VATICAN DOCUMENTS: In-Vitro Fertilization

Answer: In IVF, a fertilizable ovum is removed from a woman's ovary and put in a petri dish (the Latin for dish is vitrum) to which a few concentrated drops of sperm are added. On the third or fourth day the fertilized ovum is put in the woman's womb. Only a small percentage of fertilized ova result in a child being born. The other children are lost or killed.

The instances of infertility can be increased by previous venereal disease, late childbearing, the previous use of intra-uterine devices, irreversible tubal ligation, and previous abortion, for all of which a woman might be responsible. IVF also is expensive.

No person and no couple has a right to a child. A child is a person with rights; it is not merely an object, a possession. A doctor treats disease; he should not do what is over and above the goal of health. He is allowed to treat a woman for a condition causing infertility, but not to "manufacture" her child. And medical treatment of the woman is often more successful than IVF in overcoming infertility.

Other considerations are that (1) in IVF, imperfect sperm are not screened out as they are in natural conception, (2) imperfect or supernumerary foetuses are often killed, (3) more children are born prematurely, with problems resulting from this; (4) medical problems for a woman can occur in IVF more than in natural pregnancy; and (5) the whole process is a degradation of parenthood, which should begin with an intimate and profoundly personal expression of love.

Sometimes the ova that are put in the petri dish come not from a man's wife but from another woman, or the sperm fertilizing his wife's ova come from another man. This can easily result in psychological and legal problems, and certainly results in a moral one.

Questons: What is the status of this teaching?

Answer: . For the reasons given, the Church considers IVF to be mortally sinful. Indeed, one of these reasons is sufficient of itself to outlaw the practice: the degrading of the two-in-one-flesh unity of parents by deflating the importance of the flesh as a vehicle of love in the formation of new life.

This is true even if the ovum and sperm come a husband and wife. How much more so, then, if this is not the case?

Questons: What is the basic text?

Answer: Instruction on Respect for Human Life in Its Origin and on the Dignity of Procreation, by the Congregation of the Faith, Feb. 22, 1987.

L.K.