Unka Glen

doctor-remus-giles asked: I have a genetic disorder. I do not have a severe case of it, however, I do have a 50% chance of passing this condition on to my future child. My child may be deformed or have tumors. Now I know I can adopt (and have felt called to do so), but I also do want to have a biological kid. The question is, are there Christian reasons against doing testing of fertilized eggs to test if the mutation would be present? I almost feel, and have been told that by doing that it is proof that I don’t trust God. That I should rather go forth “the natural way”, and just trust everything will be OK, I sort of believe that too. But I am just scared. I don’t want to pass this on, I don’t want to watch my future child suffer, or deal with the depression that I had before I got over it, and learned to joke about it. Is it about trusting in God that things will work naturally, or using science? Thanks! [edited for length]

Unka Glen answered: This is not a choice between science and faith, like most situations where we get stuck, it’s because we’ve framed the internal debate incorrectly. Sure you can always say that you should have faith, but on the other hand, if we think that going on faith means going “the natural way” as you put it, then that would mean never dealing with modern medicine at all. Heck, by that thinking, why do anything? If you really had faith, you’d just sit there and everything would just happen to you.

All this becomes pretty absurd pretty quick. Burn it on your brain: faith and wisdom always balance each other. If you lack wisdom, you have no idea where God wants you to go, or what He wants you to do when you get there. In that situation, you can’t just load up on faith and strike out in any foolish direction, and expect that God approves of your little plan. First you discern what God wants you to do, THEN you have faith that things will work out. We don’t have faith in our own plans.

But this isn’t about all that. Science can help you deal with what will come, and we believe by faith that God will be there to strengthen and guide us no matter what. This is about whether or not you’ll put your wants above the needs of your future children. You want to have natural children, you know this could lead to their potential suffering, but you want it anyway. This is understandable, but to act on that desire, knowing nothing more than what we do now, would be to put your desires first.

Sure, the Lord could come along and tell you that He wants you to feel fine about having your own biological kids, and at that point, you’d be acting in faith, and of course you’d still want to do whatever normal testing would be part of the prudent healthcare of that child. Who knows, that child may still be born with special needs that has nothing to do with your condition, and the sooner you know about that, the sooner you can start praying and planning for that.

But we already know the answer to all these things, because you’ve already felt led to adopt. By helping you overcome elements of your condition, God may have given you a special understanding of how to help other kids with special needs, and perhaps that’s the kind of child He’d have you adopt. Either way, given the suffering and need in the world, it’s hard to see adoption as a “Plan B”. And I know you know what I’m talking about.

The thinking we want to avoid, is that having your own kids is a blessing, and having to adopt is a kind of curse, in that case, you wouldn’t be ready to adopt either. The blessing is knowing what God wants for your future, and knowing that His plans are always for the best. The curse lies in trying to do the wrong thing the right way.