Equipping articles aim to equip ministry leaders to advance the way of Christ in all of culture by 1) clarifying a particular cultural issue, 2) identifying the challenge it presents to Christians and the Church, and 3) offering a way forward for Christians and ministry leaders. These are typically short-form and not comprehensive in nature.
This article is a part of our theme, The Way of Christ in Life.
The technology does not currently exist to freeze a fully developed person and bring him or her back to life. However, speculative fiction has for generations served as an inspiration for innovation—suggesting, for example, the possibility of freezing human bodies in time while they travel light-years into deep space over decades. Some people have already had their legally dead bodies frozen in hopes of a later resuscitation, anticipating a technological advance.
What if one day, technology makes it possible for parents of multiples (twins, triplets, and so on) to ease their burden and stress by opting to freeze one or two of the children and wake them up at a more opportune time, “restarting” their aging a few years behind their sibling or siblings?
After all, there is a statistical correlation between child maltreatment and the presence of multiples in a home. Innocent children are harmed or neglected, sometimes simply because a well-intentioned parent is exhausted and overwhelmed. Multiple births are also correlated with higher rates of mental illness among both mothers and fathers. If newborn-freezing technology could make it possible to stagger child rearing, supporting better mental health for parents and reduced risk of child maltreatment, would that not be a virtuous option?
Yet even if the technology was available and basically safe, most of us instinctively react negatively to the idea of freezing a baby to make parenting easier. Why?
First, freezing a baby would necessarily be done without the consent of the patient—the baby. There are deep legal and ethical questions about children’s rights and autonomy, but generally, parents are allowed to consent to medical care on behalf of an infant as they pursue the child’s best interests. Yet it is hard to guess what the social and emotional consequences might be of having been born 15 years ago yet just learning to walk in the body of a toddler. And imagine the complicated conversations that might ensue between a 16-year-old and his parents when they tell him his 21-year-old brother was originally his identical twin.
Second, even reasonably safe procedures have risks. There is no way to guarantee that a power loss, equipment malfunction, human error, or malicious act would not lead to the death of the frozen child. A risky but necessary heart surgery is one thing; voluntarily freezing a child for the convenience of a parent is another.
These arguments are probably enough to explain our negative gut reaction to the “freezing a newborn” thought experiment. But they rely on our culture’s subjective moral sense and an estimate of the technological risk, which change over time. As Christians, we need to dig deeper to understand why freezing a newborn is objectively wrong.
If we believe life begins at conception wherever that occurs, Christians must think about IVF more carefully, especially the common practice of freezing embryos.
Christians should reject freezing newborns because it undermines the children’s dignity as people made in God’s image. The early church affirmed the value of all humans when they rejected abortion and infanticide. And Scripture makes the legal rights of unborn children plain.
For example, the law includes a God-prescribed penalty for striking a pregnant woman so that her child is harmed. The penalty for the death of a preborn child was identical to that for an adult, up to and including “life for life” (Ex. 21:22–25). As the saying goes, a person’s a person, no matter how small.
Even in its developing state before birth, human life deserves protection from unnecessary risk of harm, in the same way that we would protect any other human. Therefore, freezing a newborn is morally out of bounds in nearly all imaginable cases.
If we should not freeze a newborn, why would it be morally acceptable to freeze an embryo?
The hypothetical scenario of freezing a newborn is not particularly far-fetched when compared to the standard practices of IVF. Typically, multiple eggs are harvested and fertilized. The embryos are then examined to see which are most likely to survive and be free from genetic defects. In most cases, only a certain number of the best embryos are implanted in the mother’s womb. In the best of cases, the remaining viable embryos are frozen and stored.
In the decade from 2004 to 2013, just under 2 million embryos were frozen. Often, parents plan to return to the lab in a few years to bring some of those children into their family, though one study shows the survival of embryos frozen for more than five years decreases significantly. Realistically, the sheer number of frozen embryos in the United States means no attempt will be made to implant most of these humans, and they will end up dead before they take their first breath.
Apart from the freezing process, children conceived through IVF are subjected to greater risks than children conceived naturally. Comparative data is limited, but the risk of spontaneous abortion could be higher for IVF pregnancies in comparison to natural conception. This means the IVF process itself likely increases the risk of embryo/fetal death. Furthermore, long-term studies show that babies born from IVF, even from single pregnancies, have measurably higher rates of complications like low birth weight and cardiovascular disease, though the cause of these problems is not clear. IVF itself poses a much higher risk to children than conception through natural marital relations.
Fortunately for these little humans, IVF technologies are improving. These improvements, however, are often the result of what amounts to a real-time experiment on living humans.
Parenting is hard but rewarding. It is no surprise that many couples deeply desire to have children. Children are a gift from God (Ps. 127:3). And infertility, whatever its cause, can be heartbreaking.
It is understandable that prospective parents consider every natural and artificial means to bear children. Yet a noble desire does not justify questionable methods to attain a worthy goal. As the Heidelberg Catechism says, good works are “only those which are done out of true faith, in accordance with the law of God, and to his glory, and not those based on our own opinion or on precepts of men.”
To be consistent as Christians, we should protect the life and health of a child no matter how or where she was conceived. Just as a child conceived from adultery should be treated well through all of life, so should a child conceived outside a mother’s body.
If we believe life begins at conception wherever that occurs, Christians must think about IVF more carefully, especially the common practice of freezing embryos. We instinctively recognize we should not freeze a newborn—we certainly should not freeze our unborn children either.
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The Christian Ethics track provides specialized academic training that prepares men and women to impact the culture for Christ through prophetic moral witness and service in a variety of settings.
Photo retrieved from Unsplash.
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