PiusPopeXII, Allocution to the Fourth International Conference of Catholic Doctors, 29 September 1949: AAS 41 (1949) 557–561. English translation from Papal Teachings on Matrimony, ed. The Benedictine Monks of Solemes. 381-385, trans. Michael J. Byrnes (Boston: St. Paul Editions, 1963); Allocution to Italian Catholic Midwives, 29 October 1951: AAS 43 (1951) 835-854, English translation from Papal Teachings on Matrimony, 405-434; Allocution to the Second World Congress on Fertility and Human Sterility, 19 May 1956: AAS 48 (1956) 467-474, English translation from Papal Teachings on Matrimony, 482-492; and Allocution to the Seventh International Hematological Congress, 12 September 1958: AAS 50 (1958) 732-740, English translation from Papal Teachings on Matrimony, 513-525.
2.
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Instruction on Respect for Human Life in Its Origin and on the Dignity of Procreation, Donum Vitae, 22 February 1987: AAS 80 (1988) 70-102. English translation from Origins 16, no. 40 (1986-1987) 697-711.
3.
For example, Donum Vitae gives a negative evaluation to heterologous artificial fertilization that is carried out by two different methods: artificial insemination and in vitro fertilization. The instruction also gives a negative evaluation to homologous in vitro fertilization. (The term “heterologous” refers to those means that entail a third party intrusion into the unity of a married couple, e.g., donation of sperm or ova, or a surrogate mother. The term “homologous” refers to those means that involve only a married couple and the medical technicians.) However, with respect to homologous artificial insemination, the instruction gave a negative evaluation except for those technical means that facilitate but do not substitute the conjugal act. See Donum Vitae, II: AAS 80 (1988) 85-97. Unfortunately, the terminology of the instruction muddies the water at this point insofar as it uses homologous artificial insemination as a genus with two species: 1) those means which substitute the conjugal act, and 2) those means which facilitate the conjugal act. From a moral perspective the two species are entirely different types of actions; thus, it is better not to include them under the same genus of homologous artificial insemination. An improvement in terminology would consider homologous artificial insemination to refer to those means which replace the conjugal act and assisted insemination to refer to those means that assist the conjugal act. The Catechism of the Catholic Church takes a step in the right direction here when it states without qualification that homologous artificial insemination is morally unacceptable. However, the Catechism fails to mention that those means to achieve conception that assist the conjugal act are morally acceptable. See Catechism of the Catholic Church (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1994. English translation, Liguori. MO: Liguori Publications, 1994) no. 2377.
EdwardV., VacekSJ, “Vatican Instruction on Reproductive Technology,”Theological Studies49 (1988) 130–131.
6.
For the purposes of this essay, the procedure know as Tubal Ovum Transfer (TOT), called by some Tubal Ovum Transfer with Sperm (TOTS), and Gamete Intrafallopian Transfer (GIFT) will be considered interchangeably. Some use these names to refer to virtually identical procedures, while others use the various terms to refer to different, but similar procedures. This thesis will consider GIFT/TOTS in this way. The ova are obtained by laparoscopy. The sperm are collected after intercourse using a perforated silastic sheath, or from the vagina or cervix, and then “washed.” The gametes are placed in a catheter separated by an air bubble or culture medium and then injected into the fallopian tube. Though in practice the sperm are obtained from the silastic sheath and not from the vagina or cervix, some suggest that the sperm could be obtained from the vagina or cervix. Whether the sperm utilized in the procedure are intentionally withheld from the conjugal act and collected in the silastic sheath, or whether they are retrieved from the cervix or vagina, does have moral relevance, which will be subsequently noted. For an account of the development of this procedure, see Donald T. DeMarco, Biotechnology and the Assault on Parenthood (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1991) 214-219.
7.
CaffarraCarlo, “The Moral Problem of Artificial Insemination,”Linacre Quarterly55, no. 1 (1988) 37–43.
8.
