Conception in a Test-Tube

by Cardinal Carlo Caffarra

The fact of the birth of a human being conceived in a test tube obliges every human person, attentive to the decisive problems of existence, to reflect seriously on an event which can have very serious consequences for the fate of mankind.

It should be said at once that, in our case, it is a question, for the present, merely of an approach to the problem in question more than a direct consideration of the latter. We still lack, in fact, the scientific documentation on the case, the possession of which is the first requisite to formulate a moral judgment.

Let us begin with two observations which are still of a general character but, we think, already deeply relevant as regards the problem dealt with.

First. In all this question, an obvious and basic distinction both in rational and in theological ethics must never be forgotten, the distinction between being able to commit an action physically and being able to commit it lawfully. The mere and simple fact that science offers human freedom the possibility of reaching certain aims, does not thereby imply that it is morally lawful, or even obligatory, to reach them. The concept worked out in the last few years, of a "technological imperative" (on this concept we refer readers to our study, Teologia Morale e scienze positive in Studia Moralia XIV, Rome 1976, pp. 121-133), is meaningless from the ethical point of view since it substantially changes the concept of moral good. In other words: science and the technical possibilities derived from it, are a value, but not the unconditional, ultimate and absolute value. Science and technique must be guided by moral law, that is, by the supreme requirements of the integral good of the human person, which are ultimately based on God.

Second. These last observations have already introduced us to a second and more serious reflection. Scientific research and technical possibilities deriving from it assume meanings that are ultimately contrary according to whether they take place in the context of an atheist or theist culture, more precisely a culture inspired and governed by the principle of creation or by an anthropocentrism that denies Transcendence (The subject is developed by A. Del Noce, Il problema dell'ateismo, Bologna 1964, pp. 83-125). In the first case, in fact, the scientific and technological undertaking takes on a precise meaning of its own. On the one hand, man finds in it one of the fundamental instruments of his liberation; but, on the other hand, it is continually inspired, guided and judged, ultimately by God's creative project imprinted on the human person. In the second case, on the contrary, either science becomes an absolute itself or it puts itself in the service of some idol, that is, of a relative good that is absolutized. It will remain a permanent task of the Church in general and therefore of theology, according to its own specific way, to recall men to a correct view of the meaning of the scientific enterprise. Today it is one of the most urgent tasks.

These two premises of a general character offer us, I think, the framework within which we can attempt an approach to our problems.

The first clarification to be made is the following. The fact that a couple cannot have children owing to a defect, incurable at the present time, of the man or the woman and that they deeply desire parenthood, does not justify in itself recourse to any means to emerge from this situation. That fertility in marriage is a good, and barrenness an evil, is beyond dispute. That fertility, however, is such a good that it is possible to justify ethically recourse to any means in order to attain it, is untenable both from the rational and from the Christian point of view. It does not seem to us, therefore, a decisive argument to stress the fact that, in these situations, the child is supremely desired and is therefore received with great love: there always remains the serious moral question as to the way in which the child was conceived (therefore the motives put forward by Austin and Edwards to justify these experiences, namely, that parenthood is a need and that one has the right to have a family, seems to us insufficient. First summary notions on all that can be found in A. Etzioni, Genetic Fix,. ed. Macmillan, New York-London 1973, p. 66 ff. It can be pointed out at once that, strictly speaking, marriage does not give one the right to a child, but to carry out the acts which by their nature are ordained to procreation).

The problem, then, in its essential terms, is the following: is it ethically lawful, to bring about a human person, completely outside the sexual union of the two spouses? Completely, that is, in such a way that the intervention of a third person has the task not of facilitating the natural act or enabling it, when normally carried out, to reach its purpose, but of replacing it fully. (It is possible, in tact, to hypothesize two kinds of intervention, of a profoundly different nature. It may be a question of an adjuvant intervention which has, precisely, the purpose either of facilitating the natural act or of enabling the natural act normally carried out to reach its purpose. By "natural act, normally carried out" we mean the sexual act, the duty-right to which is given, according to canonical doctrine, by a canonically valid marriage agreement while preceding and permanent incapacity of carrying it out constitutes the impediment of impotence. Or it may be a question of an intervention which replaces the natural act normally carried out to give rise to a human life. Our reflection is limited solely to this second case, since the London case falls into in this sphere.)

To answer this question,—in our opinion—at least the following points must be kept in mind.

1. The Magisterium of the Church has tackled these problems more or less directly and explicitly, giving solutions to concrete problems, in the light, of general guide-lines (cf., above, all three interventions of Pius XII in AAS 41 (1949), pp. 557-561; AAS 43 (1951), pp. 835-854; AAS 48 (1956), pp. 467-474). It will be necessary to answer the question raised above in the light of these guide-lines and solutions, through strict application of the Catholic principles of the interpretation of the documents of the Magisterium.

2. Attention must be paid to the consequences that such a fact may have. They are, it seems to us, of a twofold character. In the first place, the consequences on the human person thus conceived. Is it certain that this form of conception does not have harmful effects on the fruit of the conception itself? Could not the "manipulation" to which it has been subjected be the cause, in the short or long term, of harmful effects on the individual? Has one the right to impose possible serious risks on another human being, the child to be born? (For a first summary notions on this aspect of the problem cf. A. Etzioni, op. cit., pp. 64-67).

