In a recent decision, the Supreme Court of Alabama shocked the world by stating that babies in infertility clinics that are frozen, kept in suspended animation, and often forgotten, are human beings with a right to life. Three couples who had stored their frozen embryos in an Alabama IVF (in-vitro fertilization) clinic sued it for wrongful death after a client had opened a freezer and dropped the embryos, thus causing their demise in 2020.
A circuit court judge had originally thrown out the case, agreeing with the clinic that the “Wrongful Death of a Minor Act” did not apply in this case, since frozen embryos are considered property and not persons. The couples appealed and the Alabama Supreme Court of Justice decided in their favor in an 8 to 1 decision, with Judge Jay Mitchell explaining that the “Wrongful Death of a Minor Act” applied “to all unborn children, regardless of their location.”
These frozen babies, of which there are about 1 million in the US alone, should never have been put into that position; but now that they are there, they need to be treated with as much respect as any of us. Their precarious existence is finally reaching the public eye.
Yet everyone is running for the hills—even those who should know better, even those who claim to be pro-life politicians, including Donald Trump or Kari Lake. They are afraid of condemning something that has become the new normal but would have been unthinkable to previous generations.
Since the first live birth of test-tube baby Louise Brown in 1978, IVF has not just been used by those suffering from the terrible burden of infertility, but also by those who don’t have time for children as yet, or haven’t found the right partner or don’t feel quite ready but want the option of having children later. What they often don’t realize is that when they have their embryos frozen (though some only have their eggs or sperm stored), they already have children—albeit children who are in a kind of limbo, waiting to be implanted or killed at some later point.
I understand the tremendous pain behind this. I have experienced it myself. My husband and I suffered from infertility for nine years before our daughter was born. And then we went through it again; after a miscarriage, we experienced many years of secondary infertility, continuing to hope beyond hope. Yes, we are blessed to have one child and there’s a world of difference between having one rather than having none. But we know this journey from the inside and can understand the tremendous pull of being told that IVF will fix your problems and give you the long-desired child that will mend your broken heart.
People suffering from infertility are quickly being proposed IVF as their only and most successful option, when treatments like the Creighton fertility awareness method and Napro-Technology are much more promising.
What they don’t realize is the nasty underbelly of the procedure. And whatever couples facing infertility feel, does not change the fact that a great injustice is being done to them and their children, whether they are aware of it or not, and whether they are ready to face this or not. In IVF, the children are conceived in a petri-dish in an aseptic and impersonal laboratory, when the gametes of their parents are brought together. Then technicians decide over their life and death: those looking less healthy are discarded while those that seem fine are used for now or frozen for later. Should any individual be empowered to adopt worryingly eugenicist attitudes to determine who is worthy of life and who isn’t?
What precedes this hasn’t been pleasant for the potential parents either. The woman has had to take strong hormones to make her hyperovulate so as to produce many eggs at the same time that will then be used for in-vitro. What this does to her psychologically, when she is already vulnerable, can only be imagined. The testimonies of people having gone through this show that it is no walk in the park. Then the man is supposed to masturbate at the infertility-clinic, often using porn to get him “into the mood.” If one of the spouses is sterile, then the semen or eggs are harvested from a third party, making this more of a commodification than a co-creation for everyone involved. Apart from the ethical considerations, this is clearly no loving context for a child to be conceived.
Once a few children (or blastocytes, as they are called at this point in their development, but I’m referring to “children” throughout this article rather than using the medical terms to underline their human dignity; a woman will always say that she’s expecting a baby and not a zygote, fetus etc.) are inserted into the woman, one needs to wait and see if they implant and survive. Often, they don’t and the ensuing miscarriage only adds to the couple’s excruciating pain. Or more children than expected have survived and the couple decides to eliminate some through “selective reduction” abortions.
This shows just how utilitarian this procedure is: children are created, discarded, aborted, with no regard for their rights. Whatever this is, this is not responsible, loving parenthood. Nor is it prolife, for prolife means respecting the dignity of people and not creating life at any cost.
This becomes visible too in the number of deaths among the unborn that one is willing to accept in the process. About 12 million babies have been born through IVF throughout the world since 1978. If you count a 10% chance of survival per child (and not per cycle), then a staggering 110 million of children can be estimated to have died in the process.
