Is Artificial Insemination Adulterous?

It doesn't mix with your sex organs honey, it mixes with your eggs...which aren't organs

I can't say whether I would do AI with DS myself or not...I have never been faced with the decision. I wouldn't say it's wrong though...The bible is not clear on such matters, not only because AI didn't exist in the bible...probably because there's not a right or wrong answer. Very grey area!

GoldenKingGaze;
Would you (expect your wife to; ) have sex with your brother-in-law if your husband died, leaving you childless? You know, for procreation. Because the bible says you have to.

It seems the OP is a bit more fundamentalist than I am, but the question is legitimate. I guess I would focus more on the question of why if God has allowed it to be that you cannot have kids a woman sees the need to get this done. The steps of the righteous man are ordered of God. So, if your husband is sterile that seems like something to be born in a Christian spirit and perhaps looking to adopt is acceptable. The Bible is silent on it as far as I can tell, though the story of Abraham and the birth of Ishmael by Hagar suggests that it may be better to seek a miracle than a cure from human hands. Isaac, the child of promise was born just as God had spoken despite both Abraham and Sarah's attempt to have a child based upon their own wisdom (through the servant girl Hagar.)

I would like to compare this to another science based issue: extending human life. It is now to the point where it is against the law in some states to allow someone to die, even if they wish to. It certainly is viewed as unethical and sadly some think that if an elderly person says they want to be a no code it is akin to suicide. I have already told my wife that if I should come into a state at any time when I could not survie without massive outlays of money or a ventilator etc. I would prefer to simply go. I am not a foolish man I live with a healthy respect for danger and conduct myself with prudence. Having done all of that if God allows my demise I will accept it with the grace God lends me. What need other than my family would I in faith have for prolonging my life? If my family asked me to stay, if they could not understand or I otherwise thought it would be better I would accept the treatments. If I ever became a life support case, I would not wish my life to be extended.

Sending that back to the artificial insemenation, the question is how is the suffering of an empty womb greater than the very fact of death itself, but with Christ he promises to fill us to overflowing, washing away all the sadness sin has inflicted upon us. All we have to do is walk His path and put Him first. Does God want us using science to side step all of our challenges? What if science found a way to preserve the physical body indefinitely? Should we then consider God's curse to have been removed by our ingenuity? So it would seem that it would be wise to pray very earnestly about a decision like this to me. Afterall it is another man's sperm and it is a surgical procedure you are subjecting yourself to to try to fix the great pain of being childless. God could have spared Himself the burden of being separated form His only Son by never sending him to this earth. 'This slight momentary affliction is working for us...' Peter. When I consider the saints of old I know that we have not understood the sacrifices they made to preserve for us the Bible and the gospel message. I believe the Lord is about to grant us a great gift in that area though.

Hagnismos said:

It seems the OP is a bit more fundamentalist than I am, but the question is legitimate. I guess I would focus more on the question of why if God has allowed it to be that you cannot have kids a woman sees the need to get this done. The steps of the righteous man are ordered of God. So, if your husband is sterile that seems like something to be born in a Christian spirit and perhaps looking to adopt is acceptable. The Bible is silent on it most likely because the very notion was unheard of to the ancients. They probably would have felt like the OP that by whatever means you are using another man' sperm to create a pregnancy while the husband is still living. How convenient that science has found a way to make this possible. Without the science adoption would be the only option.

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I'm not so sure it was unheard-of by the ancients. God tells Abraham this time next year Sarah will have a son. He does a little transaction with Abimelech, and next year she had a son.

Crazy Liz said:

I'm not so sure it was unheard-of by the ancients. God tells Abraham this time next year Sarah will have a son. He does a little transaction with Abimelech, and next year she had a son.

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Verse?

Hagnismos said:

Verse?

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Genesis 18, 20, 21.

If the recitations in the ceremony recorded in Gen. 20 are a legal fiction, as they appear to be (as they sound formulaic and very similar to the similar transaction with Pharaoh in Genesis 12) a legal fiction is something no one is allowed to deny the truth of. So we don't need to go down the road of asking who was Isaac's father. The recitals answer that question, whether factually or by way of a legal fiction. However, since Abraham does it twice and Isaac tries to do it, also, I wouldn't say it never occurred to the ancients. The patriarchs had ways of dealing with female infertility, and apparently had ways of dealing with male infertility, also.

Crazy Liz said:

Genesis 18, 20, 21.

