What is the dharmik perspective on IVF or in vitro fertilization?

What is the Bhagavad Gita perspective or the Vedic perspective on IVF? I would say that the Bhagavad Gita offers us timeless principles and it is for us to apply them according to our time, place and circumstance. So it’s more that the Gita offers us a compass rather than a catalogue. A catalogue where exhaustively all choices and all circumstances are described.

So I will talk from both perspectives and then I will give my personal understanding. We could say that at one level it is the dharma of householders to have children and we have a debt to our ancestors and we fulfill that debt by having children, continuing the lineage. And we see that in the Vedic times, kings would often go to great endeavours and even extreme endeavours to try to have children.

Sometimes the yajnas would be elaborate, expensive. We can say that the yajnas also are falling within the purview of dharma and that is true. At the same time it’s an effort beyond the normal process of procreation.

So in that sense if one’s primary consciousness is that I want to do the dharma and therefore if I need some, in today’s world, yajna is seen as religion but yajna also that was technology in one sense. Even demons would perform yajnas and they did not do it in a dharmic perspective. They would perform yajnas to get power.

So yajna was technology at that time and today we may have a different kind of technology and we may use technology to fulfill our dharma. Now if we take it further, we are not just trying to adhere to dharma and fulfill our debt to our ancestors. We are also trying to practice bhakti where we would like to serve Krishna by being a medium for devotionally inclined souls to come into this world and to further facilitate their devotional journey so that they can do good in this world and also attain the ultimate destination beyond this world.

So this is the broadly the pro perspective from the perspective of dharma and bhakti. We take the precedent of whatever effort may be required according to context, we do that effort. Now the other side could be that one definition of dharma itself is boundaries.

The difference between devatas and dhanavas is not that the devatas don’t have material desires. Devatas also have worldly desires but devatas keep their worldly desires within the boundaries of dharma. So dharma means duty but dharma also means boundary.

So even for doing our duty we need to act within boundaries. So that’s why warfare was also meant to be fair. That yes you have to kill the opponents but you have to kill them in a fair fight.

So now from that perspective you could say that what boundaries are being violated over here, transgressed over here. So the main concern in IVF is that there are multiple embryos that are formed and when the embryos are growing it is natural to infer that there is a soul over there. Without that growth will not happen.

So those embryos often get wasted and sometimes they may be destroyed. Sometimes they may be preserved in the fridge for a long time to be used by one person or may be donated to others. But the point is there is a lot of wastage of embryos and sometimes the embryos may be considered unviable because they have certain biological deficiencies, neurological deficiencies whatever.

So there is certain amount of we can call it killing which may be a little harsh word. But certainly there is some damage, some serious damage is there. One may feel I do not want to go in that direction.

Now taking this perspective further we could also say that in every activity there is collateral damage. So even in the process of normal reproduction when the semen enters into the female body there are so many sperms over there. Now do all the sperms have souls? We do not really know.

We could say even normal reproduction itself is a wasteful process. So now we also say that depending on the consciousness of the couple at the time of union that kind of soul is attracted. But then we also heard that the soul is already present in the sperms.

So then one logical inference could be that there are many souls who are present in many sperms and depending on the consciousness at that particular time that particular sperm succeeds in reaching and ovulating eventually, contributing to ovulation. So the natural process itself to some extent involves some level of loss of life you could say or loss of the potential to gain embodied life for the souls who are in those particular sperms but which do not reach there. They perish on the way.

Now beyond that nature also has miscarriages. So now when we say we are interfering with nature or we are disrupting the natural process how do we define that? Because we could say that when it is hot and we use a fan are we interfering in the natural process? If we have got cough and we take a medicine, even if it is ayurvedic medicine are we interfering in the natural process? In one sense the very definition of human intelligence is to interfere with natural process that nature has made humans quite vulnerable and slow. It is by our intelligence that we have acquired, we developed weapons by which we could defend ourselves, by which we could become the most powerful species on the earth.