CaffarraCarlo, “The Moral Problem of Artificial Insemination,”Linacre Quarterly55, no. 1 (1988), 42. Emphasis original.
9.
Donum Vitae, II., B., 4: AAS 80 (1988) 91.
10.
Tonti-FilippiniNicholas, “«Donum Vitae» and Gamete Intra-Fallopian Tube Transfer,” in «Humanae Vitae»: 20 Anni Dopo: Atti del Congresso Internazionale di Teologia Morale (Roma, 9-12 novembre 1988) (Milan: Edizioni Ares, 1989) 797. It should be noted that the conjugal act in and of itself does not cause the coming to be of a new human person. Nonetheless, for the purposes of this investigation it will be sufficient to examine only how the conjugal act causes conception/fertilization, for that is the role it plays in the coming to be of a new human person. Along this line Josef Seifert observes: “We could see the way in which a new human person proceeds from the conjugal act even in a different and more differentiated light if we took into the consideration the fact that the human activity is only a partial cause of the new human person, whose spiritual-substantial being (whose soul) can never be sufficiently explained either by biological chains of causality or by human personal acts. Yet we prescind here from this aspect as much as possible because it involves a complexity in the causes of a new human person to clarify which is not necessary in order to understand the distinction between assistance and substitution of the conjugal act.” Josef Seifert, “Substitution of the Conjugal Act or Assistance to It? IVF, GIFT and Some Other Medical Interventions. Philosophical Reflections on the Vatican Declaration «Donum Vitae»” Anthropotes 4 (1988) 274.
11.
GrieseOrville N., Catholic Identity in Health Care: Principles and Practice (Braintree, MA: The Pope John XXIII Medical-Moral Research Center, 1987) 47. It is important to note that in the manner in which GIFT/TOTS is most commonly employed, conception would most likely result from the sperm that are intentionally withheld from the conjugal act and collected in the silastic sheath, not from the sperm deposited in the vagina. This has important moral relevance, which will be pointed out in the consideration of Germain Grisez's position.
12.
Griese, 48. Lloyd Hess also believes the short time duration would preserve the moral unity between the conjugal act and the technical procedure. See Lloyd Hess, “Assisting the Infertile Couple,”Ethics and Medics11, no. 2 (1986) 3.
13.
McCarthyDonald, “TOTS is for Kids,”Ethics and Medics13, no. 12 (1988) 2.
14.
McCarthyDonald, “GIFT? Yes!”Ethics and Medics18, no. 9 (1993) 3–4; “Response,” in Reproductive Technologies, Marriage and the Church, ed. McCarthyDonald G. (Braintree, MA: The Pope John XXIII Medical-Moral Research Center, 1988) 142-144; “TOTS is for Kids,” 1-2.
15.
GrisezGermain, The Way of the Lord Jesus, Volume 3: Difficult Moral Questions (Quincy, IL: Franciscan Press, 1997) 245, 247-248.
16.
GrisezGermain, The Way of the Lord Jesus, Volume 3: Difficult Moral Questions (Quincy, IL: Franciscan Press, 1997), 245, 247.
17.
GrisezGermain, The Way of the Lord Jesus, Volume 3: Difficult Moral Questions (Quincy, IL: Franciscan Press, 1997), 248.
18.
McCarthy, “GIFT? Yes!”4.
19.
McCarthy, “Response,”145.
20.
Sandra Magie sees in vivo conception as the primary criterion, for it preserves the meanings and values that are expressed in the language of the body and the union of human persons. However, she merely repeats Donum Vitae and does not elaborate why this is so. MagieSandra C., A Determination of the Liceity of Gamete Intrafallopian Transfer In Light of Magisterial Teachings on Selected Medical Technologies. Dissertation. (Rome: Academia Alphonsiana, 1991) 123, 125.
21.
