Snowflake Adoption
Embryo adoption is a wonderful opportunity to give an unborn child life. Because this process relies on medical technology, some may question its morality. Dr. Russell D. Moore gives biblical insight into this issue:
Is Embryo Adoption Immoral?
— Monday, February 22nd, 2010 —
I received an email from a man who was upset about a couple in his extended family who are pursuing a so-called “snowflake adoption,” the adoption of a “frozen embryo” (to use, for clarity’s purpose only, the satanically clinical lingo of the current era). This couple had been led to do this after reading Adopted for Life, so he wanted to correspond.
How, he wondered, could I support this kind of adoption when I am opposed (and I am, strongly) to in vitro fertilization (IVF), donor assisted reproduction, and other technologies that violate the one-flesh union and the relationship between love and procreation.The same thing, he argued, is going on here with a donor embryo being implanted in an adopting mother’s womb.
First of all, there is no such thing as a “donor embryo.”
Someone can donate sperm or ovum or even a heart or a liver, but no one can “donate” an “embryo.” No one can “own” an “embryo.” An “embryo” isn’t a thing; he or she is a “who.” Our Lord Jesus is the pinnacle of the image of God (Heb. 1:1-3). He was an “embryo” (Luke 1:42-43). The “embryonic” John responded to our Lord’s “embryonic” presence in precisely the same way he responded to his adult presence on the banks of the Jordan River.
These so-called “snowflakes” are brothers and sisters of the Lord Jesus are stored in cryogenic containers in fertility clinics as the “extras” of IVF projects. They already exist, and they already exist as persons created in the image of God.
And there are Christians called to adopt them, to bring them to birth through pregnancy, and to raise them in love. To be sure, the numbers of children who can be adopted in this way are a microscopic percentage of the whole. And the numbers even of those who can be safely brought to birth is even smaller.
Isn’t this simply an embrace of the kind of “Brave New World” Frankenstein technology we elsewhere lament?
No.
Adopting parents are not complicit in the “production” (I shudder to type such a horrible word in reference to a human creature) of these children. Again, the children are already conceived. The adopting parents are no more endorsing the technologies involved than parents adopting from an unwed mother are endorsing fornication or adultery.
Embryo adoption also doesn’t carry with it the violence to the one-flesh union that comes with surrogacy or sperm donation, in which one spouse’s genetic marterial is joined with a stranger’s.
Embryo adoption would be problematic if the adoptions themselves became a further commodity in the buying and selling transactions of the reproductive technology business or if these adoptions were a widespread incentive for couples to justify the decision to “create” and freeze additional embryos. This is not, though, presently the case and doesn’t appear to be likely to become so anytime soon.
Adoption Mirrors Divine Adoption
On January 24th, one of the pastors at my church preached a sermon titled Adoption Mirrors Divine Adoption for the launch of our new orphan care ministry, Rosalynn’s Hope. I highly recommend it.
Listen here
Tax Credit Updated
For the year 2010, the maximum adoption tax credit will be $12,170. The IRS updated this figure as part of their annual update for several inflation-indexed figures as released in Revenue Procedure 2009-50.
The adoption credit is scheduled to sunset at the end of the year 2010, and revert back to its pre-2001 dollar limit of $5,000, or $6,000 if a special needs child is adopted.
We will keep you posted on what actions can be taken to see that the tax credit does not sunset.
Hard Things in Adoption
One of the saddest gaps I have seen in adoption in recent years is the lack of support for younger couples who have adopted sibling groups and find their families in serious crisis six months to a year later. Paperwork completed, bills paid, and travel behind them, all of a sudden these parents wake up and realize that things are not working out in the way that they had dreamed them and in fact their lives have become a never ending nightmare.
It might seem extreme for an adoption advocate to even write this post. But the truth is that of all the families I know who have recently adopted older sibling groups, there are very few who have not hit this point and keenly felt the lack of support. Many of these families have learned that human love doesn’t heal all things, faith cant necessarily change a dangerous child’s behavior and there might not be a therapy or medical intervention to restore their lives back to the calm and peaceful place they once were. Often times these families are at a pain filled crossroads in their parenting journey before we in the larger community even realize that there is a problem. Then we end up helping them run damage control in out of control situations and wonder exactly what happened to lead them where they are.
I field calls and emails from moms almost every week in this situation. It’s a painful trend that we in the adoption community need to pay attention to so that we can learn, love and support those of us who are walking down this dark and pain filled road. I don’t have the answers to why it happens, but I am committed to getting into, being real and going deep with those who live there because they should never have to walk alone.
HT: Spirit of Adoption (she also provides a list of ways to practically support those that are going through this)
Pray for the Children of Foster Care
The Hope for Orphans blog has been running a series titled, The Children of Foster Care: A Call to Prayer. Take a look -
Take My Child
There is a heartbreaking article in the Miami Herald about the common request that Americans are being asked by Haitian parents right now: to take their children to America.
“Herald reporter Kathleen McGrory walks into a sprawling, filthy, stinking survivor camp this past week, not far from the Port-au-Prince airport. In a place where hope has been reduced to a desiccated memory, the sight of a American woman provokes unfathomable requests.
“Take my child away. Take my child to America.” Not the words of one or two parents. Kat’s besieged by a tragic chorus. At first, about 10. “Then I was swamped. Suddenly, there were 40 or 50 people.”
They said: “You’d like my baby.”
“My girl would make a great daughter. She is very obedient.”
Across town. Same day. Another camp. Another place choking on its own filth, where the smell crawls across your flesh and into your hair like a rodent. Kat enters in pursuit of a story about parents begging orphanages to take their children. Instead, she encounters more parents begging her to take their child away from Haiti. “My little boy doesn’t get in trouble,” a father tells Kat. “He works hard.”
Adoption Together with the Black Church
Anthony Bradley has written an article addressing the fact that African-American children are far less likely to be adopted than non-African-American kids. He writes:
“Increasing the number of black adoptive parents will require more education, cooperation, and partnerships among the roughly 46,000 black congregations in America. Evangelicals are growing in their awareness of the implications of James 1:27 and are leading Christians nationally in is this area in many ways. The next big step is to include more church leaders from minority communities in the Christian adoption movement.”
I recommend reading the entire article here.
Haiti Orphan Relief Team
The Haiti Orphan Relief Team (HORT) is an amazing collaboration of disaster response experts and U.S. based orphan care and advocacy organizations. The goal of HORT is to identify, train and resource Haitian churches to be the direct rescue and care mechanism for Haiti’s hundreds of thousands of orphans. This is truly the most effective and scalable response to a need of such great complexity and magnitude.
The primary goal is to better enable Haitian churches to reunite or keep children within extended family structures. For children that have no other options, HORT will help Haitian churches to provide direct care in home environments, not institutional orphanages.
U.S. churches are also part of the solution and are being recruited by HORT to come alongside these Haitian churches in church-to-church partnerships to initiate, strengthen and grow their outreach to orphans in their immediate communities. These partnerships will also work towards the self-sustainability of the orphan rescue and care efforts in Haiti.
Partnering Organizations
- Christian Alliance for Orphans
- Together For Adoption
- Hope for Orphans, a ministry of FamilyLife
- World Orphans
- University of North Carolina School of Public Health
- Sweet Sleep
- Orphan Lifeline
- Loving Shepherd Ministries
Strong on Zeal, Thin on Knowledge
Christianity Today has an article on the Idaho Christian group arrested for taking orphans out of Haiti without authorization.
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