Contraception,In Vitro Fertilization and the Principle of Inseparability

The “simple case” of in vitro fertilization with embryo transfer is defined in “Donum Vitae.” 11.5, as “a homologous IVF and ET procedure that is free from any compromise with the abortive practice of destroying embryos and with masturbation”.

May W.E. “The Simple Case of In Vitro Fertilization and Embryo Transfer”, Linacre Quarterly, February 1988, pp. 29–36. The present contribution is particularly indebted to this article of May: also to Finnis J. M., “Personal Integrity, Sexual Morality and Responsible Parenthood”. Anthropos [since renamed Anthropotes]: revista di studi sulla persona e la famiglia. I. 1985, 43-45, and to Chapelle A., “Pour lire ‘Donum Vitae’”, Nouvelle Revue Theologique. 109 (1987) 481-508.

May, op. cit., pp. 34–35.

Other special cases include prohibiting dangerous activities to small children (whether they understand or not), and imprisonment of the guilty. In general, such cases involve persons who, at the given time, lack either the right or the ability to exercise their own freedom.

“Freedom is proper to the person”: De Finance J. , “Freedom”, New Catholic Encyclopedia. 6. 95–100; citation from p. 99, col. 2. See also “Gaudium et Spes”, no. 20, and “Dignitatis Humanae”, throughout.

“Gaudium et Spes”, 49: “Familiaris Consortio”, 11.

Tettamanzi D. “Fecondazione artificial e ‘immagine’ di famiglia,” pp. 123–145 in: // Dono della Vita, ed. Sgreccia E. , Pensiero Vita e , Milan, 1987: the reference is to p. 136.

“Humanae Vitae”, nos. 9, 11, 12; “Familiaris Consortio”, 28 and 32, par. 5.

“Humanae Vitae” 13: “… one is not the master of the sources of life but rather the minister of the design established by the Creator”; “Familiaris Consortio” 14: “they [the couple] … become cooperators with God for the gift of life to a new human person”; see also “Familiaris Consortio”, 28. “Donum Vitae”, 11.1, and Giovanni Paolo II, Uomo e Donna Li Creo: catechesi sull'amore umano, Citta Nuova Editrice, 1985, sixth cycle, especially chapter CXXXII. See further, on the immediate creation of each human soul by God, “Donum Vitae”, Introduction, 5, which refers to Pius XII, Encyclical “Humani Generis”. AAS 42 (1950) 575 and to Paul VI. “Professio Fidei”. AAS 60 (1968) 435. Much more might of course be said about human cooperation with God, in general and as to the transmisison of life. The immediately relevant point, both as to contraception and artificial fertilization, is that the transmission of life is not a “private affair” of the couple.

Paul VI. “Populorum Progressio”, 15: “… every life is a vocation”.

This point is forcefully made in “Familiaris Consortio”, 32, par 4: “When couples, by means of recourse to contraception, separate these two meanings that God the Creator has inscribed in the being of man and woman and in the dynamism of their sexual communion, they act as “arbiters' of the divine plan and they ‘manipulate’ and degrade human sexuality — and with it themselves and their married partner — by altering its value of ‘total’ self-giving. Thus the innate language that expresses the total reciprocal self-giving of husband and wife is overlaid, through contraception, by an objectively contradictory language, namely, that of not giving oneself totally to the other. This leads not only to a positive refusal to be open to life but also to a falsification of the inner truth of conjugal love, which is called upon to give itself in personal totality”.

Finnis op. cit., p. 48.

Finnis op. cit., pp. 48–54.

