Virginia bishop decries IVF in pastoral letter
January 23, 2025
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CWN Editor's Note: In vitro fertilization (IVF) is “contrary to justice,” writes Bishop Michael Burbidge of Arlington, Virginia, in a pastoral letter.
While acknowledging the “natural desire for family,” and observing that “an extraordinary number of couples” today seem unable to have children, Bishop Burbidge argues that IVF “subverts human dignity by reducing human persons—man, woman, and child alike—into objects of a technical process.”
The bishop reminded his people that the process of IVF involves the creation of many human embryos, most of which will be discarded. Thus he writes:
For every one of the more than 12 million children born by means of IVF since 1978, there are many tens of millions more missing brothers and sisters who have been either deliberately destroyed, experimented upon, or frozen in liquid nitrogen and denied their natural right to the fullness of their development.
Bishop Burbidge encourages to explore morally licit means of addressing fertility problems, and applauds those who, unable to conceive children, bear “heroic witness” by rejecting immoral means.
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