As Cardinal William Levada wrote pertinently in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s instruction Dignitas Personae: “One is struck by the fact that, in any other area of medicine, ordinary professional ethics and the healthcare authorities themselves would never allow a medical procedure which involved such a high number of failures and fatalities. In fact, techniques of in vitro fertilization are accepted based on the presupposition that the individual embryo is not deserving of full respect in the presence of the competing desire for offspring which must be satisfied.” Yet, one of the inventors of IVF, Dr. Robert Edwards, received the Nobel Prize for Medicine or Physiology in 2010.
To be quite clear: the Catholic Church is not against science. On the contrary! It is in favor of it, but wants to make sure that every procedure upholds human dignity. Most people see the good of some bioethical restrictions on science. Most people would agree that cloning human beings, creating a monstrous mix of human and animal, or killing people to extract their organs would be grave violations of human rights. Everyone has their line in the sand. But like frogs who don’t feel that they are being boiled if the temperature is raised gradually, we are no longer sensitive to what we are doing to our unborn children.
What the Alabama decision has brought to the surface is the scandalized reaction of disbelief that the frozen, unborn children in clinics should have any rights at all. In reality, we should be appalled by the practice itself.
Donor-conceived Lynne Spencer states: “If my life is for other people’s purposes, and not my own, then what is the purpose of my life?” Her existential experience reveals the terrible consequences of this utilitarian approach. If one is not loved for one’s own sake, one loses one’s sense of meaning; one feels lost. Of course, parents of IVF-conceived children can and often are wonderful parents who love their children deeply. But this doesn’t do away with the fact that they have inflicted an injustice on their children by the way they were brought into existence and this can leave deep scars.
The prenatal psychologist Karlton Terry describes a case in which a little girl conceived by IVF told her parents that she dreamt she had siblings—three sisters and four brothers—who were freezing in a cave, were crying, and needed to be saved. The parents confirmed that seven embryos remained frozen. He also mentions the story of a one-year-old IVF twin who consistently looked up to her left while standing, having a very sad expression of intense longing on her face. He held various objects to the spot she was looking at, but only when he put two naked baby dolls, did she react strongly, tremble, cry, and run to her parents. Already before this experiment, the parents thought that she was looking for her frozen siblings, which the experiment seemed to confirm.
Of course, children conceived through IVF are no less precious than those coming into existence the natural way. It is precisely because of the infinite value of every human being that no human being should be subjected to IVF. No human being should be treated as a mere object, which they are during the different stages of IVF. It is because they are so precious that they deserve to be conceived, born and raised in a context of love. Indeed, children are meant to be the fruit of their parents’ love, coming into being in an act of mutual-self-gift.
Sadly, reality often falls short of this, but we should try to, at least, reject all interventions that are intrinsically turned against the human person. It can be hard to see the evil of IVF, if one has living children that were conceived through the technology, and even harder if one owes one’s own existence to it.
But everyone who exists has infinite value and is infinitely precious to God and should be so to all other human beings. Analogously, some people have to deal with the fact that their parents had an unhappy marriage, that they really shouldn’t have been married and become parents together; and yet here they are and just as worthy of love as if their parents had been happy together. Others are unwanted and some have even been conceived in rape. Though they should have been wanted and rape should never happen, once they are there, they should be wanted and loved.
Hannah Arendt famously wrote that dark times are those moments where evil causes no outrage and is not openly discussed. Though the crimes committed are neither secret nor mysterious, they are not easy to see and are not noticed. For evil is “covered up” by “double-talk” and “speech that does not disclose what is but sweeps it under the carpet.” The culture of death has done this for a long time. The reversal of Roe versus Wade has uncovered some of this, shining the light of truth on the reality of abortion and the horrid abuse of the unborn.
Now we’re getting a further glimpse into the true nature of anti-human practices like IVF. But those who should applaud this are shying away from this revelation for fear of bad press and of losing votes. Instead of running to the hills for cover behind this big fat lie of IVF being beneficial, they should face the truth that alone can make us free.
