REPRODUCTIVE TECHNOLOGY

Thanks to all of you who joined us

for our Catholic Curious session last time.

Chart shows the effectiveness of NFP/NaPro for couples trying to conceive (the numbers 0-3 are number of previous unsuccessful IVF rounds).

The Church’s basic moral principle regarding reproductive technologies is this: if a given technology assists the marital embrace in achieving its natural end, it can be morally acceptable, even praiseworthy. However, if it replaces the marital embrace as the means by which the child is conceived, it’s not in keeping with God’s design.

– Christopher West,
Good News About Sex and Marriage

Hi Catholic Curious,

This past session we talked about the morality of bioethics concerning reproductive technology. Artificial interventions like in vitro fertilization, IUI (artificial insemination), or surrogacy – while usually well-meaning, go against God’s plan for our sexuality. Not to mention, terrible consequences arise including selective abortion, destroyed embryos, technicians using their own sperm without consent, grandmothers giving birth to their own grandchildren, and custody battles over zygotes. The cross of infertility is a difficult one to bear, but the Church, in love and truth, offers couples ethical (and, statistically more effective) ways of helping procreation through the means of NaPro (natural reproductive) technology that works to solve the issues of infertility, rather than circumvent them (and the couple’s natural ability to procreate) altogether. We also talked about moral “gray” areas in procedures such as gamete intrafallopian transfer (GIFT) and tubal ovum transfer (TOT) where there is no fertilization taking place outside the womb (sperm is licitly collected during intercourse using a perforated condom) but, though argued, we err on the side of prudence and would still avoid these procedures. 

We’ll see you all tonight as we talk about (moral) relativism.

In Christ,

Katy

VIDEO: Infertility and IVF: A Catholic Perspective w/ Stephanie Gray (33 mins)

VIDEO: IVF and Contraception – Fr Mike Schmitz (13 mins)

VIDEO: Catholic Teaching on IVF – TOB Institute (14 mins)

SEE YOU TONIGHT!

Looking forward to our session tonight at Catholic Curious about Relativism.

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