This essay, which was published in the August 2015 issue of the journal Christian Bioethics (vol. 21, no. 2, pp. 199-213), will focus on an evaluation of authoritative documents of the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod as they are applied to the moral status of the human embryo, reproduction, in vitro fertilization, and prenatal genetic testing. A research project compared religious beliefs and reproductive counseling practices of Roman Catholic priests, pastors from the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod (LCMS), and rabbis affiliated with the Conservative branch of Judaism. A significant part of that study involved a 112-item survey that was mailed to a randomly selected sample of 1,300 congregational clergy drawn from those three groups. Survey results from the Lutheran pastors will also be reported and assessed. The results of the literature review and empirical study demonstrate that Lutheran clergy need to take the duty to be competent in their calling seriously by seeking appropriate clergy-specific education in reproductive counseling.