The New Reproductive Technologies: An Overview and Theological Assessment

The translation is adapted from the NAB. Subsequent references will be to this version unless otherwise noted.

Studies indicate some 8.4% of women between the ages of 15 and 44 have impaired ability to have children. See Howard Jones M.D. , “The Infertile Couple”, New England Journal of Medicine 329, no. 23 (Dec. 2, 1993), 1710.

On infertility treatments as a billion dollar per year industry, see Health Facts 19, no. 176 (January, 1994).

See Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Instruction on Bioethics, Donum Vitae (February 22, 1987), II, B. 8.

Paul John II , Encyclical Letter, Evangelium Vitae, no. 14. The citation is from Origins 24, no. 42 (April 6, 1995), 695.

The affirmation that “God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1: 1b) in Hebrew idiom is an indication that God created everything — one names the two extremes (i.e. heaven, earth) so as to encompass everything between them.

For other OT texts which refer to humanity being formed from the earth and yet possessing the breath/spirit of God, see Job 33: 4, 6; 34: 14-15; and Wis. 15: 10-11.

See Martin Francis , “Old Testament Anthropology,” unpublished paper, p. 4.

See Paul John II , General Audiences of March 26, 1980 and October 6, 1982 in Theology of the Body: Human Love in the Divine Plan (Boston: Pauline Books and Media, 1997), 83–86, 333-36.

Evangelium Vitae, 25, pp. 698–99.

On the idea of martyrdom as witness to the highest values of the moral order, see Pope Paul John II , Encyclical Letter, Veritatis Splendor (August 6, 1993), nos. 90-93.

On the early Christian practice of sexual renunciation as a form of proclamation see Peter Brown, The Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988).

Parts of this section are adapted from my article “Made Not Begotten: A Theological Analysis of Human Cloning,” Homiletic and Pastoral Review 98, no. 9 (June, 1998): 16–21; rpt. Ethics and Medicine (1998), 69-72.

See Westerman Claus , Genesis 1-11: A Commentary, trans. John J. Scullion, S.J. (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1984), 142–61; cf. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics Vol. III.4, trans. A.T. Mackay, T.H.L. Parker, Harold Knight, Henry A. Kennedy, and John Marks, ed. G.W. Bromiley and T.F. Torrance (Edinburgh: T.&T. Clark, 1961), 116-41.

On seven as the number of perfection and completion in biblical thought see John L. , McKenzie S.J. , “Seven” Dictionary of the Bible ((New York: MacMillan, 1965), 794.

On the dominance of instrumental reason in western culture, see Taylor Charles , The Ethics of Authenticity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991), 93–108.

The phrase is originally used in reference to adam's role in the garden.

My translation.

It is noteworthy that the canonical shape of the text which juxtaposes the two creation stories does not revoke this blessing (Gen. 1: 28) in the curses pronounced on the primordial couple after sin (Gen. 3: 14-19) — the serpent and the ground are cursed but the man and woman are not themselves cursed. In the quasi-historical narratives which follow the creation stories, this blessing is primarily understood as procreation. See Elliot Peter J. , What God Has Joined: The Sacramentality of Marriage (New York: Alba House, 1990), 11.

On the gap between technological progress and moral reflection in the modern world, see Pope Paul John II , Encyclical Letter, Redemptor Hominis (March 4, 1979), no. 15.

This unity of nature is especially clear in the language of the second creation account where woman is described as a “helper matching him” (ezer kenegdo). Lisa Sowle Cahill, following Phylis Trible, observes that the term ezer has no connotation of inferiority in the Hebrew of the OT. See Cahill, Between the Sexes: Foundations for a Christian Ethics of Sexuality (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985), 54; Phylis Trible, God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality, Overtures to Biblical Theology, 2 (Philadelphia Fortress, 1978), 90. This observation is also borne out in the play on words between man (is) and woman (issa) in adam's poetic exclamation in Gen. 2: 23.

On the description of the creation of woman in the second creation account as simultaneously a description of the marriage covenant, see Grabowski John S. , “Covenantal Sexuality,” Église et Theologie 27 (1996): 229–52. For a broader overview of marriage as a covenant in OT thought, see Gordon Paul Hugenberger, Marriage as a Covenant: A Study of Biblical Law and Ethics Developed from the Perspective of Malachi, Supplements to Vetus Testamentum, 52 (Leiden: Brill, 1994).

This teaching is comprised by the pope's weekly general audiences given between September 1979 and November 1984 which have been collected, together with other papal teaching in the Volume: Theology of the Body (see note 9 above). What follows is a summary of some of the main lines of this catechesis.

Cf. The General Audience of September 5, 1979, in Theology of the Body, 25–27.

On the “originality” of men and women as persons, see the General Audience of November 7, 1979 in Theology of the Body, 42–45.

Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes, no. 24. The citation is from The Documents of Vatican II, Walter M. , Abbott S.J. , ed. (Piscataway, NJ: New Century Publishers, 1966), 223.

On the nuptial meaning of the body, see the General Audience of January 9, 1980 in Theology of the Body, 60–63.

See the General Audience of March 5, 1980 in Theology of the Body, 77–83.

On the idea of sex as a language of the body, see the General Audiences of January 5, 12, 19 and 26, 1983, in Theology of the Body, 354–65.

On the relationship of Paul VI's inseparability principle to John Paul II's analysis of the language of the body, see May William E. , Marriage: The Rock on Which the Family is Built (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1995), 90–92.

