423 ARTIFICIAL FERTILIZATION

YOUCAT Lesson 423, July 20, 2015

YOUCAT the catechism for Catholic youth

423  What is the Church’s judgment on surrogate motherhood and artificial fertilization?

All assistance in conceiving a child through research and medicine must stop when the common bond of parenthood is loosened and destroyed by the intrusion of a third person or when conception becomes a technological act outside of sexual union in marriage.  [2374-2377]

The Dignity of the Human Person, photo from YOUCAT Lesson 280.  ….. 423  

Out of respect for human dignity, the Church cannot approve of the technologically assisted conception of a child through artificial insemination or fertilization.  Every child has in God’s plan the right to have a father and a mother, to know his parents, and if at all possible to grow up surrounded by their love.  Artificial insemination and fertilization with the sperm of another man or the ovum of another woman (heterologous artificial insemination and fertilization) also destroys the spirit of marriage, in which husband and wife have the right to become a father or a mother only through the other spouse.  But even homologous artificial insemination and fertilization (in which the sperm and the ovum come from the spouses) makes a child the product of a technological procedure and does not allow it to originate from the loving union of a personal sexual encounter.  If the child becomes a product, however, then that leads immediately to cynical questions about product quality and product liability.  The Church also rejects pre-implantation diagnosis, which is carried out for the purpose of killing imperfect embryos.  Surrogate motherhood, too, in which an artificially conceived embryos is implanted into another woman, is contrary to human dignity.  280

“Do not forget that there are many children, many women, many men in this world who do not have what you have, and make sure that you love them, too, until it hurts.”  Blessed Teresa of Calcutta (1910-1997)

 [2374-2377]

The gift of a child

2374 Couples who discover that they are sterile suffer greatly. "What will you give me," asks Abraham of God, "for I continue childless?" (Genesis 15:2.)¹⁶⁴ And Rachel cries to her husband Jacob, "Give me children, or I shall die!" (Genesis 30:1.)¹⁶⁵ –Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition

2375 Research aimed at reducing human sterility is to be encouraged, on condition that it is placed "at the service of the human person, of his inalienable rights, and his true and integral good according to the design and will of God." (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Donum vitae intro.,2. )¹⁶⁶ –CCC

 2376 Techniques that entail the dissociation of husband and wife, by the intrusion of a person other than the couple (donation of sperm or ovum, surrogate uterus), are gravely immoral. These techniques (heterologous artificial insemination and fertilization) infringe the child's right to be born of a father and mother known to him and bound to each other by marriage. They betray the spouses' "right to become a father and a mother only through each other." (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Donum vitae II,1.)¹⁶⁷ –CCC

 2377 Techniques involving only the married couple (homologous artificial insemination and fertilization) are perhaps less reprehensible, yet remain morally unacceptable. They dissociate the sexual act from the procreative act. The act which brings the child into existence is no longer an act by which two persons give themselves to one another, but one that "entrusts the life and identity of the embryo into the power of doctors and biologists and establishes the domination of technology over the origin and destiny of the human person. Such a relationship of domination is in itself contrary to the dignity and equality that must be common to parents and children." (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Donum vitae II,5.)¹⁶⁸ "Under the moral aspect procreation is deprived of its proper perfection when it is not willed as the fruit of the conjugal act, that is to say, of the specific act of the spouses' union . . . . Only respect for the link between the meanings of the conjugal act and respect for the unity of the human being make possible procreation in conformity with the dignity of the person." (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Donum vitae II,4.)¹⁶⁹ --CCC