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It’s time to mind your own business about the fertility of secular people. You don’t like IVF, it goes against your beliefs? That’s fine. Nobody is stopping you from not utilizing IVF. But how dare you think it’s your place to legislate your beliefs in an attempt to force them on people who do not share them. If a secular couple is having issues conceiving and choose to go the route of IVF that is entirely not your business and you are not welcome to push your personal religious beliefs on them.
Why do Catholics have such a weird need to dominate others and force their beliefs on them? Controlling other people, especially those who are unrelated, and have nothing to do with you seems like something the devil would want.
Hey Tyler Texan, did you even read the article? Marie’s article was very enlightening and discussed, you know, other people and what’s important for THEIR well-being.
I know this is hard for selfish people to understand, but you and your kind don’t have a blank check to do whatever YOU want for YOUR own interests regardless of the impact on others. Your selfishness quickly turns into evil, and three cheers for any members of the Catholic Church when they stand up to the devils who don’t realize or care about anybody but themselves.
Catholics condemn IVF, not only because the Church says it is wrong,
but also because their heart says it is wrong. In stead of heart you could also fill in raison. For the same reasons Catholics condemn treachery, theft, arson, corruption, pornography, masturbation, abortion, sodomy. People with an intact conscience will regard all
this stuff as wrong. There are many non-Catholics with an intact
conscience. Regrettably there are not few Catholics with a failing
conscience.
Heart and brain. This is not so much an emotional response as a logical deduction from recognizing what constitutes a human person and what we owe to innocent human persons.
Well Tyler, in response to your question, “Why do Catholics have such a weird need to dominate others and force their beliefs on them?”
I would guess that you are opposed to armed robbery, and have no problem forcing that belief on those who do not think that armed robbery is wrong. I could be wrong, but I would guess that you believe that murder is wrong, and have no problem forcing that belief on those who do not believe that it is wrong.
Follow the science Tyler. For 12 million IVF babies to be born, 110 million are destroyed – killed. I am opposed to that.
Following your reasoning, if I can call it that, if “secular people” think that abusing their own children is OK, I should not be concerned about it.
Tyler, are you are saying that Catholics shouldn’t legislate their morality? Does that mean that we are to accept others legislating their immorality? Who gets to decide what is moral or immoral?; Don’t you know that all authority comes from God?
The accusation of “forcing beliefs” is an evasion of the issue. Are IVF-conceived embryos human beings, or not? If they are, then IVF practice produces and then kills millions of children. To speak against IVF is to speak against a terrible injustice. This is not “enforcing beliefs” anymore than advocating for the rights of unwanted elderly, disabled, or immigrants not to be killed is “enforcing beliefs”. If you think such embryos are not human beings, then that is the point of disagreement. But you are wishing that those who disagree with you act as though *your* beliefs are true–i.e., pretend that IVF doesn’t involve unjust killing, and just look the other way. Why should we? A human being is a human being even if you deny that, and it is such a denial that allows the injustice to continue.
life
So you are intolerant of others’ intolerance and would force them to be tolerant? The argument that refutes itself, every time.
It is time for the Church to face the ugly truth about the vaccines she requires of Her bishops, priests, lay employees, children in its schools.
.
Don’t expect politicians (even the Catholic ones, and Trump is no Catholic) to come out against IVF and embryonic/fetal tissue experiments (that may/will lead to advanced cancer treatments, among other things) until the Church does so first, and does so unequivocally.
mRNA is not even a vaccine
Internet search 2020 article title:
“Abortion opponents protest COVID-19 vaccines’ use of fetal cells”
(enter on search engine if you want the entire article)
Cells derived from elective abortions have been used since the 1960s to manufacture vaccines, including current vaccines against rubella, chickenpox, hepatitis A, and shingles. They have also been used to make approved drugs against diseases including hemophilia, rheumatoid arthritis, and cystic fibrosis. Now, research groups around the world are working to develop more than 130 candidate vaccines against COVID-19, according to the World Health Organization; 10 had entered human trials as of 2 June.
At least five of the candidate COVID-19 vaccines use one of two human fetal cell lines: HEK-293, a kidney cell line widely used in research and industry that comes from a fetus aborted in about 1972; and PER.C6, a proprietary cell line owned by Janssen, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, developed from retinal cells from an 18-week-old fetus aborted in 1985. Both cell lines were developed in the lab of molecular biologist Alex van der Eb at Leiden University. Two of the five vaccines have entered human trials (see table, below).