CataldoPeter J., “The Newest Reproductive Technologies: Applying Catholic Teaching,” in The Gospel of Life and the Vision of Health Care,” Proceedings of the Fifteenth Workshop for Bishops, ed. SmithRussell E. (Braintree, MA: The Pope John XXIII Medical-Moral Research Center, 1996) 79. Emphasis original.
22.
CataldoPeter J., “The Newest Reproductive Technologies: Applying Catholic Teaching,” in The Gospel of Life and the Vision of Health Care,” Proceedings of the Fifteenth Workshop for Bishops, ed. SmithRussell E. (Braintree, MA: The Pope John XXIII Medical-Moral Research Center, 1996), 81, 86.
23.
CataldoPeter J., “The Newest Reproductive Technologies: Applying Catholic Teaching,” in The Gospel of Life and the Vision of Health Care,” Proceedings of the Fifteenth Workshop for Bishops, ed. SmithRussell E. (Braintree, MA: The Pope John XXIII Medical-Moral Research Center, 1996), 86. Emphasis original.
24.
CataldoPeter J., “The Newest Reproductive Technologies: Applying Catholic Teaching,” in The Gospel of Life and the Vision of Health Care,” Proceedings of the Fifteenth Workshop for Bishops, ed. SmithRussell E. (Braintree, MA: The Pope John XXIII Medical-Moral Research Center, 1996), 80.
25.
CataldoPeter J., “The Newest Reproductive Technologies: Applying Catholic Teaching,” in The Gospel of Life and the Vision of Health Care,” Proceedings of the Fifteenth Workshop for Bishops, ed. SmithRussell E. (Braintree, MA: The Pope John XXIII Medical-Moral Research Center, 1996), 82. The internal citation is from Donum Vitae, II, B, 4, which in turn is a citation of the Code of Canon Law, c. 1061.
26.
CataldoPeter J., “The Newest Reproductive Technologies: Applying Catholic Teaching,” in The Gospel of Life and the Vision of Health Care,” Proceedings of the Fifteenth Workshop for Bishops, ed. SmithRussell E. (Braintree, MA: The Pope John XXIII Medical-Moral Research Center, 1996), 84. The internal citation is from Robert Kreyche, First Philosophy (New York: Henry Holt, 1959) 236.
27.
CataldoPeter J., “The Newest Reproductive Technologies: Applying Catholic Teaching,” in The Gospel of Life and the Vision of Health Care,” Proceedings of the Fifteenth Workshop for Bishops, ed. SmithRussell E. (Braintree, MA: The Pope John XXIII Medical-Moral Research Center, 1996)
28.
Kreyche, 235–236. Emphasis original.
29.
Cataldo, “The Newest Reproductive Technologies: Applying Catholic Teaching,”84.
30.
Cataldo, “The Newest Reproductive Technologies: Applying Catholic Teaching,” 84-85; “Reproductive Technologies,”Ethics and Medics21, no. 1 (1996) 2; and “GIFT as Assistance,” Ethics and Medics 22, no. 12 (1997) 3.
31.
Cataldo, “The Newest Reproductive Technologies: Applying Catholic Teaching,”88; “Reproductive Technologies,” 2; and “GIFT as Assistance,” 3.
32.
Cataldo, “The Newest Reproductive Technologies: Applying Catholic Teaching,”85, 86, 88; and “Reproductive Technologies,” 2. For the sake of argument, Cataldo here presumes that in vitro fertilization could be employed with a conjugal act and the sperm collected in a morally permissible manner. Nonetheless, IVF would still be immoral because it supplies the immediate causal factors that bring about fertilization.
33.
Cataldo, “The Newest Reproductive Technologies: Applying Catholic Teaching,”86. Emphasis original.
34.
Cataldo, “The Newest Reproductive Technologies: Applying Catholic Teaching,”, 81.
35.
Cataldo, “The Newest Reproductive Technologies: Applying Catholic Teaching,”, 82. The internal citation is from Donum Vitae, II, B, 4, which in turn is a citation of the Code of Canon Law, c. 1061.
