IVF & Catholic-Teaching

03-02-2025Weekly ReflectionFr. Leonard F. Villa

Infertility is a real, heartbreaking and increasingly common struggle for couples. Almost 20% of U.S. married couples have experienced infertility. Ethical restorative reproductive medicine that takes a comprehensive and holistic approach is often able to authentically heal the underlying conditions causing infertility. Restorative reproductive medicine is typically overlooked (and, unfortunately, it can take significant work to find a provider). A number of national Natural Family Planning (NFP) education organizations can assist married couples with a list of medical professionals who provide restorative reproductive medicine. NFP organizations can be found on the USCCB’s website or through an online-search. usccb.org All human life takes place at conception, a distinct human being made in the image and likeness of God

IVF, bringing sperm and egg together in a laboratory, is being promoted by Congress and the President. In the IVF process, a woman’s ovaries are typically hyper-stimulated to yield multiple eggs, which are then harvested and fertilized with sperm in a laboratory. Some of the embryos created are transferred into her womb with the intention that at least one of the embryos will grow to full term. Many of the embryos that are transferred do not survive, though, and most of the remaining embryos are either killed in the process (some intentionally, some unintentionally) or are frozen. Often, the process involves a couple’s own egg and sperm cells. Sometimes, however, they come from third parties. In either case, this process frequently incorporates a form of eugenic, breeding human beings, in which only certain embryonic children are chosen for implantation based on desirable characteristics, health outcomes, or both, and those who fail the quality control checks are killed.

We may know people who have conceived or been conceived through the use of IVF. They have the same inherent dignity as everyone else and are worthy of love. Because of that same dignity and love of all involved with IVF, the Church cannot condone it. According to God’s plan, marriage is an exclusive, lifelong union between a man and a woman that reflects the absolute and unfailing love with which God loves us. Sexual intimacy has two aspects—the power to unite (unitive) and the potential to create new life (procreative). These aspects belong together and should not be separated. And every child, as a human being, has the right to be conceived through a natural act of mutual, self-giving love within marital intercourse. But IVF separates conception from the spouses’ intimate, sexual union, and the children conceived through IVF are instead created through technological manipulation. IVF also intrudes on the exclusive nature of the couple’s union by introducing other people into the act of conception itself (as opposed to other treatments, discussed.)

The grave harms and wrongs of IVF include: ● IVF kills or freezes millions of our preborn brothers and sisters. The IVF process creates more embryos than are “successfully” implanted within a womb. For every birth by IVF, there are other embryonic baby siblings who die in the process, are selectively killed because they are deemed too weak, or are condemned to suspended animation in a frozen state. Practices have improved somewhat in this respect over the years, to create fewer embryos per birth, especially in other countries; but this deadly evil and other issues nonetheless remain. ● IVF treats human beings—children—like products to be ordered, manufactured, exposed to “quality controls,” and paid for.

A new human life is a gift. No one, no matter how earnest their intentions or desires, can claim a “right” to have a child. Parents of course have the right to naturally conceive and to then raise and educate a child whenever possible. ● Children themselves—as human beings— have the right to be conceived and born of a natural act of love, free of technological manipulation, and to know their own married mother and father.

Another moral teaching comes into play here: a good end or goal does not justify using an evil means to get there. Both must be good to avoid harm to the human being and others that comes from evil.

See also https://www.ncregister.com/cna/what-is-the-catholic-church-s-position-on-ivf