Catholic teaching says that human life begins at the moment of conception, when the egg and sperm unite to form an embryo. But in In Vitro Fertilization the union occurs in a petri dish no more in an embryo. Usually several embryos are created in this way and then a doctor then transfers one or more of them back to a woman’s uterus. The church takes it that the destruction or removal of an embryo during the IVF process is the unnatural ending of a human life.
Dignitas Personae (The Dignity of a Person), an instruction published by the Vatican in 2008, asserts that all of the ways of indefinitely storing or disposing of an embryo are morally wrong. Because the process of IVF threatens or actually ends the life of the embryo which is an act against the 6th commandment.
The official church opposition to IVF was spelled out by the Vatican in 1987 when they gave an instruction on Donum Vitae(The Gift of Life). Having a baby in a way that’s not through the act of sexual intercourse reduces the child to an object of scientific technology, rather than the result of the interaction of God and a couple’s love.
Fundamentally, the church believes that the use of a third party sperm or ovum, even when done for good intentions, breaks down the partnership of husband and wife in the conception of the child. And it also weakens the bond of marriage and family.
Also Catholic faith deemed IVF morally wrong because it is the use of science to evaluate, select, and reject embryos, and making attempt to manipulate the process to determine the characteristics of children to be born.
The Church sees IVF as a child manufacturer rather than being open to a child as a gift from God. It becomes goal-driven, and the facts that it’s the creation of human being which opposes the fact of accepting human beings as free gifts.
Sulmasy, a medical doctor and professor of medicine and ethics at the University of Chicago, advised by saying that people got to begin by recognizing the pain of infertility, saying that it is something of biblical proportions and I believe so. Let’s think of Sarah and Elizabeth stories in the Bible. Those women did not go for IVF or anything technology, rather they had trust in God and waited for God’s intervention which they later received.
Some people take up IVF as a treatment to infertility. But then there are some infertility treatments that are acceptable under church teaching. Instead of using IVF to treat infertility, the Catholic Church suggests the use of drugs to increase the number of eggs produced, surgery to eliminate blockages in the husband’s or wife’s body, and gamete intra-fallopian transfer (GIFT), which is similar to in vitro fertilization. In Gamete Intra-fallopian Transfer, the wife’s eggs and husband’s sperm are both injected into the woman’s fallopian tubes hoping it will result to an embryo.
