IVF and the embryos on ice

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phil19034 said:
letting frozen embryos die is not murder. It’s a tragedy, but it’s not murder.

furthermore, the Church teaches that the ends do not justify the means. We cannot commit evil for a good outcome. In my opinion, artificial wombs and creating an infrastructure to sell embryos will be evil.

NOTE: The ONLY way I would be sort of ok with women inserting embryos into their wombs to grow the children to birth is if: they are adopted and for free (plus some modest, govt regulated fees for the implantation). It cannot turn into a for profit industry.

But even then, I see abuse.

And I fear these things will lead to more children born outside of wedlock, etc.

I just see the whole scenario a total tragedy no matter how many individual miracles take place. 😦
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When I said “outright child-murder”, I was talking about abortion. Because that’s what abortion is, it is the murder of children.

Although I also think that letting someone die when you have the ability to save them is just as bad. In the story of The Good Samaritan, don’t you think that the Rabbi sinned by not helping the injured hebrew man?

If I had to choose between a world where babies were Aborted and a world where babies were brought to term in Artificial Wombs, I would choose the latter because at least in that case the babies get to live. That’s why I think they will do more good than harm; because they make it possible to create a world in which every baby who is conceived gets to be born.
 
NM505StKate said:
So the church doesn’t want people to have kids?
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The Catholic Church does want people to have children, but it wants them to do so in such a way that those children are safe and cared for. IVF’s, among other things, more risk of miscarriage than natural pregnancy and often the extra unborn children are either frozen or “donated to research” (read: “killed”). If somebody is unable to have children naturally, then it would be better for them to adopt because a lot of children in the world don’t have parents to love them.
 
BornInMarch said:
When I said “outright child-murder”, I was talking about abortion. Because that’s what abortion is, it is the murder of children.

Although I also think that letting someone die when you have the ability to save them is just as bad. In the story of The Good Samaritan, don’t you think that the Rabbi sinned by not helping the injured hebrew man?

If I had to choose between a world where babies were Aborted and a world where babies were brought to term in Artificial Wombs, I would choose the latter because at least in that case the babies get to live. That’s why I think they will do more good than harm; because they make it possible to create a world in which every baby who is conceived gets to be born.
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OH, gotcha regarding abortion. Yes, it is 100% murder.

look, I totally understand what you are saying. And individually, I think women who want to adopt and raise a child from a frozen embryo are heroic; I fear a sinful industry. But like I said, if they can make laws to prevent immoral behavior with it, then I would be OK.
 
TCEL said:
Right. Unitive and procreative. Our problems today are because people want to separate the two. It’s revealing that the Church is simultaneously hammered for her teaching on both contraception and IVF.
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So, if I am interpreting this correctly, people should only have sex to make babies and marry to make babies?
 
NM505StKate said:
So, if I am interpreting this correctly, people should only have sex to make babies and marry to make babies?
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In a sense, yes (at least for marriage). One condition of marriage is the acceptance of children. If one never ever wants children, they could not validly marry in the Catholic Church.

In terms of procreation, it is not so much that every time you have sex you have to have a child, but that you do nothing to prevent conception from happening.

An infertile person can marry and have sex. A couple can have sex when the woman is pregnant / in the not fertile part of the cycle.
 
Elf01 said:
In a sense, yes (at least for marriage). One condition of marriage is the acceptance of children. If one never ever wants children, they could not validly marry in the Catholic Church.
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This is horrible. Two people love each other but if they don’t want kids they cannot marry by the church? Why would anyone concede to such a thing?
In terms of procreation, it is not so much that every time you have sex you have to have a child, but that you do nothing to prevent conception from happening.
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An infertile person can marry and have sex. A couple can have sex when the woman is pregnant / in the not fertile part of the cycle.
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I still don’t understand why the distrust of contraception.
 
NM505StKate said:
This is horrible. Two people love each other but if they don’t want kids they cannot marry by the church? Why would anyone concede to such a thing?

I still don’t understand why the distrust of contraception.
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It’s because the Matrimony is supposed to be emblematic of the Holy Trinity.

God is Love. The love the Father has for The Son, and the love that the Son has for the Father sends forth the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity - The Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is the Giver of Life. Therefore, God’s love gives life. Jesus gave His earthly life because of His love for us and for The Father.

When a man and women enter into the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony they are committing to life their lives with that same, self giving & life giving love that God has.

When we contracept, we are not engaging in that self giving and life giving love that God has demonstrated for us.

When we receive the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony, we are ready to participate with God by become co-creator with Him in the creation of new life. Because Holy Matrimony is a state of LIFE GIVING LOVE.

I pray this makes sense.