So is it that passively accepting everything that nature imposes on us is virtue? No it is not. It is said that the Pandavas converted the Khando Prastha into Indra Prastha. That is from a natural forest they made into urban place, not even rural, they made urban.

And that’s considered the mercy of Krishna. So here they were at one level destroying the environment. Of course they were doing something beneficial not just for corporate greed but for dharma and bhakti they were doing it.

So where do we draw the line? This is where interfering with the natural process is something which is objectionable. Now we could say that when our interference in the natural process causes harm to others but then destroying the forest caused harm to the living beings in the forest. We could say that those beings are demoniac living beings and who were killed over there.

That may be true but every single person was a demoniac or some beings were demoniac. There is always collateral damage and some people may accept that this is the collateral damage that I am ready to accept. So now if we take this further, when you go into consideration of karma, now my understanding is it is much more helpful to be Krishna conscious than to be karma conscious.

Of course a part of being Krishna conscious, Krishna conscious is like a big circle with that karma conscious is a smaller circle. We should be so karma conscious that we stop being Krishna conscious. Krishna conscious means how best can I serve Krishna in this situation.

Karma conscious is what are the karmic implications of the actions that I will do in this situation. So sometimes there may be some negative karma but if the service to Krishna is going to be facilitated by that anybody may accept that. So if there are less intrusive ways in which the problem of fertility can be addressed.

Say for example some hormonal treatment can be given and that solves the issue. Then that is definitely better than going for IVF. So now beyond that if there are embryos that are preserved and if we donate them to others then at one level somebody might say that we are failing in our responsibility to take care of that child which is our child.

Another way we could also say it is that we are blessing someone who does not have a child with a child. And generally those who are going to such extremes to get a child through this accepting as donation the embryo given by someone else they are unlikely to be careless parents. The fact that they are going through so much effort means that they are likely to care.

We cannot always control that. But then we can’t control how much caring we ourselves will be. We don’t know what we will be able to do in the future.

What condition we will be in physically, financially, emotionally. We can only based on the present knowledge that we have make certain decisions based on that knowledge. So in many ways let’s say if a couple or even a single mother who is not able to take care of a newborn child gives a child for adoption it’s a painful decision for her to let go of the child but then that may be the best for the child.

If she herself is not able to take care of the child. So I wouldn’t say that that necessarily means negative karma. Freezing the embryo for a long time will delay the souls acquiring a body.

Well yes that is true. But then to what extent do we draw that particular line? We could say that every time a man does not unite with a woman that opportunity for the soul that are there in the semen of the man are not getting the opportunity. We could take that further and say that somebody who is a celibate is depriving all the souls in their semen of having a child.

So once we start going in these directions we can go to any extreme in these directions. So this can lead to paralysis by analysis. Now of course there are answers over here that if somebody wants to follow celibacy there are other dharmas to be followed.

Giving a soul a body is one dharma. There could be another dharma of focusing on consciousness of Krishna and then inspiring others to come towards Krishna. So it’s not just that we are following one dharma.

We live in a world where there are many different dharmas and some dharma may be prioritized above another dharma. So it’s not just giving the soul a body. It’s also we have to take care of the soul afterwards.

And so if a couple decides to not have a child for some time that’s not depriving the soul of the body. That’s equipping themselves so that when they have children they can take care of the child properly. Now beyond all this if somebody wants to consider a more natural way that could be adoption.

With respect to adoption also there are different perspectives. For some people the idea is that we don’t know the karma of the child and therefore it may be very difficult if the child has very negative samskaras to actually take care of the child and help the child to grow up properly. That’s a valid consideration.

Now in the Buddhist tradition they also have the philosophy of karma although they don’t accept the atma but they accept the philosophy of karma. And there they consider adoption to be an act of great negative karma neutralization. That means their perspective is that when you accept a child whose karma you do not know you are taking a risk for the benefit of another living being.

