The Christian Family, In Vitro Fertilization, and Heroic Witness to True Love
The Christian Family, In Vitro Fertilization, and Heroic Witness to True Love
A Pastoral Letter
Most Rev. Michael F. Burbidge
January 2025
“Children, let us love not in word or speech but in deed and truth.”
1 John 3:18
Introduction
God, the creator of all that we know and can know, is also the loving author of the life of every human person. At all times and in all places, with every breath which we breathe, God wills our true good and our life in abundance. As part of his “plan of sheer goodness”[1] for the human family, God calls us to strive, by his grace, to order ourselves and our lives by the standard of true love that makes authentic relationships, and in a particular way authentic family life, possible.
Saint Thomas Aquinas described love as willing the good of the other, and it is this sort of love which the Church proclaims as the love necessary for those who wish to be happy now and forever. Authentic love means making a total gift of self, for the true good of one another, and it is for this reason that love means the rejection of any action that would degrade, instrumentalize, or otherwise wrong another.
Fertility and in vitro fertilization (IVF) are incredibly sensitive topics and deserve to be treated with a spirit of accompaniment, compassion, and understanding. It is important that we proceed with care. Whether or not we are aware of it, we know or encounter others who have experienced fertility challenges or whose lives have been affected by IVF in some way. I hope to provide you with pastoral information for your reflection and strongly encourage you to consider this letter in its entirety.
The Natural Desire for Family
As priest and bishop, I have heard consistently of the heartache experienced by so many relating to the desire for family. Pope Paul VI prophetically observed in Humanae Vitae[2] that the modern world presents a host of apparent solutions to the challenges of human relationships and sexuality and the drama of family formation. In our time, I have observed with pastoral concern the growing acceptance of IVF as an apparent solution to the heartache of infertility. More darkly, I have also observed the growing demand for IVF as an instrumental means to procure a child through surrogacy outside the context of marriage and family life or even to create a child eugenically with specifically desired characteristics while eliminating other children in the process.
I recognize that what the Church teaches about IVF represents a “hard saying” (cf. Jn. 6:60) that is convenient for many to ignore, and that many Catholics and others of goodwill may have never encountered the Church’s teaching on this issue. According to a recent Gallup poll, 82 percent of Americans shared their belief that the use of IVF is morally acceptable, with 49 percent stating that they believe it is morally acceptable to destroy embryonic human persons created through IVF procedures.[3] Even 65 percent of American Catholics view IVF access as a good, according to a recent Pew survey.[4]
It is a natural longing of married couples to have a child who is the living expression of their love. Sacred Scripture often confirms this common experience of humanity, just as it also witnesses to the great suffering experienced by couples who cannot have children. Today, and for a variety of reasons, it seems as if an extraordinary number of couples experience difficulties with fertility and procreation, often due to chronic conditions like endometriosis, polycystic ovary syndrome, or oligospermia. The Church encourages and promotes all life-giving and restorative fertility treatments, approaches like NaProTechnology, that address and resolve underlying causes of infertility.[5]
God calls us as Christians to accompany one another particularly in seasons of heartache and uncertainty, and through faithfulness and patience always to remain open to God’s miraculous and often mysterious working in the lives of all his children.[6] In the Diocese of Arlington, we accompany those experiencing infertility and pray novenas that God will pour out his grace upon their hearts to make known the great depths of his love and unique plan for their marriage and to encourage us all to grow in our faith as brothers and sisters in one Christian family.
Nevertheless, even after many years of trying to conceive and availing themselves of restorative fertility treatments, some couples still find themselves unable to conceive and then choose to adopt a child. Still others make their marriage life-giving by way of spiritual motherhood and fatherhood in their communities and daily lives.
The Allure and Cost of In Vitro Fertilization
Since 1978, medical science has offered the possibility of conceiving a child by way of IVF.[7] Since that time, IVF has led to the birth of more than 12 million children.[8] The emergence of IVF represented a revolution in medicine that shifted the focus of many physicians from addressing the causes underlying infertility to instead embracing artificial and costly technological approaches that have the effect of displacing the central role of marital love in the procreative process. Unfortunately, and despite the good intentions and aspirations of many married couples, IVF is contrary to justice and remains replete with moral difficulties. The Catholic Church first articulated its teaching against IVF in 1987 with the document Donum vitae.[9] The Church affirms the truth that every child is a gift from God, regardless of the circumstances of their conception, even while the Church’s teachings against IVF have remained constant and have been confirmed by the experience of the intervening years.