Personally, It took me a while to understand this, as I too used to be OK with contraception. Also, this something the Church has taught for 2000 years, as birth control has been around since before Christ.

God Bless
 
phil19034 said:
It’s because the Matrimony is supposed to be emblematic of the Holy Trinity.

God is Love. The love the Father has for The Son, and the love that the Son has for the Father sends forth the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity - The Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is the Giver of Life. Therefore, God’s love gives life. Jesus gave His earthly life because of His love for us and for The Father.

When a man and women enter into the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony they are committing to life their lives with that same, self giving & life giving love that God has.

When we contracept, we are not engaging in that self giving and life giving love that God has demonstrated for us.

When we receive the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony, we are ready to participate with God by become co-creator with Him in the creation of new life. Because Holy Matrimony is a state of LIFE GIVING LOVE.

I pray this makes sense.

Personally, It took me a while to understand this, as I too used to be OK with contraception. Also, this something the Church has taught for 2000 years, as birth control has been around since before Christ.

God Bless
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Isn’t marriage though more a social thing?

livescience.com/37777-history-of-marriage.html

bigthink.com/dollars-and-sex/the-origin-of-marriage-and-the-evolution-of-divorce

These explain it better.
 
NM505StKate said:
Isn’t marriage though more a social thing?

livescience.com/37777-history-of-marriage.html

bigthink.com/dollars-and-sex/the-origin-of-marriage-and-the-evolution-of-divorce

These explain it better.
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There are so many factual, historical errors in these that it isn’t funny.

I will deal with just teh livescience.com article.
  1. Arranged alliances << yes this happened often among pagans and even among the rich and powerful Christians. But it typically did NOT happen among the average faithful Christian. They typically married after courtships and married for love.
  2. Family ties << the Church does not allow 1st cousins to marry. Among the rich and noble class, they did often marry second and third cousins for greedy reasons. But again, with the average joe, it wasn’t as common and when it did, it was simply due to the small size communities.
  3. Polygamy preferred << Christianity has always been one man & one woman. Just like the Holy Family.
  4. Babies optional << this is mostly true, but a little misleading. Babies are not “optional” but rather infertility isn’t grounds for annulment.
  5. Monogamy established << again… Christianity has always been one man & one woman. The statement that “[m]onogamy became the guiding principle for Western marriages sometime between the sixth and the ninth centuries” is very misleading. Because it wasn’t somewhere between the 6th and 9th centuries until most of the Europe had become Christian and replaced the pagan religions that existed.
  6. Monogamy lite << adultry has always been considered a Mortal Sin by the Catholic Church
  7. State or church? << This one is the most laughable of all. The author clearly doesn’t understand the Catholic Theology regarding marriage. Matrimony is one of the 7 Sacraments. The Church has been part of it since the beginning. In the Roman Rite, the Bride and Groom are the ministers of the Sacarment. The Priest or Deacon simply witness the wedding. It wasn’t until later (perhaps the 1200 as the author mentions) that more canon law regarding marriage was written. But the Church was involved from the beginning. BTW - if a man and woman are alone & trapped on a deserted island and decide to marry without any witnesses the Catholic Church will recognize the marriage. Nothing has changed here other than Canon Law introduced to help with abuse and help to limit invalid marriages.
  8. Civil marriage << right… more proof that Matrimony is Holy.
  9. Love matches << this is mostly true, but misleading. When you get married, you are promising to love one another. This has always been the case. But in the past, it wasn’t necessary to already be in love before getting married. Your courtship would confirm that your values matched, etc and that you would be compatible. And then you promised to love one another and grew in love. I believe this is why sex is often called “making love”
  10. Market economics << mostly true, but again misleading. Love has always been central to Christian marriage, even if the couple was not fully in love yet before they married.
  11. Different spheres << this has nothing to due with the Catholic Church. The Church always viewed the husband & wife as equals. For example: when the Crusades first started, in order for a man to go on Crusade the Church first had to receive permission from his wife in order to do so. This was because the loss of her husband was a major trial for a wife (in more ways than one). Later, they rescinded that requirement when too many men were using their wives as an excuse to get out of going on crusade, but it was their during the earliest Crusades.
  12. Partnership of equals << this is because for the last 50 years everyone in the West has had refrigeration, washing machines, & stores to shop for food and clothes. Before then, preparing dinner and washing clothes was a full time job. And because women often had to nurse their young, it made logistical sense for the woman to stay home to do that work while the man worked the farm, when hunting, etc.
  13. Gay marriage gains ground << yes, once the traditional and religious understanding of marriage when out the window, gay marriage made sense to those who believe it’s ok.
Honestly, the whole article is so slanted, it’s crazy. It does not represent at all anything that Jesus Christ taught nor Catholic Theology. The article is purely secular, using a modern world view to took at history, which is improper. To understand history, you have to adopt a historical world view to properly understand the period of history you are studying. Something the author failed to do.

