Womb for Hire - Is it Biblical?

Saturday, Aug. 15, 2009 Posted: 4:06:46PM HKT

In God's eyes, a woman is more than a womb for hire. In Singapore, the Ministry of Health forbids assisted reproduction clinics from carrying out surrogacy procedures. The doctors believe the authorities are hesitant to legalise surrogacy due to potentially explosive social, legal, moral and ethical issues… Career-minded or figure-conscious women might make use of surrogacy as a way to bypass getting pregnant themselves. Such a ban is driving childless couples to rent wombs overseas like in India, America and Russia. The Straits Times on 23rd May 2006 carried news about a mid-30’s Singaporean Chinese Christian couple that rented an Indian woman’s womb to bear their child and more recently the Straits Times on 13th June 2009 provided a full coverage of this in a Special Report on the “Cradle of the World”. The report carries the sub-heading “Wombs for rent”. Commercial surrogacy is big business in India. Critics, however, cry exploitation.

Human beings are made in God's image therefore we must use our creative genius with care. However "Baby-making," the science of the future, has become the science of the present. If we are not careful, reproductive technology may lead scientist and researchers in building their own glory and wanting nothing to do with the God who created them. God will not appreciate their medical genius and like the scenes in the Tower of Babel, God will foil their plans.

As a church it is not whether the surrogacy is legal but whether we ought to encourage or discourage our members from participating on Biblical principles. Pastorally we need to support those who choose, for conscience sake, not to pursue any form of intervention in the reproduction process. However, we do not suggest that this be the normative practice for all members of our church. From a biblical perspective, at present there are churches that condone some practices which are not part of a "natural" order of reproduction such as Gamete Intra-Fallopian Transfer (GIFT), in vitro fertilization (IVF) – even caesarean section and incubators (for premature births).

To provide a child for a childless couple is an awesome and worthy course. Does it justify the means we will use to accomplish it? If the end is a good one, how should we decide what means are proper to achieve that end? Recently, surrogacy has received much media attention. Surrogacy from the Latin word, surrogates which means substituted is an arrangement whereby a woman agrees to become pregnant for the purpose of gestating and giving birth to a child for others to raise. This method is generally used when the wife is infertile. A contract is signed by the couple and the surrogate stating that the couple will pay all necessary expenses and will take custody of the baby when it is born. There are at least two forms of surrogacy. The surrogate is artificially inseminated with the sperm of the commissioning father. The commissioning father is the legal father. The child must be relinquished by the surrogate and adopted by the commissioning mother. An alternate form of surrogacy is used when the wife is fertile but cannot carry a child to term. The wife's ovum is fertilized with the husband's sperm in vitro, and then the embryo is implanted in the womb of the surrogate. The embryo is the genetic product of the husband and wife; however the legal ramifications are still being sorted out.

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The Rev Tan Cheng Huat
CP Guest Columnist