The allure of IVF lies in its ability to bring about new life and to do so in a way that addresses the desire of those who wish to have children. Simply put, IVF involves the sex cells of a man and woman being brought together in a clinical setting with the hope of engendering embryonic children, some of whom are then transferred to the uterus of the woman. A great moral injustice of IVF is that many of the embryonic children brought about by the process will either be discarded, having been deemed undesirable, or frozen, having been deemed desirable but unnecessary.[10] As practiced, IVF both creates life and destroys life. The most obvious moral difficulty of IVF, that despite giving rise to new life it also destroys many others, is a reality knowable by human reason. 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.[11] Every successful IVF procedure results in a living child with many missing siblings.
God, by his gift of freedom to the human family, allows human action even of the kind that harms. God is constantly bringing forth good from evil and morally difficult circumstances. God authors and blesses the life of every child born of IVF even as he wills the true good and thriving of all persons. In Donum vitae, the Church observes: “Human embryos obtained in vitro are human beings and subjects with rights: their dignity and right to life must be respected from the first moment of their existence.”[12] All children conceived and born through IVF possess inalienable human dignity. Indeed, their innate dignity is the reason for the Church’s opposition to their being instrumentalized and made into objects by means of IVF, which eugenically selects some to live and others to die.
All the while, the Church reminds the faithful and all people of goodwill that IVF would remain unjust and morally wrong even if no embryonic children were destroyed or discarded. Although IVF and similar procedures are commonly described as “assisted reproductive technologies,” the Church observes that such procedures in fact replace rather than assist the loving self-gift of spouses manifest in procreative and unitive marital love. In this way, the natural and loving embrace of man and woman expressed in marital love is effectively replaced by a laboratory procedure made possible by the subjugation of man and woman to a technological process. Pope Francis has frequently emphasized the risks to humanity of such a “technocratic paradigm,”[13] warning for instance that “technology represents a form of order in social relations and an arrangement of power.”[14] IVF subverts human dignity by reducing human persons—man, woman, and child alike—into objects of a technical process that threatens what the Holy Father has described as “the human being in his or her irreducible specificity.”[15]
The temptation of IVF also lies in its ability to bring about new life for individuals who desire children outside the context of the bond of marriage. Unlike the adoption process, which has historically involved many safeguards and standards to ensure that adoptees are brought into a loving and stable family, IVF allows for virtually any single individual or unmarried couple, including those practicing lifestyles at odds with family happiness and stability, to obtain a child either directly or by means of an often economically vulnerable surrogate.[16] Every child has a natural right to his or her mother and father, and because every child is always a gift no one may claim a right to a child. Although unfortunate circumstances in life may deprive a child of their right to their mother and father, whether by means of abandonment, divorce, or death, it remains a grave injustice to produce children who, from the start, are forcibly separated from their natural parents.
As I have previously written, all children “have a right to be born to their married mother and father, through a personal act of self-giving love. IVF, however well-intended, breaches this bond and these rights and, instead, treats human beings like products or property. This is all the more true in situations involving anonymous donors or surrogacy.”[17] At the same time, God bestows the free gift of life on each of us, including those conceived by IVF and those conceived through other unjust or morally fraught circumstances. “Every person has immeasurable value regardless of how he or she was conceived,” I emphasized, “and that applies, absolutely, to all children created through IVF, the majority of whom have not been and may never be born.”[18]
As an industry, IVF has been described as a “wild west”[19] due to its lack of basic health and safety regulations. The IVF industry is currently less regulated than the average hospital or outpatient medical facility, leading to dangerous conditions for prospective parents and often fatal conditions even for those children who have been frozen and, in many cases, exist in a state of effective abandonment.
The Role of the State and the Prospect of a Federal IVF Mandate
In recent months, some in the public square have advocated a greater role of government in providing IVF as an entitlement, either by means of direct funding or by compelling health insurance companies to do so. In a misguided attempt to respond to challenges surrounding marriage, family formation, falling birth rates, and fertility, elected officials are rushing to support an IVF industry that kills or freezes hundreds of thousands of embryonic children every year and facilitates the exploitative practice of surrogacy. Some even claim that mandating or promoting IVF is pro-life because the process may produce children, but this ignores the moral injustices at the core of the IVF process and the fatal consequences for so many of the embryonic children brought about through that process.