God Bless.
 
There is a basic flaw in the thinking here that has not been addressed. It is a cultural flaw that many have embraced in the secular culture.

According to Catholic teaching, there is no requirement for children within marriage. This is because married couples do not have 100% control over their fertility.

But people believe they do. In fact, getting them to see that they do not is remarkably difficult. It is a lie many have accepted, and a cherished lie at that.

But fertile couples do not have 100% control of their fertility and this is a scientific fact. So once again, the Church is on the side of science, and people who disagree with the Church live in a fantasy world there they imagine things that are untrue. They imagine that childbearing is like turning on a spigot, or turning it off. So this undergirds their thinking, and they pose silly questions such as, “So the Church doesn’t want people to have children?” It should be clear that the cultural lie I described undergirds this way of thinking.

Start reading the stories of people who conceived children in circumstances where they were not “supposed” to, according to what they believed. It will become clear that the control that people imagine they have is a fantasy. Sexually active fertile couples can only decrease their chances of becoming pregnant. If they are sexually active, they cannot reduce it to zero.

But the lie that they can reduce it to zero undergirds so much, such as support for abortion. Even SCOTUS relied upon this lie in its Planned Parenthood v. Casey decision.

So… there is no requirement for children within marriage, because people just don’t have that level of control. God has a say, and that is actually a good thing.

But there is a requirement to be open to children, which is very, very different.
 
phil19034 said:
There are so many factual, historical errors in these that it isn’t funny.

I will deal with just teh livescience.com article.
  1. Arranged alliances << yes this happened often among pagans and even among the rich and powerful Christians. But it typically did NOT happen among the average faithful Christian. They typically married after courtships and married for love.
  2. Family ties << the Church does not allow 1st cousins to marry. Among the rich and noble class, they did often marry second and third cousins for greedy reasons. But again, with the average joe, it wasn’t as common and when it did, it was simply due to the small size communities.
  3. Polygamy preferred << Christianity has always been one man & one woman. Just like the Holy Family.
  4. Babies optional << this is mostly true, but a little misleading. Babies are not “optional” but rather infertility isn’t grounds for annulment.
  5. Monogamy established << again… Christianity has always been one man & one woman. The statement that “[m]onogamy became the guiding principle for Western marriages sometime between the sixth and the ninth centuries” is very misleading. Because it wasn’t somewhere between the 6th and 9th centuries until most of the Europe had become Christian and replaced the pagan religions that existed.
  6. Monogamy lite << adultry has always been considered a Mortal Sin by the Catholic Church
  7. State or church? << This one is the most laughable of all. The author clearly doesn’t understand the Catholic Theology regarding marriage. Matrimony is one of the 7 Sacraments. The Church has been part of it since the beginning. In the Roman Rite, the Bride and Groom are the ministers of the Sacarment. The Priest or Deacon simply witness the wedding. It wasn’t until later (perhaps the 1200 as the author mentions) that more canon law regarding marriage was written. But the Church was involved from the beginning. BTW - if a man and woman are alone & trapped on a deserted island and decide to marry without any witnesses the Catholic Church will recognize the marriage. Nothing has changed here other than Canon Law introduced to help with abuse and help to limit invalid marriages.
  8. Civil marriage << right… more proof that Matrimony is Holy.
  9. Love matches << this is mostly true, but misleading. When you get married, you are promising to love one another. This has always been the case. But in the past, it wasn’t necessary to already be in love before getting married. Your courtship would confirm that your values matched, etc and that you would be compatible. And then you promised to love one another and grew in love. I believe this is why sex is often called “making love”
  10. Market economics << mostly true, but again misleading. Love has always been central to Christian marriage, even if the couple was not fully in love yet before they married.
  11. Different spheres << this has nothing to due with the Catholic Church. The Church always viewed the husband & wife as equals. For example: when the Crusades first started, in order for a man to go on Crusade the Church first had to receive permission from his wife in order to do so. This was because the loss of her husband was a major trial for a wife (in more ways than one). Later, they rescinded that requirement when too many men were using their wives as an excuse to get out of going on crusade, but it was their during the earliest Crusades.
  12. Partnership of equals << this is because for the last 50 years everyone in the West has had refrigeration, washing machines, & stores to shop for food and clothes. Before then, preparing dinner and washing clothes was a full time job. And because women often had to nurse their young, it made logistical sense for the woman to stay home to do that work while the man worked the farm, when hunting, etc.
  13. Gay marriage gains ground << yes, once the traditional and religious understanding of marriage when out the window, gay marriage made sense to those who believe it’s ok.
Honestly, the whole article is so slanted, it’s crazy. It does not represent at all anything that Jesus Christ taught nor Catholic Theology. The article is purely secular, using a modern world view to took at history, which is improper. To understand history, you have to adopt a historical world view to properly understand the period of history you are studying. Something the author failed to do.