For a consideration of this trajectory of the pope's thought, see Grabowski John S. , “Evangelium Vitae and Humanae Vitae: A Tale of Two Encyclicals,” Homiletic and Pastoral Review 97, no. 2 (November 1996): 7–15.

See Gerald Coleman S.S. , Human Sexuality: An All-Embracing Gift (New York: Alba House, 1992), 365.

See Coleman, 357 (Coleman says the two to eight cell stage). The actual steps of IVF-ET involve: hyperstimulation of multiple ovarian follicles through medication; oocyte retrieval through a needle or laproscopy; fertilization of the oocyte through the introduction of washed sperm in a controlled environment and subsequent incubation and monitoring of the embryos; and transfer of the developing embryo(s) to a woman's uterine cavity. See Alba House, 357–60.

See Coleman, 357 (Coleman says the two to eight cell stage). The actual steps of IVF-ET involve: hyperstimulation of multiple ovarian follicles through medication; oocyte retrieval through a needle or laproscopy; fertilization of the oocyte through the introduction of washed sperm in a controlled environment and subsequent incubation and monitoring of the embryos; and transfer of the developing embryo(s) to a woman's uterine cavity. See Alba House, 357–60.

See Coleman, 362. Because GIFT aims to produce conception in vivo it can be distinguished from other IVF-related procedures. The moral relevance of this distinction will be considered below.

For an extensive analysis of the Baby M case as itself an argument against surrogacy, see Donald Marco De , Biotechnology and the Assault on Parenthood (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1991), 148–55.

This is the current usage in the United Kingdom. See West Michael D. , “Testimony before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies,” Dec. 2, 1998, pp. 2–3.

Cf. Donum Vitae, II, B, 4–5.

The same argument was advanced by doctors and theologians to justify the use of the progesterone pill in the 1960s. See, for example, Rock John , The Time Has Come (New York: Knopf, 1963); and Louis Janssens, “Morale conjugale et progestogènes,” Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses 39 (1963): 787-826, esp. 820-24.

See Wojtyla Karol , Love and Responsibility, trans. H.T. Willets (New York: Farrar, Strous, and Giroux, 1981), 57, 230.

See Donum Vitae II, A, 2. Some Catholic authors attempt to distinguish the more objectionable heterologous forms of these procedures and their homologous counterparts, arguing that the “simple” cases of AIH or IVF-ET which avoids the destruction of embryos could, in some cases, be morally licit. See, for example, John Mahoney, S.J., “Human Fertility Control,” Readings in Moral Theology, 8; Dialogue about Catholic Sexual Teaching, Curran Charles E. , and Richard A. , McCormick S.J. , eds. (Mahwah: Paulist, 1993), 251-66; and Lisa Sowle Canill, Sex, Gender and Christian Ethics, New Studies in Christian Ethics (Cambridge: New Studies in Christian Ethics, 1996), 217-54. However, this argument does not fully address the argument based on the inseparability principle above nor the others considered below.

It is true that this right is not an absolute one and might be waived in some circumstances in the interest of the child (i.e., adoption).

See May, 95–99.

Meilaender Gilbert , “Begetting and Cloning,” Address to the National Bioethics Advisory Commission, March 13, 1997. Reprinted in First Things (June/July, 1997), 42.

See Grabowski , “Made Not Begotten,” 19–20. It is true that due to environmental and personality factors, no clone would ever be exactly like the person from whom he or she was copied as is also the case with genetic or “identical” twins.

James Burtchaell C.S.C. , The Giving and Taking of Life: Essays Ethical (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1989), 134.

See Donum Vitae, II, B, 8.

See Donum Vitae, I, 1.

On this point, see De Marco, 115–140.

In a study of 1,145 couples, Collins John A. M.D. , found that expensive fertility treatments offered only a 6% improvement in the rate of pregnancy over those couples who simply “kept trying.” See New England Journal of Medicine 309, no. 20 (Nov. 17, 1983), 1201. In a later study (published in Sterility Fertility Journal [Fall, 1993]) of 2,000 couples, the same physician found the results of the two approaches “roughly the same.” The 1997 S.A.R.T. Summary, however, found that the best IVF clinics have an approximately 20% rate of pregnancy per cycle of IVF.

Donum Vitae, II, B, 7. The citation is from Respect for Human Life, Vatican translation (Boston: Daughters of St. Paul, 1987), 32-33. The document is quoting Pius XII, “Discourse to those taking part in the 4th International Congress of Catholic Doctors, September 29, 1949.

See Coleman , 364.

See Coleman , 362.

This is the judgement of David Bohr, Catholic Moral Tradition: In Christ a New Creation (Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor, 1990), 289; cf. Coleman, 363-64. Other Catholic authors are critical even of modified versions of GIFT. See, for example, De Marco, 219-35.

For other potentially acceptable procedures, see: Cofino E. , “Transcervical Balloon Tuboplasty: A Multicenter Study,” Journal of the American Medical Association 264.16 (October 24-31, 1990): 2079–82; J.M. Kasia, et al., “Laproscopic Fimbrioplasty and Neosalpingostomy: Experience of the Yaounde General Hospital, Cameroon,” European Journal of Obstetrical Gynecological Reproductive Biology 73: 1 (May 1997): 71-77; and K. Sueoka, et al., “Falloposcopic Tuboplasty for Bilateral Tubal Occlusion. A Novel Infertility Treatment as an Alternative to In Vitro Fertilization?,” Human Reproduction, 18: 1 (January 1998): 71-74. I am indebted to Dr. Hanna Klaus for these references.

I am indebted to Amy Vineyard for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.