Do Ovaries Define Motherhood?

Stephanie Yarber wanted to be a mother, yet she experienced the tragedy of premature ovarian failure in her teens.  Her bones began to grow brittle and she had to face other problems associated with a post-menopausal woman even before graduating from high school.  Even so, a news account of her story relates that as a newlywed she increasingly longed to feel a child growing and moving in her body and to experience labor, delivery and breast-feeding.

Stephanie became the first woman in the United States to receive a transplanted ovary, which restored her normal menstrual cycle.  Through natural relations with her husband, she became pregnant a few months later and eventually gave birth to a healthy baby girl.  Looking at her five-month-old daughter, Stephanie said, "I cannot imagine life without her.  I just look at her and think, she's mine, she's not anyone else's.  She's mine."  Yarber's mother, Vivian Fuller, always told her daughter not to give up hope, "We trust in God," Fuller says.  "My father is a preacher.  We've always believed, one way or the other, it would work out."

Her doctor has subsequently performed eight more ovary transplants.  Dr. Danny Schust, associate professor at Missouri Universities School of Medicine, thinks ovary transplants could become common within ten years.  For this reason, Christians need to begin to think carefully and biblically about this procedure.  Does giving birth using an egg from another woman's ovary constitute motherhood as God designed it from the beginning?  How should a pastor counsel a married couple in his congregation who might be contemplating such a procedure? 

While we don't claim to have the answer to every question, CBMW exists to help believers think biblically about critical gender questions that reach to the heart of mothering and womanhood.  A blog post is insufficient to thoroughly address such a personal, painful and even holy topic, so at best this will provide a few things to consider while asking even more questions.

From the beginning God has uniquely designed women with the awe-inspiring ability to bear children.  Consistent with the creation mandate to be fruitful and multiply, God has also given women an innate desire to be a mother.  Though sin has introduced pain into childbirth and futility into motherhood, this desire to help bring new life into the world is fundamentally noble and good.

Yet throughout history some women have suffered the gnawing anguish of infertility.  In some cases, surgical intervention to correct a fallopian tube blockage or endometriosis can be God's grace through medical technology to allow a woman to conceive children.  Even so, it is not morally acceptable to pursue every fertility technology to fulfill the longing for motherhood.  For example, the technique of In-Vitro Fertilization often destroys some living embryos in the process of implanting others.  Sadly, it would be an idolatrous form of motherhood to knowingly risk the death of one child in order to carry another to term. 

So even though bringing a new baby into the world is a blessed event, not every means of conception using today's technology is pleasing to God.  In this light, how should we view ovarian transplants?

On one hand, this would not be Stephanie's genetic child, since the egg came from another woman (even though in this case the ovary came from her identical twin sister).  However biblical motherhood extends far beyond simple genetics, as any adopting family will joyfully explain.  Adoption provides a beautiful glimpse of the gospel and our own adoption into the family of God.  An adopting mother is a "real" mother of her own child.  The process of carrying and delivering a baby only adds emphasis to this point.  Is it different to receive a living, orphaned child into a home than to receive living eggs in an ovary into a woman's very body?

From the donor's perspective, this represents incredible love and stunning generosity for a woman to give away a part of herself to impart the ability to bear children to another woman.  On the other hand, there is a sense in which a donor would also be abdicating an essential part of motherhood and giving it to another woman.  Being a mother involves more than breeding offspring, but also raising up children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4).  God is not seeking an overflowing planet, but generations of people who will worship Him in spirit and truth (John 4:24).  For this reason, believing men should never become sperm donors - they would be responsible for potentially bringing many babies into the world and yet be unable to influence and train these children spiritually. 

Further questions abound in light of this new medical procedure:  How should we think biblically about a posthumous ovary transplant, like the hearts, kidneys and other organs that are donated after death to save lives?  Could these "orphaned" eggs be given a chance to live in a way that never before existed medically?  What about a family that was satisfied with the number of children God had given?  How long will it take for entrepreneurs to set a market price for such a priceless donation?

These are only some of the new questions about manhood and womanhood that are continually being presented to Christians, and which should lead us to look once again at the timeless truths of God's Word.