The Catholic Church and IVF
April 29, 2012 5 Comments
Well, it’s Sunday the day I usually attend Catholic Mass, so to even things out, it’s also seems like a good day for my criticisms of the institutional Catholic Church. The latest? Oh, just firing a teacher for using In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) to get pregnant:
Emily Herx was a popular literature teacher at St. Vincent de Paul School in Fort Wayne, Indiana, until she used her medical leave for in vitro fertilization. Herx lost her job and says a church official called her a “grave, immoral sinner.” When she appealed to Fort Wayne Bishop Kevin Rhoades, he told her IVF was “an intrinsic evil, which means that no circumstances can justify it.” The federal government saw things a bit differently. Herx filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and won — paving the way for a civil lawsuit.
The Atlantic takes this story as a basis for a fascinating interview about Catholic sexual ethics with a PhD in Bioethics Catholic Priest, Richard Sparks. Some highlights:
A lot of babies are conceived in circumstances that don’t seem particularly holy — a one-night stand, or even a rape. In contrast, two people undergoing fertility treatments would seem to be especially committed to each other and to their future family.
Precisely. Sometimes Catholic theologians can be very insensitive about that. They’ll talk to a couple who have loved each other, have gone through pain together, and might be struggling with issues about their masculinity or femininity, and they’ll say, “Moral theology says you don’t have the right to have a child.” That might be correct on a blackboard. But to say that to a couple is like telling them what selfish, evil people they are. They’re loving people who want a child badly — and they know the Church wants people to have children, so they can’t understand why they aren’t getting more empathy.
But the Church does disapprove of in vitro fertilization, no matter how loving and committed a couple may be.
When it comes to sexuality, our Catholic natural law teaching is very genital-based. It’s more focused on biology than Catholic teaching is in other areas. Some would say that love, marriage, and commitment have to be taken into account. Pope John Paul II worked very hard to create what he called the theology of the body — instead of just talking about biology, he spoke about the loving meaning of the whole person. But in the end, the Church would say that you can’t go against biology. That’s the mechanics of our nature.
And here’s my favorite part:
The school might argue that it has the right to uphold its own values in any way it chooses.
Certainly. If you’re going to work for a church, or for the Boy Scouts of America, any organization that has values, it’s one thing to say that if you don’t uphold them they don’t want you as a leader. But when they get around to policing people’s sexual lives, what is that organization doing?
Let’s try a few of these. If you have married couples using contraception, does St. Vincent check their medical cabinets? They wouldn’t think of doing that. If some people aren’t paying their taxes fairly, does the Church fire them? I don’t think anyone ever does. What if they’re pro-capital punishment? No.
Similarly, if you hire a gay teacher who doesn’t have a partner, is that okay? What if he does have one? Should he get fired? What if he doesn’t have partner, but once in a while he goes to gay bars? Should he get fired then? If there’s a Jewish teacher who doesn’t believe in Jesus, can she be thrown out? For that matter, what about a Tea Party Republican who doesn’t seem to care much about the poor? Do we fire that person from a Catholic faculty?
The Catholic Church has always been a kind of universal church. Catholic means broad-minded and sympathetic. But now we’re starting to act more like a sect. My worry is that applying these kinds of purity tests can lead to witch hunts.
Now, obviously I disapprove of the church taking this action largely for the reasons Sparks brings to bear, above. That said, part of me would actually love to see the Catholic Church undertake a bit of a “war on IVF.” The truth is, assisted reproduction is just as anathema to Catholic doctrine as contraception, but you virtually never hear the Church complain about it or lobby on the issue. Presumably because they realize the backlash would be massive and they would alienate a lot of otherwise supportive Catholics. What has always bothered me, then, is the hypocrisy on this. If the Church is going to always insist that it’s just about following their theological imperatives, they should be just as politically concerned with IVF as they are with contraception, abortion, and same-sex marriage. The fact that they are not tells you something. And I don’t think it’s something good.
About Steve Greene
Once again I agree with you. As an ex catholic who went on to get a degree in Bible, it is INSANITY for the church to forbid a loving couple with fertility problems to become impregnated in this way. Jesus said it best when He said: “In vain do they worship me teaching for doctrine, the commandments of man” Math 15:9
Catholocism has degenerated into a cult defying biblical teachings on virtually 95% of their doctrine.
“Catholocism has degenerated into a cult…”
Yes, and all the other Christian sects as well. Pick and choose. Pick and choose. That what any religion does. Or any religious person, for that matter.
Might as well pray to “The Stand”. Perhaps in 2000 years, they might be.
No Mike you clearly show your ignorance of protestant evangelical religeons. Jesus forbid most of catholic doctrine.;
I am a Roman Catholic, and as humans many of us are prone to make a poor judgement from time to time. Sin of Infertility treatments tells us that we have a definite moral and religious problem in the church built upon ignorance on the part of the humans that write that IVF is a grave sin. Every day sperm and ovum unite in the context of millions of marriages around the world, many of these die shortly after this and fail to implant because they are not correct biologically. That said, every baby produced in the laboratory will not survive. If all survived, most Catholics would have a child every nine or ten months. If a person was married for 20 years then we should all have at least 24 children. Most have 1-4 children, based on looking around every Catholic church I have attended in the US and Europe, a few have many more.
Infertility is very difficult for men to understand. Priests tend to be men. Bishops tend to be men. The pope is a man. If women were allowed to become Priests, then the obvious ignorance would be much more limited. As a Catholic. a good Reproductive Endocrinologist MD, a good Phd Embryologist running the laboratory, take every precaution to honor the sanctity of marriage through only attempting to stimulate and retrieve the number of oocytes needed to produce one, two, three or four babies. Hyper-stimmulation which results in octuplets endangers the mother and often reduces the chances at a single baby significantly. That is poor medicine. I have been down the IVF road with my bride and have two children from this. In our case, every embryo produced through the union of a spermatazoa and ovocyte in the laboratory that survived to day three were returned to their home in a uterus. Of that two babies survived to birth, another three were lost between implantation and birth on two different cycles. All survived to a heart beat, and were identified as lost with a recurring heavy period. Any woman that has experienced a heavy period with an irregular cycle that is having intercourse, could have lost a pregnancy, just like the ones that did not make it to day three or even those that made it to an early heartbeat. It takes an ACT OF GOD, to get an IVF baby to birth, just like an intercourse baby. I assume that for a Catholic couple to marry, they must go through premarital counseling, an engaged encounter, genetic testing, fertility testing or be a proven breeder, which I guess would mean that pre-marital sex which is really bad for society would have to be deemed acceptable by the church. If all Catholics and Christians took the vow of Celibacy, churches and their need would disappear. Our species and beliefs would become extinct. God bless all couples dealing with fertility issues, and may their church community bless them with support and prayers.
Good for you Christopher.
Men who don’t wish to be married or have children telling married couples how to live their marriages is….. well. I was reading about a woman in Italy who became pregnant through IVF. Two good Catholic women who just can’t seem to help being hypocritical b.t.s could not be happy for her and the child. Women can be as bad and worse than men at times, not least with other women.