A police officer is lying brain dead in the ICU after being shot by a drug dealer. Should the righteous person in need of a heart or a kidney refuse a transplant from the police officer on the ground that the organ is coming from a murder victim? The same logic applies to the use of fetal cells for vaccines. The victims were murdered (decades ago), we can’t undo it, but we can bring some good from it. Vaccines are a red herring.
Thank you for this excellent article. I hope it is published in every Catholic newspaper, and also in the bulletins and newsletters that Catholic parishes produce for their parishioners. I am sad that Pres. Trump has spoken in favor of IVF, but I think he is thinking more of the heartbreak of infertility without a knowledge of what IVF actually is. However, Pres. Biden is well-informed about IVF, and yet he praises it while at the same time advocating abortion–the killing of children! I hope that every Catholic and every informed Christian in the U.S. votes against this man and his administration, as well as voting for ANY Democratic candidate, as the entire Party at this point has embraced abortion as a “woman’s right.” God help us all in the U.S.A.!
Correction: “As well as voting against any democratic candidate”
Don’t give a pass to Republicans who stand for the same things, which we are seeing at an increasing rate.
Honestly, I find false friends who betray me MUCH more infuriating than open enemies; but even without emotion, and merely from the point of game theory, if we allow Republicans to get away with being OK with “gay marriage”, transgenderism, abortion, IVF, etc. — but still vote for them because “they caucus with people who are really pro-life” or because they lower taxes, it’s all over for us politically.
We are told to be as innocent as doves but as wise as serpents, so maybe we should take heed of the serpents. The abortion lobby and the gay-rights lobby never let up on the Democratic Party, sort of like a demonic version of the persistent widow petitioning the unjust judge. Both the widow and the lobbyists got there way. The pro-life and pro-family lobbies, on the other hand, have never demanded that kind of loyalty. Instead, they make excuses for why they should still vote for candidates who stab them in the back. As a result, their own chosen candidates have no fear of stabbing them in the back; they have done so countless times in the past, and they continue to do so now.
Satan cannot be defeated by politics, but only by the Cross of Christ. Nevertheless, whenever we engage with politics, we must do so seriously. It is not enough to Make America Great Again. We must Make America Godly Again.
Excellent!
Twelve million babies born through IVF, but 110 million killed in the process. Lord have mercy on us. These babies are manufactured, not conceived.
We cannot do evil to achieve good.
“They are afraid of condemning something that has become the new normal but would have been unthinkable to previous generations.” EXACTLY. There’s a lot of that going around, from “gay marriage” to transgenderism to satanic chaplains for schoolkids in Florida. This is a spiritual problem that cannot be solved by mere politics. We just have to hope that God is not waiting for the iniquity of the Americans, as of the Amorites before us, to become full.
Zedek of Salem, a terror and glory,
Whose face was hid while his robes were gory;
And Hoham of Hebron, whose loathly face is
Heavy and dark o’er the ruin of races;
And Piram of Jarmuth, drunk with strange wine,
Who dreamed he had fashioned all stars that shine;
And Debir of Eglon wild, without pity,
Who raged like a plague in the midst of his city;
And Japhia of Lachish, a fire that flameth,
Who did in the daylight what no man nameth.
That sounds a bit too much like the elites who run OUR OWN society, doesn’t it?
The worms are out of the can now what? As Christians we must state our case, remain pure, and be willing to suffer with love for those who know not what they are doing. Even so, come Lord Jesus!
Just because we CAN do something, doesn’t mean we OUGHT to. For instance, please see the incredible film “Ex Machine” about the ramifications of cultivating sentient artificial intelligence. Similarly, IVF has a human toll–on babies made and destroyed, on marriages–that is not a priority for the doctors and clinics who make ENORMOUS sums of money from IVF related procedures. Peoples’ emotions are exploited when there is the potential for financial gain. Just look at the explosion of “gender affirming care” clinics over the last five years. What doctor is going to say no to a sex change for a child when they stand to profit well over $50,000 per surgery….
Simply put, everything and everybody have been reduced to the relativity of product placement. I must have a baby, like one wants a new car or petrol; but equally I don’t want a baby, get rid of it ITS MY CHOICE AFTER ALL!!!
