"Procreating" (excerpts from the New Charter for Health Care Workers)

“11….The inseparable bond between conjugal love and human generation, imprinted on the nature of the human person, is a law by which everyone must be guided and to which everyone is held.”

“12. God Himself ‘wished to share with man a certain special participation in His own creative work. Thus He blessed male and female saying, “Increase and multiply” (Gen 1: 28).’ The generation of a new human being is therefore ‘an event which is deeply human and full of religious meaning, insofar as it involves both the spouses, who form “one flesh” (Gen 2: 24), and God who makes Himself present.’28. The parents ‘actualize in history the original blessing of the Creator - that of transmitting by procreation the Divine image from person to person.’29”

“13…helping parents to procreate responsibly, working to prevent and treat pathologies that interfere with fertility, while protecting sterile couples from an invasive and excessively technology-focused approach that is unworthy of human procreation.”

Fertility Regulation
“14….‘When a new person is born of the conjugal union of the two, he bring with him into the world a particular image and likeness of God Himself: the genealogy of the person is inscribed in the very biology of generation. In affirming that the spouses, as parents, cooperate with God the Creator in conceiving and giving birth to a new human being, we are not speaking merely with reference to the laws of biology….Begetting is the continuation of Creation.’ 31….” 

15. In terms of moral judgment, intentions and motives are insufficient. The “unitive” and “procreative” aspects of the marital act are inseparable.

 “16. When there are justified, responsible reasons for spacing births, and therefore a couple needs to avoid conception, 38 it is licit for the couple to abstain from sexual relations in the fertile periods, which are identified through so-called natural methods of regulating [observing] fertility. On the other hand it is illicit to resort to contraception….”

 “17. The difference between recourse to natural methods and recourse to contraception for the spacing of births is not situated simply at the level of techniques or methods….in the final analysis involves ‘two irreconcilable concepts of the human person and of human sexuality.’47”

“18. The natural methods correspond…to the meaning attributed to conjugal love, which directs and determines the couple’s experience”

“19….Contraception, far from making abortion less common, finds therein its logical extension.”

“20…..voluntary sterilization, whether permanent or temporary, aimed directly at obtaining infertility, whether male or female, is always morally illicit….”

“21. Compulsory sterilization….is morally illicit.”

“22. Suitably trained health care workers…can help promote a human and Christian understanding of sexuality….the Church appeals to health care workers to be suitably trained…and to feel responsible for ‘actually helping] married people to live their love with respect for the structure and finalities of the conjugal act which expresses that love.’58”


Medical responses to marital infertility

“23. The application to human beings of biotechnologies derived from animal fertilization has made possible various interventions on human procreation, raising serious questions about moral permissability….As far as treating infertility is concerned, the new medical techniques must respect three fundamental goods:

(1) the right to life and physical integrity of every human being from conception to natural death;

(2) the unity of marriage, which involves mutual respect for the right of spouses to become parents only through each other;

(3) the specifically human values of sexuality, which require ‘that the procreation of a human person be brought about as the fruit of the conjugal act specific to the love between spouses.’ 60….

It is one indivisible act, both unitive and procreative, conjugal and parental, ‘the expression of the reciprocal gift which, according to Holy Scripture, effects the union “in one flesh”’:61   it is the center from which new life can issue.” 

“24….The dignity of a human person requires that it come into existence as the fruit of a conjugal act…. Every medical means and intervention, in the area of procreation, must function in a way as to assist but never to replace the conjugal act….”

“25. Interventions that aim to remove obstacles to natural fertility,[63]…or that are intended solely either to facilitate the natural act or to bring about the attainment of the proper end of the natural act as it is performed normally, are certainly licit….”

“26. Illicit procedures include homologous in vitro fertilization and embryo transfer (IVF-ET), in which conception occurs not within the mother but outside of her body….

“27. The spouses desire for a child, however sincere and intense it may be, does not legitimize recourse to techniques that are contrary to the truth of human generation and to the dignity of the new human being.70….” 

“28….These techniques involve the loss of many embryos….we are therefore dealing with factors that aggravate a technical procedure which is already morally illicit in itself.”

“29. Heterologous artificial techniques are vitiated by the unethical character of engendering children apart from marriage. Recourse to the gametes of third persons (i.e., not from the husband or wife) is contrary to the unity of marriage and the fidelity of the spouses, and violates the right of the child to be conceived and brought into the world by the two spouses….A further reason for condeming such techniques is the commodification and eugenic selection of gametes.”

“30…aggravated by the absence of a marital bond, artificial fertilization for unmarried persons and cohabiting couples is morally unacceptable.76…. postmortem insemination…is contrary to the truth of procreation and to the dignity of the child to be born.”

“31. Surrogate motherhood is equally contrary to the dignity of the woman, to the unity of marriage, and to the dignity of the procreation of a human person….”

“32….’every child which comes into the world must in any case be accepted as a living gift of the divine Goodness and must be brought up with love.’79”

Prenatal and preimplantation diagnosis

“33….Prenatal diagnosis …can present ethical problems connected with diagnostic risk and with the purposes for which it is requested.”

“34…. ‘such diagnosis is permissable, with the consent of the parents after they have been adequately informed, if the methods employed safeguard the life and integrity of the embryo and the mother, without subjecting them to disproportionate risks.’82”

“35….Prenatal diagnosis ‘is gravely opposed to the moral law when it is done with the thought of possibly inducing an abortion depending upon the results: a diagnosis which shows the existence of a malformation or a hereditary illness must not be the equivalent of a death sentence.’ [83] Also illicit is any rule or policy proposed in legislation or by scientific societies that promotes a direct connection between prenatal diagnosis and abortion….”

 

“36….Preimplantation genetic diagnosis is in fact an expression of a eugenic mentality that legitimizes selective abortion to prevent the birth of babies afflicted with various illnesses….”   

“37….‘Cryopreservation is incompatible with the respect owed human embryos….’88 ….’All things considered, it needs to be recognized that the thousands of abandoned embryos represent a situation of injustice which in fact cannot be resolved,’ 90 and therefore the practice of cryopreservation must be stopped as soon as possible.”

“38….The cryopreservation of human egg cells for the purpose of in vitro fertilization is unacceptable, even when the reasoning behind cryopreservation is to protect the oocytes from an antitumor therapy that is potentially harmful to them.  It would be a different matter to preserve ovarian tissue for use in an orthotopic autographt transplant, so as to restore fertility after treatments that are potentially harmful to the oocytes.  This practice, in principle, appears to pose no moral problems.”

New attempts at human generation and procreation

“39. Artificial fertilization may pave the way for attempts at or plans for fertilization using human and animal gametes; for the gestation of human embryos in animal or artificial uteruses; and for the asexual reproduction of human beings by means of twin fission, cloning, parthenogenesis, or similar techniques.  These procedures are contrary to the human dignity of the embryo and of procreation, and therefore should be considered morally reprehensible. 91….”