Many contemporary media outlets thrive on sensationalism. These have created a virtual feeding frenzy around the single mother who recently gave birth to octuplets through a process known as in vitro fertilization or IVF. What undoubtedly began as the natural desire to bring a child into the world went tragically awry. This unusual case highlights the inherent ethical problems with IVF and many other pertinent factors. Since we have been barraged with so much information about this mother and her family it has become a “teachable moment.”

Like others, many Catholic married couples struggle with infertility. This is not a new problem. It has been a source of sorrow at least since Abraham and Sarah in the Book of Genesis. For whatever reasons there is a very high incidence of infertility in our society. Though it may not always be a permanent condition, it can be a great burden for generous married couples who have a natural desire for children.
Our starting point is the acknowledgement that a child is always a gift from God. Every human life is endowed by the Creator with dignity and value from the moment of its conception. The dignity of the human person is at the heart of the ethical considerations about appropriate ways to assist married couples in their desire to conceive a child.

Without knowledge or consideration of its moral implications many Catholic couples have turned to IVF. Through IVF babies are brought into being in glass dishes, hence the unflattering term “test tube babies”. Though many couples are undoubtedly unaware, there are grave moral problems with IVF and Catholic couples should always avoid using it as a means to conceive a child.

What are some of these problems? In vitro fertilization goes against God’s plan for the way children are to be conceived and brought into the world. God’s plan is for a child to be conceived through the physical expression of love between a husband and wife. In IVF it is a technician, rather than the husband and wife, who bring together the reproductive cells of the parents in a laboratory. In addition to being a cold and loveless environment, this is a violation of the exclusive relationship of husband and wife in cooperating with God to bring forth new life.

Almost inevitably, some embryonic human beings are killed in this procedure. Doctors select only the healthy human embryos to place within the womb and those “leftover” are discarded. They may be destroyed outright or used for experimentation purposes, for example, to harvest their embryonic stem cells. The decision about what to do with the “leftover” embryos is often postponed by freezing them in liquid nitrogen for possible future implantation or experimentation. Unfortunately this has resulted in tens of thousands of frozen human embryos stored in a cryogenic limbo. This is clearly an affront to human dignity, even to tiny embryonic human beings.

A further problem results from the common practice of placing more than one human embryo in the womb hoping that at least one will implant, develop and be born. If more than one implantation occurs, and the mother desires only a single child, the doctor might select only the healthiest one and abort the others. (The case of the mother who recently gave birth to octuplets has this redeeming quality: that she did not make the additional mistake of selectively aborting some of the children that she had allowed to be implanted in her womb.)

Underlying all of this is the inherent problem that IVF treats children as commodities produced for adult needs rather than as the gift of God that every child remains, no matter how he or she was conceived and brought into the world. This is a dangerous step on the slippery slope toward eugenics and the creation of “designer babies” which we select on the basis of certain preferred traits (health, gender, intelligence) while readily disposing of the ones we do not want.

It is the most natural thing in the world for a married couple to desire a child. Every child is a gift, no matter how he or she was conceived. Nevertheless, for the good of the children who are conceived, for the good of the married couple, and out of respect for the dignity with which God endows every human being we have to learn to cooperate with God’s plan rather than substituting our own. God is God, and we are not.

Couples seeking information about morally acceptable means of assisting with infertility problems can consult their pastors or contact the Pope Paul VI Institute at www.popepaulvi.com .

Published
The Register,
February 27, 2009