The Church stands in solidarity with all those experiencing infertility and proclaims the dignity of all who come into existence as a result of IVF; however, she stands absolutely opposed to any federal or state governmental action that would involve every citizen with a grave moral injustice.
A federal IVF entitlement or mandate would represent, moreover, an illegitimate handing over to Caesar the things of God (cf. Mk. 12:17)—the gift of human life and the good of the family from which society springs—would involve serious injustices, and over time would invite abuse, domination, and even subjugation to the raw power of the state. Like the contraception mandate in the Affordable Care Act, such government action would also threaten religious liberty for the millions of Christians and others for whom both faith and reason make involvement with IVF impossible, and such a state mandate would inevitably result in the widespread coercion of healthcare workers and the evisceration of their professional right of conscience.
Any federal IVF mandate would insert the state into the very heart of the home and gradually bring about the false sense that the state and those holding power, now effectively the sponsors of human persons even prior to conception, can and should direct the lives of those their power has brought about. In this way, the prospect of a federal IVF mandate represents a grave threat not only to human rights, but to the future liberty of a free people.
The federal government may nevertheless play a positive role. There are many good and laudable approaches that the federal government may consider to support the growth and health of American families. Indeed, the Church recognizes that the state has a moral responsibility to support the good of the family. Elected officials should consider concrete ways to encourage earlier marriage and family formation, establish programs to address direct pregnancy and childbirth-related expenses that may act as a barrier to the growth of families, and expand coverage for life-affirming and restorative fertility care. Tragically, current federal law unjustly promotes sterility by subsidizing contraceptives and even forms of sterilization. Consequently, American law effectively discourages fertility and its procreative consequences. It is simply wrong that federal healthcare policy socializes the cost of sterility while privatizing the basic costs of pregnancy and childbirth or the cost of restorative fertility treatments for conditions like endometriosis. Additionally, elected officials should strengthen protections from corporate discrimination for employees who wish to succeed professionally while forming or growing families and better observe and uphold conscience rights for all individuals, especially healthcare workers.
While recognizing the limits of law and policymaking within the context of a morally pluralistic society, and assuming the unfortunate persistence of IVF as an industry, elected officials should ensure that IVF facilities adopt basic health and safety regulations that would minimize the harms associated with their industry. There are virtually no other countries on earth with such a total lack of oversight of this “industry” and the attendant risks to the health and wellbeing of women and the children engendered through IVF.[20] As a starting point, lawmakers should consider mandating straightforward informed consent disclosures for prospective parents that clearly convey the ethical and medical consequences of the IVF process and effective life-affirming alternatives. Elected officials might also look to the experience, although far from perfect, of some European neighbors.[21] Italian law, for example, allows IVF but historically permitted the creation and transfer of only three embryonic children per procedure, avoiding the dystopian practice of freezing and storage. Germany and Spain also permit only a limited number of embryonic children per procedure, with Sweden typically permitting only one. Others have historically sought to protect embryonic children from eugenic discrimination based on disability or sex. Approaches like these, imperfect though they are, could represent meaningful steps toward justice and may serve to uphold certain rights of mothers and fathers and their embryonic children and diminish certain harms of IVF as presently practiced in the United States.
At the same time, the European experience may also be instructive by showing American lawmakers that it is not only desirable but possible to generate the political will to enact legislation that serves the common good, protects all human persons, and limits so-called reproductive freedoms that, in fact, constitute serious injustices. Although surrogacy is currently widespread in the United States, for instance, in Western European countries it is recognized as exploitative and unjust and is almost universally impermissible.
A single courageous person, guided by a rightly formed conscience, may positively reshape a whole society. Our politicians and lawmakers are called to enshrine and uphold the true good through law so that the entire nation or state may benefit from its positive effects. Although this may seem especially difficult in bioethical or medical circumstances, it is also true that those who are most vulnerable to exploitation, harm, and violence are those most in need of the protection of the law. The testimony of physicians who once practiced IVF but experienced a moral awakening to its injustice may be among the most powerful voices capable of converting the hearts of lawmakers and the broader public.[22] We should never tire in our advocacy and hope, with trust in God’s grace, for a greater, more humane, and more just future for our nation.
The Church, as it has in so many other arenas of political life, stands prepared to proclaim the dignity of all human persons and to act peacefully to combat any national IVF mandate while encouraging life-affirming fertility and procreative care.