“People suffering from infertility are quickly being proposed IVF as their only and most successful option, when treatments like the Creighton fertility awareness method and Napro-Technology are much more promising.”
This is certainly not surprising. There’s big money in Big Fertility, so one would certainly expect morality to take a back seat to the pursuit of profits.
The IVF approach is clearly of a piece with so many other supposed “solutions” society and government propose for various problems. Got gender dysphoria? We’ll carve you up and you’ll feel better about yourself – never mind the underlying mental health issues you may be having. Climate changing? Let’s spend trillions of other people’s dollars on dubious white elephants to “fix” it – never mind cost benefit analysis that would inform more prudent approaches. Distressed at so many people being arrested for theft? Let’s define crime down so people aren’t stigmatized by a criminal history.
It’s all about the financial and political incentives. There’s very little of either when it comes to expecting people to do the hard work and make hard personal choices that will ultimately serve them best. There’s no direct financial or political return from that approach. Which is why it’s so often ignored.
In this I’m reminded of Chesterton’s quote about the Christian ideal: “It’s not that the Christian ideal has been tried and found wanting. Rather, it’s been found difficult and left untried.” One of my favorite quotes of all time.
As I understand it, those abortions that occur at the hand of God alone are called “spontaneous abortions” while those that are deliberately caused by humans are called “induced abortions.” Also, as I understand it, in recent years the number of spontaneous abortions known about and reported has been in the same neighborhood as the number of induced abortions. However, it is widely believed that many additional spontaneous abortions go unreported and uncounted because they occur early and before there is sure knowledge of pregnancy. That means the number of spontaneous abortions has likely exceeded the number of induced abortions. Why God has such a record of zygotes under his control alone not resulting in live births is a puzzle to me. Why does God create so many human beings only to murder them? Please explain. Could it be that God’s miraculous infusion of the human soul into matter does NOT happen at the instant of fertilization as most of the Church once believed?
You say the Church “once” believed that the soul is infused at conception. But this is a fairly recent belief; delayed ensoulment was the norm.
At any rate, one might say the exact same things you do snot spontaneous abortion about infant mortality. Most humans haven’t made it past childhood. Does that imply that the practice of infant baptism is wrong and that human life only takes on existential value once a person reaches the age of reason?
“Why does God create so many human beings only to murder them? Please explain.”
First, let’s understand terms. Murder is the intentional, direct and unjust taking of a human life. God is the author and source of all human life. As the perfect act of being itself, unlimited in any way and the very source of all love and goodness, it is by definition impossible for God to commit murder.
As to the reason(s) why God chooses to end the lives of so many pre born children, this is and always will remain a mystery. We can only entrust these children to His mercy, and trust in His inestimable love that they might find eternal happiness.
Lex and Anon have explained the difference between “murder.” God does not murder! God does allow man freedom to choose what is right. Without freedom, men would be as determinative automatons. As a result of man’s freedom, as a result of man choosing to go against what is good for him, man will choose what is wrong and will murder. Calling it ‘sin,’ the Catholic doctrine named the first sin of our ancestors “original sin” and it entered into man’s natural code, passed onto man’s natural offspring.
Another consequence of the original sin led to man’s removal from paradise. Only in God’s eternal presence in paradise is anything perfect. All life on earth is subject to death despite life being good and blessed. God’s goodness is in nature but it too contains sin, imperfection, flaws, fault, pain and suffering. Here men are free to murder each other or not. Men are free to create and to kill. What each person chooses has eternal consequence.
George also asks: Could it be that God’s miraculous infusion of the human soul into matter does NOT happen at the instant of fertilization as most of the Church once believed?
Aristotle posited life as animating force or principle, a ‘form’ which causes matter to move, grow, and development. By nature, both sperm and egg demonstrate purposeful movement toward one another. They naturally combine their individual genetic material which, at the moment of combining, leads spontaneously to the uniquely specific code, form, or animating principle for the newly distinct biological entity (zygote) to continue its own purposeful development. Zygotes continue their design of purposeful movement and growth into embryos. Each embryo then develops into a fetus which develops, according to the animating principle, into an infant which then into an adult human being. At any point along the continuum of life, ‘by nature’ that the process will not proceed with perfection. All biological life ends.
