How to resist the allure of treating our humanity as a Lego kit
The post The unintended consequences of fertility treatment breakthroughs appeared first on John Wyatt.
How to resist the allure of treating our humanity as a Lego kit

Following on from our recent episode about making IVF more ‘ethical’, we zoom out a bit in this conversation to think about other questions presented by the huge advances made by reproductive science and medicine in the last 50 years. Has the way IVF breaks down procreation to its respective elements created in our culture a “Lego kit” approach to our humanity, believing it is endlessly remixable through dozens of permutations? How has access to this technology also affected our social understanding parenthood and required the law to change? What is lost when we move reproduction away from the intimacy of sex between husband and wife and into the lab? And how on earth are Christian couples struggling to conceive to navigate all this theological and ethical complexity?

Matters of Life and Death
In each episode of Matters of Life and Death, brought to you by Premier Unbelievable?, John Wyatt and his son Tim discuss issues in healthcare, ethics, technology, science, faith and more. John is a doctor, professor of ethics, and writer and speaker on many of these topics, while Tim is a religion and social affairs journalist. We talk about how Christians can better engage with a particular question of life, death or something else in between.
The unintended consequences of fertility treatment breakthroughs
byPremier Unbelievable?
Following on from our recent episode about making IVF more ‘ethical’, we zoom out a bit in this conversation to think about other questions presented by the huge advances made by reproductive science and medicine in the last 50 years. Has the way IVF breaks down procreation to its respective elements created in our culture a “Lego kit” approach to our humanity, believing it is endlessly remixable through dozens of permutations? How has access to this technology also affected our social understanding parenthood and required the law to change? What is lost when we move reproduction away from the intimacy of sex between husband and wife and into the lab? And how on earth are Christian couples struggling to conceive to navigate all this theological and ethical complexity?
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| 1 | What would Christian IVF look like? | 0 | 9.72 | 20-05-2026 |
| 2 | On whose secret service? The alarming rise of AI agents | 0 | 6.94 | 26-08-2026 |
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| 7 | What can the church do for children with additional needs? | 0 | 6.48 | 01-04-2026 |
| 8 | Does Jesus want to stop the boats? | 0 | 8.54 | 29-04-2026 |
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| 10 | She’s 28, Loves God and Her Family, and Might Be the Reason You Can’t Have Kids | 0 | 10.36 | 23-09-2026 |