If the recitations in the ceremony recorded in Gen. 20 are a legal fiction, as they appear to be (as they sound formulaic and very similar to the similar transaction with Pharaoh in Genesis 12) a legal fiction is something no one is allowed to deny the truth of. So we don't need to go down the road of asking who was Isaac's father. The recitals answer that question, whether factually or by way of a legal fiction. However, since Abraham does it twice and Isaac tries to do it, also, I wouldn't say it never occurred to the ancients. The patriarchs had ways of dealing with female infertility, and apparently had ways of dealing with male infertility, also.

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Isaac is the child of promise and the Bible makes clear he is Abraham's son. The issue was Sarah's womb not Abrahams loins. Your interpetation of those passages seems pretty carnal and is definitely outside the traditions of over 3000 years of religous history.

Hagnismos said:

Isaac is the child of promise and the Bible makes clear he is Abraham's son. The issue was Sarah's womb not Abrahams loins. Your interpetation of those passages seems pretty carnal and is definitely outside the traditions of over 3000 years of religous history.

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Actually, there is a rabbinic tradition more than 2000 years old that Isaac was born by divine intervention without any help from Abraham. It is mentioned in the Book of Jubilees. This isn't the only tradition, but tradition is not unanimous. There is a very old tradition that Isaac was Abraham's son in the same way Jesus was Joseph's son.

Crazy Liz said:

Actually, there is a rabbinic tradition more than 2000 years old that Isaac was born by divine intervention without any help from Abraham. It is mentioned in the Book of Jubilees. This isn't the only tradition, but tradition is not unanimous. There is a very old tradition that Isaac was Abraham's son in the same way Jesus was Joseph's son.

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And in what way to you mean that? So Isaac was immaculately concieved, or Jesus was also concieved as you first suggested Isaac had been? Did you know that all forms of lizards ahve the ability to conceive immaculately? that is just a physical example, but certainly the God of Heaven can cause a virgin to be with child? Sarah's womb was closed. Unless you think that is code for 'Abraham was sterile.' The scripture reads pretty plainly. God opened her womb as He told them both he would when he visited with the two angels prior to punishing Sodom and Gomorrah for it's perversions.

Hagnismos said:

And in what way to you mean that? So Isaac was immaculately concieved, or Jesus was also concieved as you first suggested Isaac had been? Did you know that all forms of lizards ahve the ability to conceive immaculately? that is just a physical example, but certainly the God of Heaven can cause a virgin to be with child? Sarah's womb was closed. Unless you think that is code for 'Abraham was sterile.' The scripture reads pretty plainly. God opened her womb as He told them both he would when he visited with the two angels prior to punishing Sodom and Gomorrah for it's perversions.

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Philo and the author of Jubilees seem to think that. All I'm saying is the traditions vary, and the transactions with Pharaoh and Abimelech sound like something different than what they purport to be. Make your own judgment.

Between these traditions and the levirate tradition, I would hesitate to say the ancients never thought of the idea.

Crazy Liz said:

Philo and the author of Jubilees seem to think that. All I'm saying is the traditions vary, and the transactions with Pharaoh and Abimelech sound like something different than what they purport to be. Make your own judgment.

Between these traditions and the levirate tradition, I would hesitate to say the ancients never thought of the idea.

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I concede your point about what the ancients thought of it. The romans used to leave unwanted babies on the roadside (hopefully at least a busy roadside.) So yes I will go back and remove that little unfactoid.

Thanks

And again I ask, if your child were born with a brain tumor, or a heart defect, would you simply accept it, b/c according to your rules, you should.

After all, if God wanted him/her to be 'healthy', He'd have made them that way. So don't go rush out for surgery or chemo or medicine or other ways to cure/fix your child, just accept it as His will that they be that way.

Infertility is a MEDICAL PROBLEM, not a judgement from God. It's a part of your body that is malfunctioning, or deformed, same as a cleft palate, heart problem, hernia, ect.

If you choose not to do AI, or AI/DS, that's your choice and I'll support you all the way. But don't single out infertility as God's will, and not cancer, ect.

Sorry for the snark, it's been a long day.

TC2 said:

And again I ask, if your child were born with a brain tumor, or a heart defect, would you simply accept it, b/c according to your rules, you should.

After all, if God wanted him/her to be 'healthy', He'd have made them that way. So don't go rush out for surgery or chemo or medicine or other ways to cure/fix your child, just accept it as His will that they be that way.

Infertility is a MEDICAL PROBLEM, not a judgement from God. It's a part of your body that is malfunctioning, or deformed, same as a cleft palate, heart problem, hernia, ect.