“Humanae Vitae”, 17: “Another effect that gives cause for alarm is that a man who grows accustomed to the use of contraceptive methods may forget the reverence due to a woman, and, disregarding her physical and emotional equilibrium, reduce her to being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires, no longer considering her as his partner whom he should surround with care and affection”; see also “Humanae Vitae”, 13 and 21, “Familiaris Consortio” 32 (paragraphs 4, 5, 6), and the National Conference of Catholic Bishops [U.S.A.] “Partners in the Mystery of Redemption: a pastoral response to women's concerns for Church and society”, first draft (as in The Chicago Catholic, 5 August 1988), n. 56: “Women who follow natural methods of regulating birth say that they and their spouses frequently experience new levels of intimacy and mutual responsibility, and improved quality in their sex life, and a healthy form of family planning”. Testimony to the same effect is reported (without much reference to Catholic doctrine) in Shivanandan M., Natural Sex. (New York: Berkely Books, 1981): (London: Hamlyn Paperbacks) 1980. The hazard of self-absorption is increased by the general role that subconscious motivation may exercise in the sexual area, even in normal persons, so that it can incline them to be, to a greater or lesser extent, preoccupied with satisfying needs of their own which are more or less egocentric and immature, without their being aware of this, See Rulla L. M., Imoda F., Ridick J., Antropologia della Vocazione Cristiana, II: confer me esistenziali, Edizioni Piemme, Casale Monferrato(AL), 1986, sections 8.2, 8.3.3 and 8.3.4, or the same sections in Rulla, Ridick, Imoda, Anthropology of the Christian Vocation. II: existential confirmation, Gregorian University Press, Rome; in press.

Periodic abstinence does not effect the same deformation; “Familiaris Consortio”, 32 (par. 5) reads: “When, instead, by means of recourse to periods of infertility, the couple respect the inseparable connection between the unitive and procreative meanings of human sexuality, they are acting as ‘ministers’ of God's plan and they ‘benefit from’ their sexuality according to the original dynamism of ‘total’ self-giving, without manipulation or alteration”. See also “Humanae Vitae” 13 and 16. Periodic abstinence is an acceptable way of avoiding the direct exclusion of procreation and also of avoiding irresponsible parenthood, though periodic abstinence might also be abused; see Finnis, op. cit., pp. 48-49.

Physical life is the most basic of gifts, on which all other values of the person follow (“Donum Vitae”, Introduction, 4). It brings into being a human person, “the only creature on earth which God willed for itself” (“Gaudium et Spes”, 24). The soul of each person is immediately created by God (see note 9 above). The child is the greatest (“Gaudium et Spes”, 50) and most gratuitous (“Donum Vitae”, II.8) gift in marriage.

“Gaudium et Spes”, 50: “the couple [should] be ready with stout hearts to cooperate with the love of the Creator and Savior, who through them will enlarge and enrich his own family day by day”. On this cooperation, see also “Donum Vitae”, II.1, “Familiaris Consortio”, 14 and 28, and “Humanae Vitae”, 13, as cited in note 9 above.

Von Hildebrand D. “Sex”, New Catholic Encyclopedia, 13, 147–150.

This point is stressed by May, op. cit., pp. 32–34.

“Donum Vitae”, 11.5, “It is acknowledged that IVF and ET … cannot be preferred to the specific acts of conjugal union, given the risks involved for the child and the difficulties of the procedure.”

“Donum Vitae” (11.5) discusses IVF-ET as carried out by third parties; this corresponds to the usual practice. But since the process involved, unlike sexual procreation, implies no uniquely personal commitment, its moral quality depends on the nature of the process itself rather than on who performs it.

See notes 9 and 17 above. Note also that nobody has a right, in the strict sense, to have a child: “Donurn Vitae”, 11.8, and see Chapelle, op. cit., p. 501, and May, op. cit., p. 34.

Contrast “Donum Vitae”, 11.4(c) with its insistence that “the generation of a child must therefore be the fruit of that mutual giving which is realized in the conjugal act wherein the spouses cooperate as servants and not as masters in the work of the Creator who is Love”.

“Donum Vitae”, 11.5: “Such a relationship of domination is in itself contrary to the dignity and equality that must be common to parents and children”: also Finnis, op. cit., pp. 54-55: Chapelle, op. cit., p. 498: May, op. cit., pp. 35–36.

