And what about the 20 or so other children that were created in the IVF procedure? Huh? Oh, their not gifts? Just throw aways?
We need to be clear that the baby is not the problem. Babies are never problems, they are gifts. Rather, it is the procedure used to produce the baby that is the problem. Think of it: your children that were lucky enough to be born and to see the light of day were conceived in a Petri Dish! And in case you are wondering: yes, God did give them a soul in the Petri dish. God's creative love is not limited by human immorality (the immorality of the doctors and couples who create many babies, grow one or two of the good embryos and "discarding" or throwing out the others like they were trash) God just wishes that we would do it His way. In God's plan no human being should ever be created in a laboratory. He has given us the perfect environment in which to come into being; namely, marriage. The couples' cooperation in God's creative act is called "pro-creation" as if to emphasize that the one Creator has allowed human beings to participate in so sublime an act. The institution of marriage itself was intended by Him to be the perfect matrix of life, and all technological intrusion into this sacred space for reasons other than health is a sin.
Why is the fertilization procedure in itself immoral? Doctors "create" multiple embryos at one time in order to increase the chances of success of implantation. Normally dozens of embryos are created and never used. These littlest human beings are then frozen or destroyed. The success rate of the in vitro process is abysmally low: only 4 percent of all the embryos created ever see the light of day as a newborn baby. Human beings, no matter how small, should never be the subject of sloppy high school science projects.
Even when a child often does result from an IVF procedure, the travesty of having to create, freeze or destroy so many of that baby's brothers and sisters, your other children, your family, is morally reprehensible.
One baby created at the expense of dozens of others is a macabre tradeoff. We must stand squarely on the side of the dignity of the human person, and we can be grateful that the many God-fearing Christians and other Church denominations do not hesitate to speak out-oftentimes in the face of fierce criticism, as you are doing in this thread, in defense of the innocent from unprincipled actions.
The immorality of the IVF procedure consists primarily in the destruction of the multiple extra embryos that are created in a laboratory along with the one or two that successfully come to birth. The moral principle violated by this procedure is the most fundamental of all moral tenets: one can never do an evil in order that good may come of it. Here, the sacrifice of the 24 babies in order to get one or two to grow into healthy children is so wrong that it overrides the infertile couple's right to have a child.
The worst effect of IVF, however, is its power to strip the embryonic child of dignity under the guise of really wanting children. If we do not recognize the intrinsic dignity of that several-cell human being, then we erode the very principle whereby we fight for the dignity of every other human being, born or unborn. This recognition of human dignity is what makes us so firm in our defense of the poor, the enslaved, the handicapped, the elderly, the unborn and the embryo. All are equal in dignity simply because all were created in the image and likeness of God.
The more our culture blindly accepts killing, organ harvesting and treating other human beings as mere property, the further we slide into moral relativism, which I stated in a previous post to you, and it will be very difficult for us as a Christian, civilized nation, some day to make the argument that our own killers should respect our human dignity. IVF manipulates, destroys and dehumanizes the tiniest human beings and should be opposed on principle.
Stepping away from God’s law always introduces chaos into our lives. Nowhere is this truer than in the case of in vitro fertilization. The reproductive revolution has had the ability to separate genetic parenting from gestational parenting and from social parenting; and the agent who brings it all about, a biotechnician, will be still another person.
Marriage and its indissoluble unity are the only venue worthy of truly responsible procreation. Accordingly, any conception engineered with semen or ova donated by a third party would be opposed to the exclusivity that is demanded of a married couple. Such a procedure would be a violation of the bond of conjugal fidelity. It is also an anomaly for a donor to contribute to the conception of a child with the express intention of having nothing to do with that child’s upbringing.
“I formed you in the womb, I knew you and before you were born, I consecrated you” (Jer 1:5).
Human life is precious from the moment of conception; but, sadly enough, the biblical respect for human life is being eroded in our contemporary society. Without a deep reverence for the sacredness of human life, humanity places itself on the path of self-destruction. When science and technology open doors that should not be opened, a Pandora’s box spews forth evils that menace humanity. Scientists have opened a perilous door: they are manufacturing human life and using their product as an object of experimentation.
Science without the compass of ethical restraints is taking us on a path towards dehumanization in the name of progress. Modern scientific advances have so much to offer, but they must be guided by ethical principles which respect the inherent dignity of every human being. When science embarks on a Promethean quest, fueled by greed and commercialization, our own humanity is placed at risk.
In the IFV procedure, a woman is given fertility drugs to ensure that she produces several ova which are collected to be fertilized in a petri dish creating several embryos. The healthiest ones are chosen for transfer to the woman’s womb. Many embryos are discarded or frozen. Freezing kills some more. Some embryos are later used for experimentation, which is always lethal.
Recent estimates project that there are 400,000 frozen embryos in the United States laboratories. These embryos are human lives that, given the chance to grow, would develop into a man or a woman. The fate and disposition of these embryos represents a serious moral dilemma which has contributed to a coarsening of the public’s attitude towards the sacredness of human life.
During recent debates before Congress, a couple gave compelling testimony against embryonic stem cell research. The main arguments that they presented were their two young sons who had been frozen embryos that the husband and his wife adopted. We cannot pretend that these embryos are tadpoles. They are human beings with their unique genetic code, full complement of chromosomes, and individual characteristics already in place. Every person alive today started out as an embryo. These early-stage abortions are not morally acceptable. Unfortunately, many people of good will have no notion of what is at stake and simply focus on the baby that results from in vitro fertilization, not adverting to the fact that the procedure involves creating many embryos, most of which will never be born because they will be frozen or discarded.
We do not have a “right to have a child.” Such a right would be “contrary to the child’s dignity and nature. The child is not an object to which one has a right, nor can he be considered an object of ownership; rather, a child is a gift, ‘the supreme gift,’ and the most gratuitous gift of marriage, and is a living testimony of the mutual giving of his parents. For this reason the child has the right to be the fruit of the specific act of conjugal love of his parents; and the child also has the right to be respected as a person from the moment of his conception”
For us, marriage and motherhood and fatherhood is a vocation, and children are a gift. However, even when procreation is not possible, married life does not for that reason lose its value.
And, in many cases, after a couple adopts a child, many wives find themselves pregnant after a period of time.