Five Embryos to Be Destroyed After Sperm Donor “Withdraws His Consent”

Consider a recent news story out of the UK. The BBC headline reads, “We spent £23,000 on fertility treatment - now our embryos will be destroyed.”

The article tells the story of a lesbian couple who, obviously unable to have children on their own, turned to fertility treatments and a sperm donor. After some difficulty, they created six embryos, one of whom was implanted in one of the women’s wombs and was born last year. The other five embryos were frozen until “the couple were ready to grow their family.”

But those babies will not get an opportunity for life on earth because all five embryos will soon be destroyed. That means five human beings will be deliberately killed. The article says that the father, the sperm donor, “has withdrawn his consent for further use.” Apparently,

In the UK, a sperm or egg donor can withdraw consent up until the embryo is transferred into the womb.

The article then shares the story of another lesbian couple that experienced the same thing: “[They] were told last month that their sperm donor had withdrawn consent and their 10 remaining embryos will be destroyed next year.” Ten more human beings sentenced to death.

It’s a very chilling article—15 unborn lives, made in the image of God, will be lost if these embryos are discarded. Now, before we go on, it’s worth noting that the men who changed their minds are the ones who have decided all of the embryos will die next year. But it’s very unlikely that either lesbian couple planned on implanting all of those embryos; in all likelihood, one or two more might have been implanted, the others would have remained frozen indefinitely or been discarded eventually.

Indeed, even if the women wanted to carry all of the babies they helped create, the women are in their late 30s and early 40s; there realistically isn’t time for them to carry that many babies before their reproductive years are over, unless they had children very close together and with some twins or triplets (and that’s a very unlikely scenario). So regardless of what the sperm donors decided to do with their consent, it’s highly unlikely all of these babies would have even received a chance at continuing their lives. That’s important to keep in mind.

The article focuses on the devastating impact this news has had on the women:

“This is probably our only shot at being parents. I don’t know how we could afford to go through it again financially, emotionally, physically.”

For both couples, fertility treatment has had an emotional and financial impact.

. . .

The [UK fertility regulator] has said it is important that clinics warn patients of the possibility of donors withdrawing consent “because it is really upsetting and distressing when this happens”.

The UK government said it also sympathises with “anyone facing difficult and distressing circumstances during fertility treatment.”

Notice what is absent throughout the article, as evidenced by the quotes I shared above: any sympathy for the fate of the embryos (children).

Yes, the women involved are probably quite devastated—they say as much. Yes, the women lost a good deal of money, and they had sacrificed to be able to afford the expensive procedures. Yes, such procedures are physically quite difficult. But the babies will pay the ultimate price: They will lose their lives.

But that’s not addressed in the article. Instead, it keeps the focus on the adults, not on the children. And that’s because our culture values adult desires far more than the rights of children.

Consider how many times the rights of these children were violated in this story:

• The children were donor conceived, meaning they are missing half of the genetic story of who they are.
• These children were intentionally created fatherless for lesbian parents; they were purposefully created to be deprived of a father.
• These children were treated as commodities, created to be implanted or not at the whim of the women or, apparently, the sperm donor.
• These children were created only to later be destroyed.

This tragic story is the natural consequence of the increasing commodification of children and putting adult desire over the rights of children.

This tragic story is the natural consequence of the increasing commodification of children and putting adult desire over the rights of children. We see it with abortion, where a woman’s supposed “right to choose” trumps the right to life of her unborn child. We see it with traditional IVF and other reproductive technologies (which are very hard to do in a pro-life way), where babies are routinely discarded because they don’t “make the grade,” they have a genetic abnormality, they are the “wrong” sex, or the family is simply done having children. And we see it with the creation of LGBTQ families, where children are created to be purposefully deprived of either their mother or their father.

God created the family. He defines it. And He created marriage to be one man and one woman for life—providing a father and a mother for children. Now, we live in a fallen world, and sometimes because of death, abandonment, abuse, etc., this is not possible. And those situations are tragic (and sometimes the Lord redeems such broken situations through the beauty of adoption), but they are not the same thing as purposefully creating brokenness from the beginning as we see in stories like this one from the BBC.

We must return to God’s design for the family unit—and that means we have to start with Genesis:

And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.” (Genesis 1:27–28)

Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother, and cleave to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. (Genesis 2:24)

As Christians, we need to be the ones who will speak up for the voiceless and defend the God-given rights of children.

Give justice to the weak and the fatherless;
maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute. (Psalm 82:3 ESV)

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,
Ken

This item was written with the assistance of AiG’s research team.