It follows that sterility which cannot otherwise be remedied, while indeed tragic, must be accepted in the spirit and with the alternatives given in “Donum Vitae” (11.8) and “Familiaris Consortio” (14). Help to those who cannot procreate is a topic of great importance, but is not the subject of the present brief contribution.

“Humanae Vitae”, 13, draws an explicit parallel between forcing the use of marriage on one's spouse and the use of contraception, both being opposed to the true moral order. A further parallel with IVE-ET is suggested in the present essay. Elsewhere i have argued that homosexual relations are characterized in the first place by a deformation of the unitive meaning and not only by the absence of the procreative meaning ( Kiley B. ‘Sulla recente lettera della Congregazione per la Dottrina della Fede. La Cura Pastorale delle Personc Omosessuali: nota psicologica”. L'Osservatore Romano, 14 novembre 1986, p. 6; English translation in the English weekly edition of the Osservatore. 12 January 1987, pp. 6-7): this would be a further example of the requirement that the two meanings be kept united if each is to retain its integrity.

“Familiaris Consortio”, as cited in note 11 above.

Journalistic discussion of homologous in-vitro fertilization seems generally to presuppose that the desire of sterile parents for a child is an unquestionably sufficient motive which in turn makes acceptable any technical procedures employed. This, of course, is hardly surprising in a context in which the parents' wishes can also be sufficient grounds for legally-accepted abortion. One possible reason for the acceptance of homologous in-vitro fertilization is the spontaneous tendency to see such a procedure as like any other medical treatment, in which patient and physician form an alliance to dominate the illness. This overlooks the difference between dominating an illness and donating life to a new human person. More generally, popular discussion of this problem seems to support the assertion of Alasdair MacIntyre that “to a large degree people now think, talk and act as if emotivism were true, no matter what their avowed theoretical standpoint may be” (After Virtue, second edition. University of Notre Dame Press, 1984, p. 22), while “Emotivism is the doctrine that all evaluative judgments and more specifically all moral judgments are nothing but expressions of preference, expressions of attitude or feeling, insofar as they are moral or evaluative in character” (After Virtue, second edition. University of Notre Dame Press, 1984, pp. 11-12). The logic of proportionalism seems to lead some professional moralists to a similar difficulty with the teaching of “Donum Vitae”, especially as regards homologous in-vitro fertilization. This logic is unable to provide an antidote to emotivism, and is very much a logic of domination, since it places the moral agent on the level of a demiurge choosing among future possible worlds ( Finnis J. M. Fundamentals of Ethics. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), pp. 118–120, 11, 111, 126, and therefore turns the moral community into a group of conflicting demiurges, insofar as they cannot be presumed to agree about the most desirable future world. (And one may wonder, in passing, what authority any magisterium could hope to exercise over a group of demiurges in conflict). Proportionalism also involves denying any independent moral quality of the act-as-means (Connery. J. R., “Catholic Ethics: has the norm for rule-making changed?” Theological Studies 42 (1981) p. 246). The radical difference between the kind of logic used by “Donum Vitae” and the logic of proportionalism seems to explain why some commentators on “Donum Vitae” (especially as to homologous in vitro fertilization) seem to reject the Instruction a priori, without giving its arguments any fair consideration; see, for example. McCormick, R. A., “The Vatican Document on Bioethics”, America, April 11, 1987, pp. 247-248, and Selling, J. A., “The Instruction on Respect for Life: I. The Fundamental Methodology”, Louvain Studies, 12, 212-244; “The Instruction on Respect for Life: II, Dealing with the Issues”, Selling, J. A., “The Instruction on Respect for Life: I. The Fundamental Methodology”, Louvain Studies, 12, pp. 323-361. (The moral method favored by Selling becomes particularly clear on pp. 225-226 of the first article.)