Posted on 03/17/2009 8:13:41 AM PDT by NYer
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.- Bishop of Orlando, Florida Thomas G. Wenski has written an editorial for the Orlando Sentinel stressing the dignity of the human embryo. Noting the ways some medical reproductive technologies “devalue the meaning of human sexuality itself,” he condemned “procreation without sex.”
Invoking Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, which he summarized as being about “a mad scientist who in his quest to create life never stopped to consider the consequences of his actions,” Bishop Wenski said that science reality is “stranger than science fiction.”
Similarly, he suggested that some scientists use various reproductive technologies to manipulate life without sufficiently considering the consequences. Citing the case of Nadya Suleman, who gave birth to eight children conceived through in-vitro fertilization, he said the morality of such procedures must be considered.
Referring to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith statement Dignitas Personae, he noted that the Church advocates scientific research but also condemns such forms of reproductive technologies.
“Because it is possible to do something does not make it necessarily right to do it,” Bishop Wenski wrote in the Orlando Sentinel. “Science, if it is to truly serve humanity, cannot separate itself from the demands of ethics. The ends do not justify the means.”
He said in-vitro fertilization procedures frequently involves the “deliberate destruction of embryos,” asserting that some 80 percent of artificially produced embryos are “sacrificed” to secure a pregnancy.
“Each embryo, however, is an individual human being and not just simply a mass of cells to be used, selected or discarded,” the bishop wrote.
“The desire for children is both legitimate and laudable, but not every means is morally acceptable for those wishing to become parents,” he said, noting Dignitas Personae’s comments about the origin of human life having its “authentic context” in marriage and the family. There, life is “generated through an act which expresses the reciprocal love between a man and a woman.”
“A child should be the fruit of the parents' love — a gift received and accepted and not a consumer product to satisfy someone's subjective desire,” Bishop Wenski explained, insisting that medical science is “not above ethics.”
“Artificial contraception opened the possibility of sex without procreation; now in-vitro and related technologies proffer procreation without sex. Such technologies divorced from moral reasoning devalue the meaning of human sexuality itself.”
It is an apt anology. Anti-biotics are an “unnatural” means to end a disease. Infertility is a disease (a sydrome, really).
IVF joins genetic material, just exactly like normal sex does -— sperm swims to egg. All that changes is the location of the event. The embryo is still transferred, and God either lets it implant in the mother and prosper or not, just like normal sex.
There are all sorts of moral issues created by IVF (chiefly, too many embryos), but in reputable clinics, these events are avoided.
“There are more than a million embryos frozen in suspended animation!”
Yes, there are all sorts of irresponsible people in this world. People have sex outside marriage, too.
Responsible, married, people who will only fertilize and transfer under the normal guidelines are not at fault for the irresponsible people in this world, just like married people are not responsible for people who have sex outside marriage.
Yes, I agree many protestants ministers are luddites with sexual problems, too.
Yes, it was sarcasm.
“Bishop Wenski’s opposition to technological solutions for reproduction does not seem limited to the destruction of human embryos - even when no lives are lost in processes like IVF (which is what everyone is aiming for), he will still object to what many childless couples consider the greatest miracle of their lives.”
Correct. The technology (and ethical guidelines) is such now that in reputable clinics, only a finite number of eggs are fertilized and transferred -— avoiding horrors like Octomom and the supposed “millions” of frozen embryos.
You press them down to the ultimate issue, and the objection is that the man ejaculates outside the mother. Doesn’t matter if the wife “assists” with this process. It’s “masterbation” and thus a sin.
That would help.
Key word is “responsible”. Same goes with contraception. NOT going to happen!
So the responsible people have to be hurt because other people are irresponsible?
Same logic that made it impossible for me to buy Sudafed because morons make crack (or whatever) out of it.
When ethics are maintained, you may have a point.
The Bishop is speaking in general, and he's right. NON-procreative sex has damaged God's Gift of sexuality, the joining of man and woman in a loving, mutually beneficial relationship that is open to accepting and loving the children that would naturally come from that union. He's lamenting the attitude that children are some sort of commodity, and that people have this notion that they have the 'right' to have their own biological children, whether or not they are in a loving marriage.
That’s the dumbest strawman argument I’ve read today, but fear not—there’s still a lot of day left.
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