An apparent inconsistency between the pro-life stance on IVF and treatment for terminal conditions

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As I understand it, the church’s pro-life stance essentially promotes all human biological life in almost all situations and conditions, as long as promoting the life is in accordance with God’s will and his other laws.

My difficulty concerns IVF and medical treatment given to preserve a life. Of course, there are problems with IVF because it generally creates lives that are quickly taken. But from what I’ve heard, IVF would be immoral even if no lives were taken in the process, because it is artificial means of promoting life.

However, preserving the life of a dying person is also an artificial means of promoting life, and the church accepts this practice. Is there a significant difference between the two?
 
Your term “promote life” is too vague in the context where you used it. The Church’s teaching on IVF is more specific than that. It is based on the unnatural means to create life, not to “promote” life. Once life has been created, the Church has no objection to artificial means used to preserve life. Even an ancient sailing vessel could be considered an artificial means of preserving life, since it keeps you from drowning in the ocean by very artificial means, the artifact being the ship. And there is obviously nothing wrong with that. And let’s not forget the first objection you already acknowledged - that in IVF some lives are created and then destroyed.
 
N0X3x said:
As I understand it, the church’s pro-life stance essentially promotes all human biological life in almost all situations and conditions, as long as promoting the life is in accordance with God’s will and his other laws.

My difficulty concerns IVF and medical treatment given to preserve a life. Of course, there are problems with IVF because it generally creates lives that are quickly taken. But from what I’ve heard, IVF would be immoral even if no lives were taken in the process, because it is artificial means of promoting life.

However, preserving the life of a dying person is also an artificial means of promoting life, and the church accepts this practice. Is there a significant difference between the two?
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This is not the main reason the Church opposes IVF. She opposes IVF for the same reason she opposes contraception. IVF divorces the unitive and procreative aspects of the marital act. As one person recently said; contraception is sex without procreation while IVF is procreation without sex.

The fact that some embryos are disposed is a secondary objection.
 
Your term “promote life” is too vague in the context where you used it. The Church’s teaching on IVF is more specific than that. It is based on the unnatural means to create life, not to “promote” life. Once life has been created, the Church has no objection to artificial means used to preserve life. Even an ancient sailing vessel could be considered an artificial means of preserving life, since it keeps you from drowning in the ocean by very artificial means, the artifact being the ship. And there is obviously nothing wrong with that. And let’s not forget the first objection you already acknowledged - that in IVF some lives are created and then destroyed.
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… I suppose a sailing vessel, in the strictest sense, could be considered an artificial means of preserving life, but that’s not what the intended purpose of a sailboat is. A life preserver might be a more appropriate analogy, or an ancient equivalent.
This is not the main reason the Church opposes IVF. She opposes IVF for the same reason she opposes contraception. IVF divorces the unitive and procreative aspects of the marital act. As one person recently said; contraception is sex without procreation while IVF is procreation without sex.
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I came to this objection by first observing the seeming inconsistency between the church’s teachings on contraception and the church’s teaching that preventing someone’s death is morally acceptable. If I understand the theology behind contraception correctly, it is not permitted because married couples ought to be open to the possibility of God creating a new life. That’s all well and good, but it seems to me like the standard ought to apply at both ends of life. If a person is dying, shouldn’t medical professionals and others be open to God taking that life, rather than interfering artificially with medical treatments to stop the natural death that God had planned for this individual? it would seem that if contraception is morally evil, so is any interference in the taking and making of life, which a domain that ought to be strictly governed by God.

The answer that was commonly given to me when I raised this objection was that interfering to save a life promotes life, whereas contraception is opposed to life. God wants us to promote life, and so contraception is therefore immoral whereas interfering to save a life is moral.

The problem here is the one I now propose: IVF is an artificial means of promoting life, and yet it is still prohibbited by the church on the grounds that it is artificial. But now we run into the same problem. If it is God’s will that human lives be formed in the natural manner, without human intervention, shouldn’t it also be God’s will that human lives are lost in the natural manner as well? Intervention in either case seems to be playing God.
 
