Specifically if an unwed woman decided she wanted a kid without the hassle of dating/relationship /trying to get pregnant etc and just got a sperm doner with ivf? Surely it's not fornication? How could it be? The whole process is far removed from sex. And the person would have documents to prove where the baby came from too in case of a jc.
How would the Borg view IVF?
by purrpurr 5 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Addison0998
She would defenitly be disfellowshipped. And so would a married couple. A woman is not even allowed to donate her eggs and a man his sperm. It’s so ridiculous and it’s really nobody’s business, but look it up in the elders manual! -
silentbuddha
Disfellowshipped... that looney watchtower about it woke up my wife
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respectful_observer
Lots of JW couples have used IVF. It’s no issue if you use your own sperm and eggs.
The WT has an issue if you use donor eggs or sperm, then they make a logic jump to “fornication”. Now of course if a married JW couple used either a donor egg or sperm and kept quiet about it, hard to prove, and they’d probably never be challenged on it.
In your scenario, a single JW sister would certainly have action taken. Either disfellowshipping, or maybe some public reproof and a marking talk if she claims ignorance or something.
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under the radar
Everybody above is right. The Society takes the ridiculous position that a married couple can only use their own egg and sperm for IVF; it's adultery and/or fornication to use anyone else's. Even using a surrogate is forbidden. Talk about man-made arbitrary rules...
It's kinda like what they do about the blood issue. They blow some dubious "principle" all out of proportion to make a new "law" and enforce it like it came from the mouth of the big J-dog himself.
In the case of IVF, though, they completely ignore a clear principle that actually IS in their book of Jewish fairy tales. No ambiguity or uncertainty here. Not only is the principle behind modern-day IVF allowed, it was actually mandatory in some cases. There is at least one specific example where someone (Onan) was killed by sky daddy for NOT upholding that principle. He disrespected the brother-in-law marriage arrangement by using his widowed sister-in-law for his own gratification and then spilling his seed on the ground, defeating the whole purpose. See Genesis 38 or the Wikipedia article "Onan" for all the gory details.
Brother-in-law marriage, provided for and in fact required by the Mosaic Law, clearly demonstrates that the physical exchange of DNA does not constitute adultery. The "sin" is in the unfaithfulness and deception. That's why most everyone except religious zealots accept that donating one's eggs or sperm to help someone is not a sin at all, but instead is an unselfish act of the most personal kind. And that's without even considering that modern IVF in clinical in nature, while brother-in-law marriage involved actual intercourse, almost certainly repeatedly, until the desired results were achieved.
I believe the same thing applies to surrogacy, where a couple's fertilized fetus is implanted into another woman. The surrogate gives the couple the wonderfully unselfish gift of carrying their baby to term, all the while considering the baby to be theirs and not her own. How can that be wrong?
I have no use for religious leaders who use their influence and "authority" to run other people's lives. In the end, it's all about power, control, and money.
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respectful_observer
I find it comical that surrogacy and sperm donors are forbidden by the WT.
Why?
I dunno...maybe you should ask Joseph and Mary about that one. Big J seemed to be okay with Mary carrying and giving birth to a baby when Joseph wasn’t the biological father.