36.
Cataldo, “The Newest Reproductive Technologies: Applying Catholic Teaching,”, 83.
37.
Cataldo, “The Newest Reproductive Technologies: Applying Catholic Teaching,”, Emphasis added.
38.
Cataldo, “The Newest Reproductive Technologies: Applying Catholic Teaching,”, 83–84.
39.
Cataldo, “The Newest Reproductive Technologies: Applying Catholic Teaching,”, Emphasis added.
40.
Cataldo, “The Newest Reproductive Technologies: Applying Catholic Teaching,”, 83.
41.
Cataldo, “The Newest Reproductive Technologies: Applying Catholic Teaching,”, Emphasis added.
42.
Cataldo, “The Newest Reproductive Technologies: Applying Catholic Teaching,”, 83–84.
43.
MartinO., VaskeSJ, An Introduction to Metaphysics (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1963) 128. Emphasis original.
44.
Cataldo, “The Newest Reproductive Technologies: Applying Catholic Teaching,”84–85.
Cataldo, “The Newest Reproductive Technologies: Applying Catholic Teaching,”, This consideration of IVF requires that there be a natural conjugal act and that the sperm utilized in the procedure be collected in a morally acceptable way.
47.
Donum Vitae, II., B., 4: AAS 80 (1988) 91.
48.
Tonti-Filippini, 798.
49.
Cataldo, “GIFT as Assistance,”3.
50.
Cataldo, “The Newest Reproductive Technologies: Applying Catholic Teaching,”79, 92.
51.
Cataldo, “The Newest Reproductive Technologies: Applying Catholic Teaching,”85, 92-93; and “GIFT as Assistance,” 3-4.
52.
DeMarco, Biotechnology and the Assault on Parenthood, 226-233; “Catholic Moral Teaching and TOT/GIFT,” in Reproductive Technologies, Marriage and the Church, ed. McCarthyDonald G. (Braintree, MA: The Pope John XXIII Medical-Moral Research Center, 1988) 130–135; and “GIFT as Replacement,” Ethics and Medics 22, no. 11 (1997) 4; Thomas J. O'Donnell, SJ, Medicine and Christian Morality, 3rd ed. (New York: Alba House, 1996) 263-264; and John M. Haas, “GIFT? No!,” Ethics and Medics 18, no. 9 (1993) 2-3.
53.
DeMarco, Biotechnology and the Assault on Parenthood, 210.
54.
Cataldo, “The Newest Reproductive Technologies: Applying Catholic Teaching, 92–93; and “Reproductive Technologies,” 2-3.
55.
Tonti-Filippini, 801.
56.
Tonti-Filippini, 799–801.
57.
Tonti-Filippini, 799–800.
58.
Cataldo, “The Newest Reproductive Technologies: Applying Catholic Teaching,”92–93.
59.
SuttonAgneta, Infertility and Assisted Conception What You Should Know: Answers to Questions about Medical Techniques of Assisted Conception (London: The Catholic Bishop's Joint Committee on Bio-Ethical Issues, 1993) 46.
60.
SuttonAgneta, Infertility and Assisted Conception What You Should Know: Answers to Questions about Medical Techniques of Assisted Conception (London: The Catholic Bishop's Joint Committee on Bio-Ethical Issues, 1993) 46.
61.
SuttonAgneta, Infertility and Assisted Conception What You Should Know: Answers to Questions about Medical Techniques of Assisted Conception, 46–47.
62.
SuttonAgneta, Infertility and Assisted Conception What You Should Know: Answers to Questions about Medical Techniques of Assisted Conception, 47.
63.
SuttonAgneta, Infertility and Assisted Conception What You Should Know: Answers to Questions about Medical Techniques of Assisted Conception, 46–47.
64.
SeifertJosef, “Substitution of the Conjugal Act or Assistance to It? IVF, GIFT and Some Other Medical Interventions. Philosophical Reflections on the Vatican Declaration«Donum Vitae»” Anthropotes4 (1988) 282.
