Dear Parishioners of St. James:
Praised be Jesus Christ!
The issue of In Vitro Fertilization has made national headlines recently and it is useful to know the Church’s teaching on this matter in order to inform our consciences. Spouses who desire to have children but cannot through no fault of their own suffer great heartache and are tempted to use immoral means in order to effect a pregnancy. The good of having a child, however, does not justify an immoral means of procuring one.
In Vitro Fertilization is a process by which a woman’s egg and a man’s sperm for conception are fused together in a laboratory for implantation into the woman’s womb. The act is objectionable for two main reasons: First, procuring the man’s material involves an act of self abuse. The conjugal act between a man and a woman is inviolable. Human dignity demands that the marital act be, at the same time and in the one act, unitive and procreative. Conception outside of the marital act offends our dignity gravely. Second, since the procedure produces dozens of embryos (human beings) most that are conceived are either frozen indefinitely or terminated (killed) in favor of one or two for implantation.
The fact that technology provides options to us does not always justify their use (e.g., nuclear weapons, human cloning, embryonic stem cell “research” which involves killing a human being in order to harvest pluripotent cells capable of beneficial outcomes to adults with pathological organs). Children conceived and born from In Vitro Fertilization are just as dignified and human as any others. The fault lies in the means of producing them in a way violative of God’s gift of human sexuality and our dignity.
God bless you,
Fr. Geary
Saint James Catholic Church 