If you choose not to do AI, or AI/DS, that's your choice and I'll support you all the way. But don't single out infertility as God's will, and not cancer, ect.

Sorry for the snark, it's been a long day.

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Everything doesn't happen the way God wants it, God just uses the sinful worthlessness we do and cause to happen and makes it the best it can be.

Hagnismos said:

It seems the OP is a bit more fundamentalist than I am, but the question is legitimate. I guess I would focus more on the question of why if God has allowed it to be that you cannot have kids a woman sees the need to get this done.

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You are making the assumption that that they can not have a child because that is how God wanted it. That is not a view I consider to be supported by scripture. There are consequences for sin. If sin had never entered this world there would be no death or decay. So it can easily be argued that being sterile is a result of decay and therefore not a result of how God wants things. Also in the NT we see examples of God not intervening like he did in the OT. To not accept that would mean that God is way worse than we understand. It would mean God was the one trying to wipe out the Jews in world war 2. Is that a path you really want to go down?

As far as the bible being silent on the issue remember that if a husband died without having an heir then his brother was obligated to provide an heir for him.

Just out of curiosity are the laws in the states saying you must accept treatment against your will? Here in Oz you can refuse treatment or stop treatment which is ok but nobody is allowed to assist you to die. People often get confused between the two.

GoldenKingGaze said:

Why do people feel uncomfortable about stepping out in faith? Even if it discomforts, just hugging Christian values until it hurts a little, or is inconveniant, isn't just and faithful, Jesus requires, more.

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And why are you making assumptions about peoples motives. Are you God? Are you able to judge the hearts of men? No so how about stopping it. Don't tell me your not doing this either because this is not the first post you have made in this thread where it is blatently clear you are. You have no way of knowing that people aren't stepping out in faith. Yet you claim that if they have AI they are afraid to step out in faith. You are putting God in a box and saying you must work this way rather than saying God can work in different ways with the same end result.

GoldenKingGaze said:

Look at it from the unbiased position, if you care. If you are a man, wouldn't you long for healing, and your own flesh and blood and your loved wife's in you sons and daughters?

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And if you are a woman, and the husband suggests the answer to the problem is an egg donor?

Longing for a child, long for healing because you love your spouse? Or wait for better medicine?[/quote]
And maybe AI is in their view one way in which God provides his healing. I have a friend who has had a triple bypass and he considers it to be nothing less than a miracle of God that they could do that. So just because someone doesn't agree with your view there is no reason to start accusing them of being unfaithful to God and trying to thrust your opinion as being unbiased while everyone who disagrees with you is biased.

So how do we determine which to treat, and which to leave? Why not decide that cancer is, although maybe not God's will, something that He can/will use for good?

How do we know he will? How do we know that He doesn't want us to take treatment and live? Or maybe the good comes from the struggle with the treatment, even if the end is death?

How do we decide? Again, singling out IF makes no sense. Pray, pray, pray. It's really all you can do, and go from there.

Yes, we all need greater faith, I understand and agree with that. But if you're saying that if we only had greater faith, we would be healed.....uh-huh.
Last time I checked, it rarely worked that way, that way of thinking is just 'Christian crazy making'.
(not saying this is what you meant, but some do)

Egg donor? No problem from me. I'm all for it.

GoldenKingGaze said:

I mentioned before the article in Sydney's Child, the husband was reluctant...

I feel that way much more, others may too, probably men. Others posted here as well.

A miracle settles the issue, one Spirit, one Bible, and one true answer.

Putting God in a box moreso means limiting Him, in expectations of what He can do, it does not mean science, science is another box altogether.

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So are you now saying it is only a problem if the husband is reluctant? If not then there is no relevance to your comment here about that. If that is the real issue then it isn't an issue if the husband is not reluctant. If a husband is reluctant and fails to make it clear and/or fails to sort the issue out with his wife beforehand then the problem is his. I certainly have no problem with it as I see it as a medical procedure and I still maintain that if you are happy to seek medical treatment for cancer or a broken leg then you should have no problem seeking medical treatment like AI unless there is a moral or ethical objection. While you have made it clear that for you personally there is a moral objection nothing has been said in this thread to show that it is a belief that all should have which means it falls under the biblical principle of if you think something is a sin then it is indeed a sin for you. After all with cancer or a broken leg a miracle could take place for healing. So if the argument is we should have more faith in God and rely on him for healing then it should apply to all not just some areas of medicine.