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In-vitro fertilization violates God's plans

By Patricia Kasten
Compass Associate Editor

	Fr. John Doerfler

What are the main characteristics of a baby?

Smallness. Cuteness. Helplessness. Tears. Smiles.

Dignity.

While dignity is not the first thing we think about when looking at a baby, in the eyes of the church, it should be.

Seeing that dignity should affect how we view the beginning of every baby's life. And that, according to Fr. John Doerfler, diocesan chancellor, is why the church opposes in vitro fertilization - an artificial process by which human eggs are fertilized outside a woman's body to bring about new human life.

For couples suffering infertility and longing for a baby in their arms, the pain can blur the conception issue.

"With in vitro fertilization," said Fr. Doerfler, "(conception) is a technical procedure, a manufacturing process. The coming into being of a person is dominated by technology."

It is not that the church opposes the creation of new human life; rather, that it is so in favor of new life that it cannot accept anything that damages the sacredness of that new life. With so many things in society already doing that, the church must oppose anything that compromises that dignity. Or the dignity and sacredness of married life.

	Related article: from May 19, 2006 issue: • Letter from Bishop David Zubik --     In-vitro fertilization violates God's plans     Church teaches that there are three     reasons the practice is wrong

In vitro fertilization (IVF) does both.

Besides its technical approach to the creation of life, IVF also separates a husband and wife from each other at the most sacred moment of their married union, said Fr. Doerfler, who is working on a doctoral dissertation on reproductive technology.

"The marital act is unitive," Fr. Doerfler said. "In the language of the body, it is the expression of the love between a husband and a wife." He compared the intimacy of marriage with the relationship of love in the Trinity: the Father gives everything to the Son, who lovingly receives everything and gives it back, while the Holy Spirit is the third person who is the mutual gifting of both.

In the same way, a man and a woman give themselves in such a uniting and creative way that their mutual giving is open to the creation of another person. Since IVF imposes a technician between the couple and requires them to separate the act of conjugal love from the creation of new life, it destroys, or seriously impairs, the mutual giving of the couple - to themselves and to their child.

It is never that the child created is any less sacred or dignified in the eyes of God or the church, Fr. Doerfler stressed. It is the procedure by which that sacred and dignified person comes into being that is of concern.

"It is not that we are saying 'no' to new life," Fr. Doerfler said. "We are saying 'no' to a particular way of bringing about new life."

For further teaching about IVF, he referred to the 1987 Vatican document, "The Gift of Life." It says, "In his unique and irrepeatable origin, the child must be respected and recognized as equal in personal dignity to those who give him life. The human person must be accepted in his parents' act of union and love; the generation of a child must therefore be the fruit of that mutual giving which is realized in the conjugal act wherein the spouses cooperate as servants and not as masters in the work of the Creator who is Love" (Donum Vitae [4c]).

(The entire document can be found at the Vatican website at www.vatican.va)

And what about infertile couples who want to remain within the teachings of the church?

"The church doesn't say 'no' to every type of medical intervention," Fr. Doerfler said. "In fact, there are other moral alternatives out there that are more effective than IVF."

He cited the Pope Paul VI Institute in Omaha - www.popepaulvi.com - which has pioneered the Creighton Model of fertility technology and the NaProTECHNOLOGY surgical and medical treatments for fertility - as one example.