In Vitro Fertilization

What is in vitro fertilization? IVF (In vitro fertilization) is artificial conception: eggs are aspirated from the woman, and sperm is collected from the man. The eggs are fertilized in a laboratory, creating human embryos. One or more of these is transferred into the woman’s uterus, with the hope that he or she will grow into a full term baby.

A recent headline read: “IVF has killed more than 250 million human embryos since 1978.”  Though a worldwide figure, this is equivalent to three of every four Americans! This information isn’t widely known, which brings to mind Stalin’s comment that “A single death is a tragedy, but a million deaths is a statistic.” The number of these tiny humans that die each year exceeds those who die from abortion! A recent Gallup poll showed that 82% of Americans believe that IVF is acceptable, and 49% believe it’s permissible to destroy IVF created human beings.

What’s so special about human life? A person needn’t be Catholic to know that human life is special and sacred. In Genesis 1:27 we are told: “God made man in His image… male and female He created them.”  St. Paul (1Cor 6:19-20) tells us that our bodies are “temples of the Holy Spirit… your bodies are not your own… you have been purchased at a great price.”  When Belshazzar, (Daniel, chapter 5) profanely and sacrilegiously uses sacred vessels from the temple for a drunken party, he sees the “handwriting on the wall” which foretells his doom and the division of his kingdom. That same night, he is slain and his kingdom divided.

Our bodies are “temples of the Holy Spirit.” We may not profanely use them. We should use our bodies to glorify God rather than treating them as possessions for self-gratification. This is why fornication and homosexual acts are wrong. Our bodies, and those of others, should be treated with dignity because they are “made in God’s image.” To the extent we fail to do this, there will be consequences: for us personally, our nation, and the world.

Why is IVF wrong? Because it separates the transmission of life from the procreative act. The marriage act has two aspects: the unitive (bonding) and procreative (life giving). These should never be artificially separated. Whereas contraception is sex without babies, IVF is babies without sex, or put another way, contraception is the unitive without the procreative, and IVF is the procreative without the unitive. IVF is beneath the dignity of the spouses and the human embryos created, and exposes these tiny humans to the power and domination of strangers. The child has a right to be conceived in a natural way. With IVF, the technician, not the husband, impregnates his wife.

So, the first objection to IVF is that the means are immoral. The second objection is that immoral means typically result in negative consequences --- in this case for the child and the social order. Children conceived through IVF have reported feeling like a “freak of nature, or a manufactured “lab experiment,” and might grieve that their siblings were destroyed in the IVF process. The embryos collected commonly undergo genetic tests for sex, intelligence, height, eye color, longevity etc. and those that don’t “make the cut,” such as those with low IQ, Down Syndrome, or sickle cell anemia, are often experimented on, or destroyed. Parents that have “too many” viable embryos are faced with the dilemma of whether to have them implanted over many years, to let them die, or to pay for indefinitely freezing them.

Some key points about IVF: The desire to have a child is good. The child born through IVF has the same dignity as one conceived naturally. If a couple has used IVF without an awareness of its sinfulness, they are not guilty of grave sin.

Takeaways: Measures that help a couple conceive in the marital act are licit, while those that replace the marriage act are not. It is not licit to separate the transmission of life from the marriage act. Doing so establishes the “domination of technology” over life. The child is a gift and possesses the right “to be the fruit of a specific act of conjugal love of his parents,” and “the right to be respected as a person from the moment of conception.” CCC 2378

There are natural means of restoring healthy fertility. Resources for this include: Napro; St. Paul VI Institute; Fertility Care Centers of America and Integrated Fertility Care Center. Resources regarding the morality of IVF include: Catechism of the Catholic Church 2369-2379; Encyclical Donum Vitae; the National Catholic Bioethics Center; and One More Soul.

Our duty is to educate ourselves on this subject, speak the truth, pray, and act.

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