65.
SeifertJosef, “Substitution of the Conjugal Act or Assistance to It? IVF, GIFT and Some Other Medical Interventions. Philosophical Reflections on the Vatican Declaration«Donum Vitae»” Anthropotes4 (1988), 274.
66.
Cataldo, “The Newest Reproductive Technologies: Applying Catholic Teaching,”92.
67.
Seifert, 282.
68.
Cf. Donum Vitae, II., B., 4: AAS 80 (1988) 91-92. See also, DoerflerJohn F., “Is GIFT Compatible with the Teaching of Donum Vitae?,”Linacre Quarterly64 (1997) 19–22.
69.
Seifert, 282.
70.
Seifert, 276.
71.
Seifert, 276–277.
72.
Seifert, 276.
73.
Seifert, 282
74.
Seifert, 282
75.
Seifert, 277–278.
76.
ReithHerman, The Metaphysics of St. Thomas Aquinas (Milwaukee: Bruce, 1958) 163.
77.
Cataldo, “GIFT as Assistance,”3–4; and “The Newest Reproductive Technologies: Applying Catholic Teaching,” 85, 92-93.
78.
Seifert, 278–279.
79.
Seifert, 279.
80.
Seifert, 279.
81.
Seifert, 279.
82.
DeMarco, “Catholic Moral Teaching and TOT/GIFT,”133; Benedict M. Ashley, OP, and Kevin D. O'Rourke, OP, Health Care Ethics, 4th ed. (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1997) 247; William E. May, “Catholic Teaching on the Laboratory Generation of Human Life,” in The Gift of Life, The Proceedings of a National Conference on the Vatican Instruction on Reproductive Ethics and Technology, ed. Marilyn Wallace, RSM, Ph.D., and Thomas W. Hilgers, MD (Omaha, NE: Pope Paul VI Institute Press, 1990) 88; and John M. Haas, “GIFT? No!” Ethics and Medics 18, no. 9 (1993) 2 Donald DeMarco also sees another way in which conception is dissociated form the conjugal act. He observes that when GIFT/TOTS is employed, the success of the conjugal act and the success of the technical procedure frustrate one another. The sperm are collected using a perforated silastic sheath, allowing some of the sperm to be deposited naturally in the vagina. The sperm that are collected in the sheath are then treated and introduced along with an ovum into a fallopian tube by means of a catheter. If any of the sperm introduced into the fallopian tube by the technical procedure fertilizes the ovum, then this success of the procedure prevents any of the sperm naturally deposited in the vagina from fertilizing the ovum, thus frustrating the success of the natural conjugal act. The converse is also true. If any of the sperm naturally deposited in the vagina fertilizes the ovum, then the success of the technical procedure is frustrated. This is one of the reasons DeMarco judges GIFT/TOTS to be illicit. However, this is not helpful. When any sperm fertilizes an ovum, it prevents the other sperm from doing so. If the injection of sperm, which are obtained with a perforated silastic sheath in an act of intercourse, is considered an act of assistance, the success of the procedure, which prevents other sperm deposited in the vagina from fertilizing the ovum, is not much different from what takes place in unassisted intercourse, in which the sperm that fertilizes that ovum prevents the other sperm from doing so. See Biotechnology and the Assault on Parenthood, 228; “Catholic Moral Teaching and TOT/GIFT,” 133-134; and “GIFT as Replacement,” 4.
83.
Cataldo, “The Newest Reproductive Technologies: Applying Catholic Teaching,”63.
84.
Cataldo, “The Newest Reproductive Technologies: Applying Catholic Teaching,”63; and Tonti-Filippini, 795-796.
85.
Cataldo, “The Newest Reproductive Technologies: Applying Catholic Teaching,”64.
86.
Cataldo, “The Newest Reproductive Technologies: Applying Catholic Teaching,”, 87.