Conclusion
The Christian family is called to a heroic witness to true love in every generation, and in a particular way in our time. The human person bears within himself or herself the very image and likeness of God who is love (cf. 1 Jn. 4:8), and by looking to and relying upon the God who offers true hope and the possibility of everlasting happiness, all persons may enjoy the fulfillment of their good and natural desires in the fullness of time. The Christian family has a powerful spiritual ally in the Church, whose members are called to walk with those couples experiencing infertility, offering them life-giving and restorative options, while also addressing those moral injustices that would make impossible our experience of true happiness.
God wills our perfection and sanctity, so that we all may have a future full of hope (cf. Jer. 29:11). God is ever calling each one of us to deeper trust and relationship with him, despite our challenges and our tendency in this life to fall short of perfection. We are each called to live as saints, as brothers and sisters who share a universal call to holiness, which requires following God’s commandments and the Gospel of Life. [23] When we have failed to do so, God never abandons us. As Pope Francis has written, “God never tires of forgiving us; we are the ones who tire of seeking his mercy.”[24] God always stands ready to embrace us in his love and allows us to begin anew.
I ask all people of faith and goodwill to pray for those married couples experiencing infertility, for the efficacy of life-affirming fertility care, for an openness to God’s love and an ever-deeper experience of the virtues, and for the grace to accept whatever God’s will may be. The threats posed by IVF to human dignity and human rights are sometimes very obvious and at other times quite subtle, but nevertheless knowable to all and of particular concern for those of faith. I ask all people of goodwill to engage in greater thoughtful and rational reflection on the costs associated with the IVF industry, which are evident by human reason. Finally, I ask elected officials to come together to work toward the highest good possible to ensure that law is ordered to the good of all human persons and, particularly, the good of the family.
Good and gracious God,
You are the creator of all life and the source of all goodness. Grant that we may cherish the gift of human life, the fruit of the intimate and precious marital love of man and woman.
May we, who seek union with you through the creative act of parenthood, open our hearts to your perfect will. May we surrender our lives to your merciful heart, which loves us with an unfathomable love.
Wherever you lead us, may we continue to proclaim your love at daybreak and your faithfulness at night. We ask all these things through the intercession of Mary and Joseph and Christ our Lord.
Resources
Ascension Saint Agnes Natural Fertility Care: Serving the inherent dignity of every human person by delivering women’s health and natural family planning services, including through NaPro Technology.
FACTS: Ensuring women and couples everywhere have access to fertility awareness education and restorative reproductive medical services.
Family Medicine Associates of Alexandria: Delivering comprehensive family medical care, with staff trained in the Creighton Model FertilityCare System.
FEMM: Committed to women’s health and education, empowering women to be agents in the management and care of their overall reproductive health and wellbeing.
NaProTechnology: Natural Procreative Technology is a women’s health science that monitors and maintains a woman’s reproductive and gynecological health, provides medical and surgical treatments that work cooperatively with the procreative and gynecologic systems to deliver real solutions to real problems.
National Catholic Bioethics Center: Education, guidance, and resources to the Church and society to uphold the dignity of the human person in health care and biomedical research, offering confidential and free ethics consultations for real life decisions.
Our Fruitful Love PerpetuaLife Care: A ministry proclaiming God’s design for fertility, honoring human dignity, and reverencing and respecting each person as a gift. Reproductive Health Medicine & Gynecology: Serving women in every stage of the reproductive continuum, addressing gynecological, fertility, and reproductive health needs by treating the body as an integrated whole and with the goal always to restore function. Saint Paul VI Institute: A national medical institute specializing in the research, diagnosis, and treatment of procreative and women’s healthcare within a pro-life ethic. Shiloh: Accompaniment through challenging education and spiritual growth and renewal designed for post-IVF couples seeking consultations, camaraderie, and peace. Springs in the Desert: Accompaniment for those struggling with infertility, offering a place of respite and solidarity where they can