IVF and embryos

Why forbid the treatment that would give us a child?

Because the Church holds that a child should come from the act in which husband and wife give themselves to each other, not be produced by a procedure, and because IVF as practised costs the lives of embryos. It “recognizes the legitimacy of the desire for a child and understands the suffering of couples struggling with problems of fertility”, but “the desire for a child cannot justify the ‘production’ of offspring”. Dignitas Personae 16 The Catechism opens the subject with that suffering, in Abraham’s words and Rachel’s. CCC 2374

Where a third person enters — donated sperm or eggs, a surrogate mother — the techniques are called gravely immoral, because they infringe “the child’s right to be born of a father and mother known to him and bound to each other by marriage”. CCC 2376 Surrogacy also wrongs the woman, “whether she is coerced into it or chooses to subject herself to it freely”. Dignitas Infinita 50 Where only the couple is involved, the techniques are “perhaps less reprehensible, yet remain morally unacceptable”: they separate the sexual act from the procreative act, and the child’s beginning is handed “into the power of doctors and biologists”. CCC 2377

Then the embryos. Experience has shown, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith wrote in 2008, that “all techniques of in vitro fertilization proceed as if the human embryo were simply a mass of cells to be used, selected and discarded”. Dignitas Personae 14 Embryos with defects “are directly discarded”, and more are transferred than the one child wanted, with the rest frozen. Dignitas Personae 15 For the frozen embryos that already exist it weighs research, thawing, donation to other couples and “prenatal adoption”, praises the last for its intention but finds problems in it too, and concludes that they “represent a situation of injustice which in fact cannot be resolved”. Dignitas Personae 19

Not every treatment is refused. The test is whether a technique helps the married act or replaces it. Dignitas Personae 12 Hormonal treatment, surgery for endometriosis, and unblocking or repairing the fallopian tubes are lawful, and adoption “should be encouraged, promoted and facilitated by appropriate legislation”. Dignitas Personae 13 Research aimed at reducing sterility is to be encouraged. CCC 2375

2373

Sacred Scripture and the Church's traditional practice see in large families a sign of God's blessing and the parents' generosity. Cf. GS 50 # 2.

2374

Couples who discover that they are sterile suffer greatly. "What will you give me," asks Abraham of God, "for I continue childless?" Gen 15:2. and Rachel cries to her husband Jacob, "Give me children, or I shall die!" Gen 30:1.

2375

Research aimed at reducing human sterility is to be encouraged, on condition that it is placed "at the service of the human person, of his inalienable rights, and his true and integral good according to the design and will of God." CDF — Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Donum vitae intro., 2.

2376

Techniques that entail the dissociation of husband and wife, by the intrusion of a person other than the couple (donation of sperm or ovum, surrogate uterus), are gravely immoral. These techniques (heterologous artificial insemination and fertilization) infringe the child's right to be born of a father and mother known to him and bound to each other by marriage. They betray the spouses' "right to become a father and a mother only through each other." CDF — Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Donum vitae II, 1.

2377

Techniques involving only the married couple (homologous artificial insemination and fertilization) are perhaps less reprehensible, yet remain morally unacceptable. They dissociate the sexual act from the procreative act. the act which brings the child into existence is no longer an act by which two persons give themselves to one another, but one that "entrusts the life and identity of the embryo into the power of doctors and biologists and establishes the domination of technology over the origin and destiny of the human person. Such a relationship of domination is in itself contrary to the dignity and equality that must be common to parents and children." CDF — Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Donum vitae II, 5. "Under the moral aspect procreation is deprived of its proper perfection when it is not willed as the fruit of the conjugal act, that is to say, of the specific act of the spouses' union .... Only respect for the link between the meanings of the conjugal act and respect for the unity of the human being make possible procreation in conformity with the dignity of the person." CDF — Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Donum vitae II, 4.

2275

"One must hold as licit procedures carried out on the human embryo which respect the life and integrity of the embryo and do not involve disproportionate risks for it, but are directed toward its healing the improvement of its condition of health, or its individual survival." CDF — Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Donum vitae I, 3. "It is immoral to produce human embryos intended for exploitation as disposable biological material." CDF — Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Donum vitae I, 5. "Certain attempts to influence chromosomic or genetic inheritance are not therapeutic but are aimed at producing human beings selected according to sex or other predetermined qualities. Such manipulations are contrary to the personal dignity of the human being and his integrity and identity" CDF — Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Donum vitae I, 6. which are unique and unrepeatable.

Dignitas Infinita Apr 2, 2024
Dignitas Personae Dec 8, 2008
Donum Vitae Feb 22, 1987

From the Catechism

From the Magisterium