N0X3x said:
The problem here is the one I now propose: IVF is an artificial means of promoting life, and yet it is still prohibbited by the church on the grounds that it is artificial. But now we run into the same problem. If it is God’s will that human lives be formed in the natural manner, without human intervention, shouldn’t it also be God’s will that human lives are lost in the natural manner as well? Intervention in either case seems to be playing God.
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If you are looking for an analogy between intervention at the end of life and intervention at the beginning, a more appropriate one might be this: A person in a coma being fed by a gastric feeding tube is analogous to a man needing an operation on the blood vessels of his penis to correct for a deficiency that is preventing him from engaging in coitus. Both of these are acceptable interventions. But IVF to create a life is more analogous to disconnecting the arms, legs. head, and torso of the comatose patient and keeping them all alive in a nutrient fluid in separate rooms in a research facility. It is that bad.
 
IVF is wrong according to Church teaching because it divorces the unitive and procreative aspects of the marital act. Contraception is wrong because it is a barrier to creating a new life, which is one of the purposes of the marital act. God may want to bring a new soul into the world. NFP is allowed because it does not have barriers or include an abortifacient, and it does allow the possibility for a new life, even though it might be unlikely. It also requires periods of abstinence which can help the couple grow closer, improve communication, and learn to express their love in new ways. They are wrong for different reasons.

People are not obligated to keep sick people alive, but it is an act of charity to do so. It would be a sin to, for example, deprive them of food or water, but extra treatments go above and beyond. Sometimes they end up being too expensive for the family to afford, or there is no hope of bringing them back to a regular state (e.g. someone in a coma who has been in a coma for a while and doesn’t have much hope of waking up). I do think they should be allowed as much pain killer as needed, too, as another act of charity.
 
N0X3x said:
I came to this objection by first observing the seeming inconsistency between the church’s teachings on contraception and the church’s teaching that preventing someone’s death is morally acceptable. If I understand the theology behind contraception correctly, it is not permitted because married couples ought to be open to the possibility of God creating a new life. That’s all well and good, but it seems to me like the standard ought to apply at both ends of life. If a person is dying, shouldn’t medical professionals and others be open to God taking that life, rather than interfering artificially with medical treatments to stop the natural death that God had planned for this individual? it would seem that if contraception is morally evil, so is any interference in the taking and making of life, which a domain that ought to be strictly governed by God.

The answer that was commonly given to me when I raised this objection was that interfering to save a life promotes life, whereas contraception is opposed to life. God wants us to promote life, and so contraception is therefore immoral whereas interfering to save a life is moral.

The problem here is the one I now propose: IVF is an artificial means of promoting life, and yet it is still prohibbited by the church on the grounds that it is artificial. But now we run into the same problem. If it is God’s will that human lives be formed in the natural manner, without human intervention, shouldn’t it also be God’s will that human lives are lost in the natural manner as well? Intervention in either case seems to be playing God.
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Contraception and IVF are first and foremost offenses against marriage. That’s what is missing in your analogy. The Church is not against using technology or medical science to either help conception or to prolong life. For example, it is licit to take a drug to induce ovulation just as it is licit to take a drug to prolong life. It is even licit to use technology to postpone conception such as using an ovulation monitor.

The artificiality of the action is not what makes it wrong. People tend to tag the word “artificial” onto the word “contraception” but ALL contraception is wrong regardless of whether it is artificial.

IVF is not prohibited because it is artificial but because it separates the act of procreation from the marital act.
 
The Church does not oppose medical intervention in the course of life, at either end or in the middle, so long as “medical intervention” is not a euphemism for homicide.

She does oppose things that separate the ends of marriage, degrade marriage or the sexual act, or threaten to commodify or otherwise devalue human life and dignity. To varying degrees, IVF can be accused of all three, even though its intent is usually benevolent.

The Church would likely oppose a procedure that prolonged life by preserving the person as a brain in a jar, for example. That would be closer to an end-of-life equivalent of the Church’s view of IVF than ordinary medical treatment.

Usagi
 
Thanks for the replies. I think I understand the reasons behind the church’s stance on these issues a bit better now.
 
N0X3x said:
IVF would be immoral even if no lives were taken in the process, because it is artificial means of promoting life.
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This is not correct.

IVF and other forms of artifical conception are immoral because the separate the unitive and procreative elements of the conjugal act. The same reason contraception is immoral. The child is not created via the loving union of the spouses in the conjugal act.
N0X3x said:
However, preserving the life of a dying person is also an artificial means of promoting life, and the church accepts this practice. Is there a significant difference between the two?
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You are focusing on “artificial” which is not at all the reason IVF, AI, and other procedures are immoral.
 
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