Abstract
In 1978, the birth of Louise Brown sent shock waves through the medical world; for the first time, a child had been born as a result of in vitro fertilization (IVF). The idea that a baby might be brought to term having been conceived outside the womb and then implanted there was the stuff of science fiction. Whether we knew it or not, we were about to enter a new world—perhaps brave in the eyes of the world, but portentous at best in the eyes of one well-known Cardinal at the time—of assisted reproductive techniques (ART).
Today, some 44 years later, the issues of assisted reproduction loom large, and even the secular world recognizes the dangers of revising the natural order with something mankind has devised. It took less than 20 years for the questions surrounding ART to spill out into the world of television drama. In 1995, the popular show Law and Order presented an episode, Seed, that explored the medical, legal, and emotional aspects of IVF and posed some troubling questions.
Seventeen years earlier, as the news of the birth of Louise Brown was announced, Cardinal Albino Luciani, soon to be Pope John Paul I, gave an interview to a journalist regarding the birth of Louise Brown. It was both beautiful and prophetic, and worth reproducing here at length: It is not easy for me to answer your question like this, on the spur of the moment, from the telephone in my hospital room, where I am now, without books that I can consult. And that is not the only difficulty. I have, in fact, read up to now only a few newspaper accounts about the “English test tube baby”; in order to make a judgment, in addition to what is in the newspapers, I would have to be acquainted with the scientific data drawn up by the two doctors who are the leading actors. That is not all: at this moment, I am not speaking as a bishop, but as a journalist consulted by a colleague; in such a very delicate and almost new matter, I am also waiting for what the authentic magisterium of the Church will decide to say after the experts have been heard. My answer to your question is therefore personal, at my own risk, and, I might say, in the form of a conversation.
I share only in part the enthusiasm of those who are applauding the progress of science and technology after the birth of the English baby girl. Progress is a very fine thing, but not every kind of progress is helpful to mankind. The atomic, bacteriological, and chemical weapons have been a kind of progress, but at the same time, a disaster for mankind. Even if the possibility of having children in vitro does not bring about disaster, it at least poses some enormous risks. For example, the natural ability to conceive sometimes produces, as a result, malformed children; won't the ability to conceive artificially produce more? If so, won't the scientist faced with new problems be acting like the “sorcerer's apprentice,” who unleashes powerful forces without being able to contain and dominate them? Another example: given the hunger for money and the lack of moral scruples today, won't there be the danger that a new industry will arise, that of “baby manufacturing,” perhaps for those who cannot or will not contract a valid marriage? If this were to happen, wouldn't it be a great setback instead of progress for the family and for society? From every side, the press is sending its congratulations to the English couple and best wishes to their baby girl. In imitation of God, who desires and loves human life, I too offer my best wishes to the baby girl. As for her parents, I do not have any right to condemn them; subjectively, if they have acted with the right intention and in good faith, they may even have great merit before God for what they have decided on and asked the doctors to carry out. Getting down, however, to the act in itself, and good faith aside, the moral problem which is posed is: is extrauterine fertilization in vitro or in a test tube, licit? Pius XII, in speaking of artificial fertilization in marriage, made, if I remember right, the following distinction: Does the intervention of the technician or doctor serve only to facilitate the marriage act? Or does it help to obtain the child by continuing, in some way, an already completed marriage act? No moral difficulty; the intervention can take place. Does the device, on the other hand, not help or prolong the marriage act, but actually exclude it or substitute for it? It is not licit to use the device, because God has bound the transmission of life to marital sexuality. So said Pius XII, more or less; I do not find any valid reasons to deviate from this norm, declaring licit the separation of the transmission of life from the marriage act. “But,” I have read in some newspapers, “it is ridiculous to pose moral problems to those who are availing themselves of the magnificent conquests of science. And then there are the rights of the free individual conscience.” Fine, but morality is not concerned with the conquests of science: it is concerned with moral actions, through which people can make use of scientific conquests for both good and evil. As for the individual conscience, we are in agreement: it should always be followed: both when it commands and when it prohibits; the individual must, however, strive to have a properly formed conscience. Conscience, in fact, does not have the task of creating the law. It has two other tasks including that of informing itself first of what the law of God says and then of judging whether there is harmony between this law and specific action of ours. In other words, conscience must command man, not obey man (Luciani 2010, 332–34).
Today, far too few Catholics understand the clarity and beauty of Church teaching on the origin of human life and the exact interplay of science and morality referenced by John Paul I within a Catholic worldview.
From Humane vitae to the Catechism to Dignitas personae and Pope St. John Paul II's groundbreaking theology of the body, the Church has continued to refine and define the discussion of what is, and is not, acceptable in helping infertile couples to bear children. As Cardinal Luciani recalled, the foundational principle is that if science can heal the pathologies causing infertility, then that is wonderful; but if science instead employs its art to circumvent such healing and instead replaces conjugal relations with other methods to bring about new human beings, then this is morally illicit (See Dignitas personae, pars. 12–13). In her development of this teaching, the Church has also affirmed the beauty of marital life, the blessing of family, and the inherent dignity of every person, a dignity that any medical procedure must respect. A child is not something owed to one, but is a gift. The “supreme gift of marriage” is a human person. A child may not be considered a piece of property, an idea to which an alleged “right to a child” would lead. In this area, only the child possesses genuine rights: the right “to be the fruit of the specific act of the conjugal love of his parents,” and “the right to be respected as a person from the moment of his conception.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, par. 2378)
In addition to presenting well the longstanding ethical analysis offered by the Church over decades, our authors delve deeply into personalist explanations of that analysis, which are indeed present, but not fully developed, in Magisterial documents on ART. Many of the authors speak from experience—as persons who have suffered the pain of infertility or as clinicians who treat it. There are personal stories of conversion and faith that shed profound light on the topic. We hope that the articles provided here contribute an understanding of the goodness of the truth about the beginning of life, and that this understanding then becomes a powerful inner resource in striving to live according to that truth and to attain the true happiness promised by God for which we all yearn.
Peter J. Colosi, PhD
Guest Editor