And taking that risk for taking care of another living being is a laudable thing. So ultimately how karma works it could be read in different ways. In the Buddhist tradition as per I have seen the concepts of maintaining genealogical purity have not been emphasized that much.

In many ways Buddhism was a rebellion against the caste system and the caste discrimination. So that could be one reason. So you are saying traditionally it was not there it could have been added later as well.

No. And it became a rebellion toward the caste system. Yeah it was from the beginning itself.

One reason what we learn from the Vaishnava history is that it was to stop meat eating. But if you look at the secular history one of the reasons why Buddhism came separate was that Buddhism did accept the caste system. Oh I see.

So in that sense the idea of racial purity and preserving the racial purity is not that important in Buddhism. So among the various religions as far as I know Hindus have the lowest adoption rate. Christians have the highest.

And even then Hindus try to adopt from their extended family or from something like that so that they know the genealogy. So if that is a major consideration from us then that’s one cross for adoption. But if that is not a major consideration then the Buddhist perspective is not incompatible with the Vaishnava understanding.

It’s a service when we are also trying to do outreach. When we are trying to connect with people we don’t know what their karma is. And we are in one sense if we become mentors, counselors, somebody becomes a spiritual master they are taking responsibility of people whose karma they do not know.

Of course in that case those people have committed to a certain degree voluntarily and there is some indication of their spiritual seriousness. So there is some difference over there. But the point of whether the point of karma should be the sole criteria for deciding whether to adopt or not I would say that not the sole criteria.

Ultimately like I said it’s a compass not a catalogue. And each one of us may have to weigh which factor is most important for us. So there are two more points I will make with respect to this that when we are considering something like IVF it’s apart from the expense that is financial there is also a certain level of toll that it takes on the female body.

It’s not a very easy process many times. Sometimes there are much more complications than others sometimes it’s not that complicated. So I would say that there have to be some boundaries to how much one tries it also.

Otherwise repeatedly trying it can also create problems. And the other is that in general our movement is moving more and more towards a certain level of applicational decentralization. Applicational decentralization means that how devotees will apply the principles of Krishna consciousness in their life is something which devotees are deciding individually.

So for example when we were a monastic movement more or less with everybody staying in the temple. The temple authorities or the spiritual masters they were given guidelines for every aspect of life. But now as our movement is spreading different devotees engage with the world to different degrees.

And different devotees function in different ways. So for example what kind of food do we eat? We always eat food that is cooked by us offered in the deity. And then we eat some outside food which is offered mentally taken.

And we may say there are lower and higher standard that’s true. But it’s very difficult to mandate one standard. And some devotees may have a different priority.

Some devotees may consider the food is very very important. Some devotees may say okay I won’t spend so much time on cooking food. I can read scripture, I can talk with people, I can do so many other services if I don’t spend so much time on cooking.

So again within the bhakti hierarchy which particular principle a particular person prioritizes that may vary from person to person. So some people may adopt a more confrontational approach in their preaching because they say ultimately we want serious people. And some others may adopt a non-confrontational approach and they may say that we want people to at least take some steps towards bhakti.

Let them at least, even if they can’t go all the way, let them at least get some ajnansu, get some positivity towards Krishna. So who is right? I can’t really say only one person is right. It’s a matter of some people want to help people come all the way to Krishna.

Others will say at least let them take some steps. So ultimately I would say that we can consult others but it’s an individual decision. And as of now our movement is not intellectually or theologically at a place where it will come up with one statement on this issue.

I don’t see it happening for several years. And also because we are such a global movement, even if we come with one position paper, whether everybody will agree with that position is also open to question. So that’s why it’s something which we can deliberate, maybe pray to Krishna and write down our pros and cons and see what weighs more for us individually.

So in such situations where it’s not an absolute moral black and white, the moral weight of various parameters may be different for different people. So which parameter weighs how much for us is something which we will have to consider and based on that we can make a decision. Thank you.