Catholic Online Forum

Reading some other threads started me wondering about this subject. Back in the 80s, my wife and I went through the in vitro process four times. She was not Catholic then and I was out of the Church though, when I thought about the morality of in vitro at all, I assumed it was OK because it's purpose was to help couples get pregnant rather than to avoid pregnancy.

In the end, it didn't work anyway and we adopted. I've always wondered though why in vitro is morally wrong. I can see why it would be wrong to create multiple embryos, then discard some of them. That's obvious. But we didn't do that; had multiple embryos each time and injected them all despite the hospital's advice to pick the one or two "best."

If the sperm is mine and the egg is my wife's, and our intent is to get pregnant, why is it morally wrong to get a little help from technology?

Seminole Jim

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"It is terrible to contemplate how few politicians are hanged."
- - G.K. Chesterton

Simply, it's interfering with the "natural" process of having babies.

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Charlie A
"Ut omnes unum sint (Ioannem 17.21)."

JMJ

Jim,

the above answers the question why IVF is wrong. The problem is not so much the use of technology but the nature of the act. Even though you didn't buy into the eugenetic monstrosity proposed to you by doctors and your intention and understanding of the procedure excused you and your wife, the embryos who were created died anyway. They were created in vitro first (immoral step 1: call persons to life artificially and outside the womb and not the context of the marital act, but through a substitute act, morevoer perfomed by others) and then (immoral step 2 and willingly accepted immoral outcome) died because that's what happens to +/-80% of babies conceived in vitro and implanted.

Hadn't they been called to life artificially in the first place they wouldn't have died. They did not come to life and did not die for natural causes no one is responsible for as is the case of an unprovoked miscarriage following a natural fertilization. They died because their coming to life was not the result of the acceptance of reality and nature but of a desire that resorts to technology whatever it takes. Those doctors have intentionally and knowingly put your babies in a situation where they were likely to die. And they died. 7 embryos? 10, 20? 7, 10, 20 murders to play God and beef up their bank accounts.

There are some basic principles that help us evaluate the morality of medical treaments of infertility (btw, IVF does not "treat" infertility, because it leaves you as infertile as you were before using it): 1) the inalienable right to life and physical integrity of every innocent human being from conception to natural death, which IVF violates of itself; 2) the unity of marriage and procreation as the fruit of the conjugal act specific to the love between the two spouses (again, impossible in IVF).

So, technology might give us valid treatments of infertility but theycan never violate the above principles. I recommend that you read a 1987 CDF document -
Instruction on respect for human life in its origin and on the dignity of procreation – Donum vitae - which deals with IVF and artificial fertilization in general at lenght.

We are also waiting for an online English version of the new document that was released yesterday on the same matters, confirming these principles and updating the teching in the light of new medical technologies.

see viewtopic.php?f=51&t=53529

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FabrizioParty like it's 1773

No one can be at the same time a good Catholic and a true socialist (Pius XI)