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Despite Ontario’s and British Columbia’s efforts to redefine parenthood, the biblical design for the family is simple.  

In Genesis 1:27-28, “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.’” Thus in the very first chapter of Genesis, God’s good design is that children would be born to married parents: one mother and one father.  

But the fall into sin has broken, shattered, and complicated the structure of families and even the very roles of motherhood and fatherhood. Death, divorce, and abandonment deprive children of a present father or mother. Adoption and remarriage – although positive actions that try to alleviate the harms of sin – lead to children having more than two parents (e.g. two biological parents plus a step-dad). Parentage has become less straightforward after the Fall. 

The Disruption of Assisted Reproduction 

The growing practice of assisted reproduction only adds to the confusion. Assisted reproduction can occur in all sorts of ways: artificial insemination, in vitro fertilization, traditional and gestational surrogacy, and sperm donation by sexual intercourse. While assisted reproduction often uses the gametes – the sperm and the egg – from a husband and a wife to help them conceive a child, donated sperm, eggs, and embryos are common. The very nature of assisted reproduction introduces at least one more person into the wondrous process of begetting a child.  

There are two possible purposes for assisted reproduction. First, it can be used to overcome one effect of the fall: infertility. For example, consider a couple where a wife’s eggs were all destroyed because of chemotherapy that successfully treated cancer. The couple might use the husband’s sperm and another woman’s egg to create an embryo through in vitro fertilization. That embryo could be implanted into the wife’s womb, and she would give birth to the child.  

Second, assisted reproduction can be used to overcome our created limitations. Consider a same-sex couple. They, of course, have no chance of having a child themselves. While they both may have healthy sperm, they have no egg. A doctor could use the sperm of one of the men in a gay marriage to inseminate a third-party surrogate. That surrogate mother gestates the child, gives birth to the child, and surrenders the child to the gay couple. 

But assisted human reproduction raises all sorts of questions of who should count as the parents of a child. Is the genetic father (the man who donated the sperm) or the intended father (the man who wanted the child) the “real” father? Is the genetic mother, the surrogate mother, or the intended mother the “real” mother? Or should all parties be counted as parents?  

Returning to God’s Original Design 

All of these questions can be answered when we return to God’s original design for the family. All people and all institutions of society should aim for children to be conceived by married parents, born to married parents, and raised by married parents. Biblically, God designed one father and one mother for each child. And to apply the biblical injunction to a new area of family life, “what God has joined together, let no man separate.” As much as possible, laws should steer would-be parents in this direction. Christians should stridently object to many facets of assisted reproduction (see our policy reports on IVF and surrogacy). 

And yet, assisted reproduction happens. And it is becoming increasingly common. So, when it does happen, who should be counted as the parents? 

When these unavoidable gray areas arise, the law should base parenthood upon genetics. This best accords with a reading of God’s wonderful book of general revelation. Children might be conceived within or outside of the bonds of marriage. Children may be conceived intentionally or unintentionally. Children might now be conceived in a petri dish and gestated in a surrogate. But a child can’t be conceived without a sperm and an egg. Thus, marriage, intention, and gestation are all unstable grounds upon which to build a definition of parentage in a post-fall world. Genetics – the man who provided the sperm and the woman who provided the egg – is the only consistent foundation for parenthood. 

Redefining parenthood prioritizes the desires of adults over the interests of children 

One of the overriding (though unstated) issues of the proposal is that this overhaul of British Columbia’s Family Law Act prioritizes the desires of adults over the best interests of children. It puts “us” adults before “them” children. 

According to Katy Faust & Stacy Manning in their book Them Before Us, this is a backwards way of viewing the family. Adults should put the interests of children above their own wants. The academic literature is fairly unanimous in the finding that children thrive best when they are conceived by, born to, and raised by their married mother and father (all other things being equal). That is the gold standard for child well-being (which, unsurprisingly, is God’s pattern for families).  

But the proposed changes in BC’s Family Law Act depart further from this gold standard.  Preconception agreements allow people with no biological connection to the child to become parents. That’s putting the desires of people to become parents above the best interests of children. Allowing “sperm donation through sexual intercourse”? That endorses family abandonment by the father. Defining parenthood along the lines of intention to parent rather than biological connection? While that may seem to put the interests of children first (you’d expect someone who intended to become a parent to care more for the child than someone who did not intend to become a parent), it still puts the desires of adults first and foremost in the equation by intentionally cutting off children from their natural parents.  

Basing parenthood on intention above all else is also the logic that has justified the killing of millions of pre-born children. Abortion is the ultimate example of putting the desire of adults above the best interests of children. 

Redefining parenthood commodifies children 

Another fundamental problem with British Columbia’s family law – both as it exists right now and the proposed updates – is that it commodifies children. 

Consider the following argument from our policy report on surrogacy: 

All children possess human dignity and are worthy of love, respect, and care, because they are made in God’s image.[61] Canadian public policy rightly recognizes that the commodification of human life is abhorrent, as reflected in the prohibition of commercial surrogacy in the Assisted Human Reproduction Act. As the Baird Commission Report stated: “Commodifying human beings and their bodies for commercial gain is unacceptable because this instrumentalization is injurious to human dignity and ultimately dehumanizing.”[62] This principle needs to be better reflected in Canadian policy and its enforcement. 

Supporters of commercial surrogacy argue that those seeking to be parents through surrogacy are not paying for a child or for parental rights, but that they are contracting for gestational services.[63] This objection does not withstand scrutiny, however. If the intending parents are only paying for the surrogate mother’s services and the child is not a term or commodity of the contract, they could not require the mother to relinquish the child after birth.[64] But that is the very object of the agreement – the transfer of a child to paying clients, the intended parents. 

According to article 2(a) of the “Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Sale of Children” of which Canada is a signatory, “Sale of children means any act or transaction whereby a child is transferred by any person or group of persons to another for remuneration or any other consideration.”[65] A plain reading of this definition demonstrates that any commercial surrogacy arrangement amounts to the sale of a child contrary to the protocol. In fact, the reference to “any other consideration” in article 2(a) may also include reimbursement of expenses and all forms of surrogacy violate the rights affirmed in the Convention.[66] 

One child born through traditional surrogacy explained his concerns with the practice: “It looks to me like I was bought and sold … The fact is that someone has contracted you to make a child, give up your parental rights and hand over your flesh and blood child … When you exchange [something] for [m]oney it is called a commodity. Babies are not commodities. Babies are human beings.”[67] It is immensely damaging for children to grow up feeling both abandoned by their birth mother and purchased by their legal parents. These emotions are a natural consequence of the commodification of babies. 

Even if no money is exchanged through agreements and contracts around the conception of children, children are still commodified. God’s intention for children is not that they would be a commodity produced through some impersonal contract by two or more random people. Children are to be conceived in the intimate, conventional relationship of marriage. If not seen as something to be avoided entirely, children have been reduced to the level of objects rather than persons. 

Conclusion 

God’s design for the family is for children to be conceived by, born to, and raised by one father and one mother, united in the conventional bond of marriage. Unsurprisingly, when families follow this formula, children tend to thrive. But when they abandon this formula – as family law in British Columbia enables them to do – children’s outcomes tend to be worse. Many studies confirm this across a wide variety of factors. The charts from this study easily demonstrate how, from educational attainment to sexual abuse to criminal activity, children in intact families have better outcomes than in any other family structure.  

God’s plan for the family is good. It is good morally. But it is also empirically good. 

And it is this goodness of the natural family that we must stand to defend.