know God’s love for them and discover his unique call to fruitfulness. Tepeyac: A pro-life and faith-based obstetrics and gynecology (OB/GYN) medical practice serving the Greater Washington area, combining the best of modern medicine with the healing presence of Jesus Christ. Endnotes [1] Catechism of the Catholic Church, “Prologue,” USCCB, www.usccb.org/catechism/prologue. Accessed 26 Sept. 2024. [2] Paul VI, Humanae Vitae, The Holy See (24 July 1968), www.vatican.va/content/paul-vi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_25071968_humanae-vitae.html. [3] Jeffrey M. Jones, “Americans Back IVF; Divide on Morality of Destroying Embryos,” Gallup.Com, Gallup (28 June 2024), news.gallup.com/poll/646025/americans-back-ivf-divide-morality-destroying-embryos.aspx. [4] Gabriel Borelli, “Americans Overwhelmingly Say Access to IVF Is a Good Thing,” Pew Research Center, Pew Research Center (13 May 2024), pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/05/13/americans-overwhelmingly-say-access-to-ivf-is-a-good-thing/. [5] See Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, “Instruction Dignitas Personae on Certain Bioethical Questions,” no. 13, The Holy See (2008), vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20081208_dignitas-personae_en.html. [6] “Seven Considerations While Navigating Infertility,” USSCB (2020), usccb.org/navigating-infertility/. [7] Craig Turczynski, “In Vitro Fertilization (IVF): A Comprehensive Primer,” Charlotte Lozier Institute (2024), lozierinstitute.org/in-vitro-fertilization-ivf-a-comprehensive-primer/. [8] eClinicalMedicine, “The Current Status of IVF: Are We Putting the Needs of the Individual First?” EClinicalMedicine, U.S. National Library of Medicine (23 Nov. 2023), ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10725012/. [9] Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, “Instruction on Respect for Human Life in Its Origin and on the Dignity of Procreation,” The Holy See (1987), vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19870222_respect-for-human-life_en.html. [10] John Haas, “Begotten Not Made: A Catholic View of Reproductive Technology,” USCCB (1998), usccb.org/issues-and-action/human-life-and-dignity/reproductive-technology/begotten-not-made-a-catholic-view-of-reproductive-technology. [11] Sanaz Ghazal and Pasquale Patrizio, “Embryo Wastage Rates Remain High in Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART): A Look at the Trends from 2004-2013 in the USA,” Journal of Assisted Reproduction and Genetics (2017), pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5306416/. [12] Supra, note 6. [13] Francis, Laudato Si, The Holy See (18 June 2015), vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html. [14] Justin McLellan, “Ai: Pope Expresses Concern over ‘technocratic’ Future,” USCCB (25 June 2024), usccb.org/news/2024/ai-pope-expresses-concern-over-technocratic-future. [15] Matthew Santucci, “Pope Francis: Technological Development Must Promote the Human Being,” Catholic News Agency (24 Sept. 2024), catholicnewsagency.com/news/256815/pope-francis-technological-development-must-promote-the-human-being. [16] Jason Horowitz, “Francis Urges Ban on Surrogacy, Calling It ‘Despicable,’” The New York Times, The New York Times (8 Jan. 2024), nytimes.com/2024/01/08/world/europe/pope-francis-surrogacy-ban.html. [17] Michael F. Burbidge, “Each Life Has Immeasurable Value from the Moment of Conception, Says Bishop Burbidge on IVF Issues,” USCCB (8 Mar. 2024), usccb.org/news/2024/each-life-has-immeasurable-value-moment-conception-says-bishop-burbidge-ivf-issues. [18] Ibid. [19] Naomi Cahn, “Uva Law Professor Examines the ‘wild West’ of the Fertility Industry,” UVA Today (13 Sept. 2021), news.virginia.edu/content/uva-law-professor-examines-wild-west-fertility-industry. [20] Mary E. Harned, “IVF Industry Regulation in the United States: Changes Are Needed to Protect Embryonic Children and their Families,” Charlotte Lozier Institute (2024), lozierinstitute.org/ivf-industry-regulation-in-the-united-states-changes-are-needed-to-protect-embryonic-children-and-their-families/. [21] Amanda Stirone Mansfield, “The Treatment of Human Embryos Created through IVF: The U.S. and 15 Selected Countries’ Regulations,” Charlotte Lozier Institute (2024), lozierinstitute.org/the-treatment-of-human-embryos-created-through-ivf-the-u-s-and-15-selected-countries-regulations/. [22] Lila Rose, “Fertility Doctor Exposes the Dark Side of IVF.” The Lila Rose Podcast (2024), youtube.com/watch?v=cKJ7sG41IfY. [23] Second Vatican Council, Lumen Gentium, The Holy See (21 November 1964), vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19641121_lumen-gentium_en.html. [24] Francis, Evangelii Gaudium, The Holy See (24 November 2013), vatican.va/content/francesco/en/apost_exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_esortazione-ap_20131124_evangelii-gaudium.html. January 22, 2025 This item 12743 digitally provided courtesy of CatholicCulture.org