In the second place there are consequences of a more general character. With fecundation in vitro a radical separation takes place between the conjugal-sexual act and procreation, since the existence is affirmed of a "place" different from it in which the human person can originate, a type of intervention being performed which is not "added" to the conjugal act normally carried out, but replaces it completely. This affirmation might induce or confirm a substantially partial view of sexuality, passing from one extreme to the other: from a view of sexuality as a function of the species (officium naturae) to a view of sexuality de-biologized (forgive the ugly neologism) substantially and in practice. Both are contrary to a catholic, that is, an integral and symphonic, view of the human person. a substantial unity of spirit and matter. Is not an incomplete definition of human sexuality introduced here, perhaps surreptitiously but no less really? The matter takes on greater weight if we consider the possibility, consistent with the premises, of entrusting the pregnancy to another woman, if the wife is not even able to manage this.

3. Another consideration must be kept in mind, in our opinion. It is now a unanimously accepted fact that, when conception takes place, that is, when the two gametes unite, we have a human individual. This certainty has rightly been recalled often in the recent discussions on abortion. If there is the risk that many ova fecundated in vitro will not be able to survive until the moment of implantation, is it not logical to raise the question whether this type of fecundation does not conflict with the fundamental principle of medical ethics which condemns all experiments when there are justified reasons for thinking that they will bring about the death or serious injury to the subject (cf. Helsinki Declaration 1964 and Tokyo 1975 art. 1, 4; 1, 5; above all: 3, 1; 5, 3 and 3, 4)? It is not correct to answer with an appeal to the value of scientific research for the good of mankind: no man can be used as an instrument for something else.

4. But even if the risks are actually eliminated, at least to the extent of making them insignificant ethically, the fundamental question remains intact: is there a connection, inseparable on the ethical plane, between the conception of a human individual and conjugal-sexual union or can this connection, albeit for proportionally serious reasons, be broken so that conception takes place in a way that excludes this union completely, that is in vitro? Is the above-mentioned inseparability, in other words, a moral law which is imposed only in ordinary circumstances, or is it not even a question of a moral law but of a purely cultural datum?

To solve this question, which seems to us to be the real heart of the matter, it will be necessary to reflect at least on the following points.

The first. That the affirmation of a connection between conception and conjugal sexual act is not merely a judgment of fact, due merely to the circumstance that, up to a few years ago, humanity did not know any other way of conceiving, but a judgment of value expressing a "must" is, I think, difficult to contest, at least for a Catholic theologian. It is a question then of taking up again, in the light of Tradition and of the Magisterium of the Church (it must not be forgotten that the problems involved here have essential connections with the teaching of Humanae Vitae on conjugal sexuality), and with renewed commitment, reflection on the connection between marriage, sexuality and conception, in order to grasp the essential correlations or interdependencies which bind these three ethical values: correlations imprinted on the nature of the human person by God's creative act.

The second. The concept of parenthood, inseparably connected with that of marriage (hence the intrinsic unlawfulness of extra-conjugal sexual intercourse), as reason can already outline and faith elaborate fully, is seen, on careful reflection, to be deeply simple, despite the complex richness of its elements. Substantially, it recalls, by necessary connection of ideas, the concept of originating principle. Hence the supreme greatness of this experience of which biblical Revelation and ecclesial Tradition have thought in terms of participation in the absolute originating Principle, that is, God. And it is an originating which appears in all its extraordinary mysteriousness when we consider its end, the human person. And further, it is an originating in the global sense, which includes successive moments, connected one with another. It is a question, then, of asking oneself and of knowing whether, according to God's plan, there can be taken away from the originating couple the act that begins and founds the whole successive process. It is not sufficient to answer by saying that it is always presupposed in any case that the two gametes come from the spouses. The beginning of the individual, in fact, is had formally from them and with their union. It is necessary to ask oneself whether it is possible to take away from the originating principle the position it has in the act on the result of which is based the whole successive history of the human person to which it is parent.

The third. In the context of the preceding reflection, another consideration and a. new question arise. Does the fact of entrusting completely to others the matter of conception involve a redefinition of the concept of parenthood which is ethical before it is juridical? The question, it seems to us, is anything but irrelevant. Can this "laboratory act" be considered, in fact, equivalent to other scientific experiments, in view of the result, and consequently can the scientist be considered a mere delegate of the couple? The risk of such an equivalence would be to make a "thing" of the human person, to put him on the same plane as all other manipulable objects. If this laboratory act cannot be considered equivalent to other experiments, could it then, or rather should it, be considered as an undue substitution, the replacement by a stranger, in the deepest sense of the word, of an originating cause which, by the nature of the end originated, cannot but be fully involved in the event that founds it? In a few and essential words: there are human experiences which, in view of their depth, in view -of the intensity with which they involve the human person, cannot be delegated. Is parenthood among them? If an affirmative answer is given, the conclusion will have to be drawn that the London case is an unmistakable sign of one of the most serious ills of modern man: the loss of the sense of the singularity of the human in the universe of being.

In conclusion, we repeat that our intention was merely to sketch an approach to the problem. And therefore we wished only to make people become aware of the serious problems involved in this case and, consequently, to point out some paths which subsequent reflection, in our humble opinion, will have to follow in order to reach an enlightened and enlightening answer.

This will call for serious philosophical and theological meditation, in a correct dialogue with scientists. The questions, in fact, are of such seriousness as to make—in the present state of affairs—an affirmative solution unjustified, and therefore at least risky and imprudent. In any case, theological reflection in this field will have to be concerned in the first place with knowing the law of God, without any prejudice, free above all from the prejudice which comes (especially today) from fear of being accused of being "enemies of scientific progress": an "idolum fori" which, among other things, has been showing its limits for some time. The ultimate source of theological knowledge is not to be found in the worldly market of (pseudo) truths, but in the Word of God, authentically interpreted by the Magisterium of the Church.

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