God Bless.
Click to expand...
I know it was secular. My point was that the church didn’t invent marriage. The church has its own view of marriage but it is not a view that is/was accepted world wide. Let us not forget the many different ceremonies that are akin to marriage like handfasting. The church doesn’t own the definition of marriage.

As an aside humans are really meant to be with only one partner.
 
cominghome1966 said:
There is a basic flaw in the thinking here that has not been addressed. It is a cultural flaw that many have embraced in the secular culture.

According to Catholic teaching, there is no requirement for children within marriage. This is because married couples do not have 100% control over their fertility.

But people believe they do. In fact, getting them to see that they do not is remarkably difficult. It is a lie many have accepted, and a cherished lie at that.

But fertile couples do not have 100% control of their fertility and this is a scientific fact. So once again, the Church is on the side of science, and people who disagree with the Church live in a fantasy world there they imagine things that are untrue. They imagine that childbearing is like turning on a spigot, or turning it off. So this undergirds their thinking, and they pose silly questions such as, “So the Church doesn’t want people to have children?” It should be clear that the cultural lie I described undergirds this way of thinking.

Start reading the stories of people who conceived children in circumstances where they were not “supposed” to, according to what they believed. It will become clear that the control that people imagine they have is a fantasy. Sexually active fertile couples can only decrease their chances of becoming pregnant. If they are sexually active, they cannot reduce it to zero.

But the lie that they can reduce it to zero undergirds so much, such as support for abortion. Even SCOTUS relied upon this lie in its Planned Parenthood v. Casey decision.

So… there is no requirement for children within marriage, because people just don’t have that level of control. God has a say, and that is actually a good thing.

But there is a requirement to be open to children, which is very, very different.
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The bolded I have a strong disagree. While things like condoms and IUDs are not 100% effective in preventing pregnancy it is better then 0%. Also one can have sex that is not vaginal penetration.
 
NM505StKate said:
I know it was secular. My point was that the church didn’t invent marriage. The church has its own view of marriage but it is not a view that is/was accepted world wide. Let us not forget the many different ceremonies that are akin to marriage like handfasting. The church doesn’t own the definition of marriage.

As an aside humans are really meant to be with only one partner.
Click to expand...
Hi Kate -

Well, of course the Church did not invent marriage. God did with Adam & Eve. While the Church didn’t invent it, it’s still a holy institution, created by God.

Jesus raised marriage to a Sacarment, establishing Sacramental Marriage vs Natural Marriage.

FYI - this will be the last side post that I will respond to on this thread. I don’t want to sidetrack this thread, which is about IVF and the embryos on ice.

God Bless
 
phil19034 said:
Hi Kate -

Well, of course the Church did not invent marriage. God did with Adam & Eve. While the Church didn’t invent it, it’s still a holy institution, created by God.

Jesus raised marriage to a Sacarment, establishing Sacramental Marriage vs Natural Marriage.

FYI - this will be the last side post that I will respond to on this thread. I don’t want to sidetrack this thread, which is about IVF and the embryos on ice.

God Bless
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God didn’t invent marriage because there wasn’t an Adam and Eve.

Back on post.
 
mVitus said:
I was reading a little pamphlet on this and one question came to me as it talked about how the frozen embryos are unique people deserving of dignity and respect. What do we do with them?

Since IVF is deemed immoral, does that mean it’s still wrong to implant children already conceived? Do we keep them on ice? I’m curiois if there are any church documents on this.
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No church documents but a Washington Post article a few years old to shed some light.

washingtonpost.com/opinions/fertility-clinics-destroy-embryos-all-the-time-why-arent-conservatives-after-them/2015/08/13/be06e852-4128-11e5-8e7d-9c033e6745d8_story.html?utm_term=.2dae37f7b584
 
NM505StKate said:
The bolded I have a strong disagree. While things like condoms and IUDs are not 100% effective in preventing pregnancy it is better then 0%. Also one can have sex that is not vaginal penetration.
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Like I said, people really resist accepting that they can’t stop conception 100% of the time. 99% does not equal 100% no matter how much you might want it to.
 
NM505StKate said:
The bolded I have a strong disagree. While things like condoms and IUDs are not 100% effective in preventing pregnancy it is better then 0%. Also one can have sex that is not vaginal penetration.
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How is being able to prevent pregnancy at any percentage better than nothing? That’s sin, as straightforward as sin gets.
 
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