Human beings are not by pure biological nature perfect, as the doctrine of original sin makes clear.
Revelation makes clear: the life, death, and resurrection of Christ attest to the ‘larger-than-human life’ eternal being who is free to transform/transfigure each life into eternal glory or into its obverse. Every individual human being is given to choose. If we choose to believe, we choose life at every continuous step of the way. If we are wise and if we love, we do not purposefully create life only to purposefully destroy it.
CORRECTION to above: Mankind does NOT create life. Only God creates life. Man assists, cooperates, or co-creates bu allowing or providing conditions conducive to life.
Unfortunately, this genie has been out of the bottle for some time and its doubtful it can be put back in.I think the best can be hoped or is a string of sensible regulations in some manner. Some people may not be sympathetic to women seeking an abortion. They almost certainly ARE sympathetic to young couples wanting a child.There will never be enough public support to outlaw this practice.I also think it would be a very rare couple who will choose a lifetime of childlessness because of church theology, when there is a medical procedure available to help them.The question of when life actually begins is too much for the average person to grasp.
I have personally experienced the pain of infertility. In the end my husband and I chose adoption. That option is wonderful, but not everyone makes that choice, and in this day and age, adoption has become increasingly difficult to accomplish.
LJ, I don’t believe most people understand the IVF process and how unwanted embryos are discarded.
Making use of a technology to achieve conception is one thing. The callous disposal of human embryos is another. Catholics oppose the entire process but I think non Catholics might oppose its disregard for human life if they understood that part of the IVF industry fully.
Hopefully this may be a teaching moment.
I am old enough to remember the “selective abortions” some couples had to undergo who opted for invitro. When the technology was very new, it was hard to gather and fertilize the eggs, and not all survived the transfer, and the procedure was to implant back into the womb as many as 8 embryos at a time. The assumption was most would not “take” and the couple left with a single pregnancy or twins. In fact, that did not happen all the time. Sometimes well more than two embryos would implant. Since that would almost inevitably lead to a miscarriage of ALL the embryos at some point, a decision had to be made to selectively abort a number of them to achieve a more reasonably survivable number. Doubtless this was a horrific thing for the couple, possibly even for the doctors. To my knowledge, recent medical advances now make that process unnecessary, as they are able to implant a much smaller number of embryos and expect them to survive.As a result some couples freeze embryos for future use. I have read of some couples donating embryos as well to other infertile couples. Is this a moral nightmare on many levels? Yes, it is. But again I am dubious that a couple’s drive to have a baby will be swayed by many arguments at all. Further, I have said before that I NEVER hear any topics of sexual morality discussed at church from the pulpit. EVER. Contraception, gay sex, adultery, living together, IVF, the works. I do believe that the priests and pastors are afraid of the blow-back if they DO talk about those topics, and as a result they simply avoid the topics. The net result is a church filled with those who dont have a clue about catholic morality, nor the reasons behind it. Dont expect things to change anytime soon.
Adoption, anyone?
Death is eternal unless ressurected back to life, the reason for this religion. Only living have life and the joys, so strive for it, the way has been known for very many years, to those who are pleased by God for their holiness (honesty and sincerity). It is the same God who gives life till death for all His creation, be it for the universe, plants, animals or humans. So those who long to make paradise on earth using the knowledge at their disposal are permitted to what they do as nothing happens without God’s permission, but their acts have consequences at His best design. That is, by each ones deed they convey to the hidden God, who have given the apparent freedom by making Himself intangiable, of their longing to remain in original sin or not and whether to be enlightened through their life about the Truth that God alone exist and everything else are materialised by Him. Those who can freely accept the Truth can be let live for ever that too without any enforcement of laws to maintain justice amidist sinners on this world, that is in paradise hidden from those who prefers death over the Truth because of His mercy for not languishing them more than what He cause as part of not making this world a Hell, for missing the fortunes they hoped. Needless to say, like anything and everything, any kinds of killing and associated emotions can be used to lead to the desire for living long, if not for ever, and set stage to climb up or down the ladder of holiness.
Thank you Marie (and CWR). I am glad to see this issue finally put forth in a prominent Catholic forum.