to treat pregnancy as a service you
provide is to treat something sacred like it's merely mechanical
or transactional, which is even biology tells us it is
not so. Number four, Surrogacy turns children into commodities. This
is one of the most painful parts, but it's also real.
When the large sum of money at exchange, the child
will start to look like a product, something that's bought,
something that's transferred, and something that's delivered, rather than a
gift from God. The Bible is very clear that every
child is made in the image of God. Every child
has a dignity and worth, and life is sacred, not transactional.
Commercial surrogacy reduces this sacred reality that we are made
in the image of God to a contract objectifying the
child and often the woman that's carrying the child. And
the last thing we must consider is surrogacy is the
key path to parenthood for same sex couples. Homosexual couples
consider surrogacy after other fertility treatments, or pregnancy is medically unsafe.
For the same sex couples, especially male couples, surrogacy is
not just an option, it's the only path Christians. The
Bible is very clear why homosexual relationships go against God's
order and God's created plan. I have a whole video
on what is the Bible teaching homosexuality and you can
check that out later. So practically, surrogacy becomes part of
a system that separates conception from marriage and in many
cases separates children from their biological mother by design. So
how do we respond? So we can and we should
and acknowledge the sorrow of infertility. It's a real grief
longing and for a lot of people it's real tears.
But sorrow does not automatically justify every single option. As
someone with my wife who couldn't have children for over
thirteen years, I do know how that feels. But I
like what theologian Wayne Grudem puts it, and he puts
it sharply, and I think it's worth hearing it. He
recognizes the sorrow of childlessness, but he also says that
sorrow is no reason to overstep the moral boundaries that
God has sat in his word concerning the conception and
bearing of children. So can a Christian woman become a
surrogate mother. I don't believe that a Christian woman should
become a surrogate mother, especially in these commercial arrangements, and
the reason is very simple. Surrogacy asks a woman to
use her womb in the way God did not design
it to be used. It fractures motherhood. It treats pregnancy
like a service, the woman like a space to hire,
and too often the child like a outcome of a contract.
God designed things and they're not in random from creation.
Children are meant to come into safety of a covenant
family marriage, a husband and wife who unite, conceive, carry
and raise child as one family. Surrogacy breaks the unity.
It separates conception from marriage, It separates pregnancy from parenthood,
and it places a sacred human life inside of financial
and legal transaction. It normalizes a system where children can
be intentionally separated from the woman who carry them. And
while the Bible does record surrogate like situations like Hagar,
it does not present them as ideal to copy. And
it shows the pain that comes from when people try
to produce God's promises through human shortcuts. Yes, infertility is real,
suffering is real, but suffering is not a license to
step out of God's moral boundaries. So my answer is no,
not because I lack compassion, but because I believe God's
design is worth protecting, and because children are not commodities,
they are image bearers of God. Let me know your
thoughts in the comments below. Thank you for watching this video.
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