Would a testicular transplant be a licit fertility treatment?

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anilorak13ska

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If technology were to advance to the point where a sterile man could have a testicular transplant and start producing sperm that carried the DNA of the organ donor (no idea if this would ever enter the realm of possibility, but let’s say it would), would this then be seen as a licit way to then conceive a child with one’s wife via the marital act?

Would this still be illicit? Would it still be considered “third party reproduction”? Would such a transplant be considered illicit in itself, if there wasn’t a medical necessity since the man wouldn’t need it to save his life?

Thank you!
 
anilorak13ska said:
If technology were to advance to the point where a sterile man could have a testicular transplant and start producing sperm that carried the DNA of the organ donor (no idea if this would ever enter the realm of possibility, but let’s say it would), would this then be seen as a licit way to then conceive a child with one’s wife via the marital act?

Would this still be illicit? Would it still be considered “third party reproduction”? Would such a transplant be considered illicit in itself, if there wasn’t a medical necessity since the man wouldn’t need it to save his life?

Thank you!
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Long time since I studied transplants, but I think there’d be two major feasibility issues:
  1. There would be an immune response to the sperm from the “donor” testis, which would probably neutralize them even before they could do the work of fertilization,
  2. The transplant process itself involves high doses of medication which can themselves affect fertility.
From a moral sphere, I’d say it would be illicit, because it would make a “surrogate father” of the transplant recipient. In effect, he would be using his body to father another man’s child (in genetic and biological terms) with his own wife. While this is not “adultery” in the strict sense of the world, I’m sure it wouldn’t be permitted - though I’m not enough of a theologian to actually explain why. 😉
 
The surrogate father point is an interesting one… though I guess we can’t make a total parallel comparison, bc it’s not the same as a woman receiving a donor uterus and then bearing her own child, if she was able to still use her own eggs/ovaries.

Btw, I seem to have accidentally posted this here when I meant to pose this question to the Apologists, which I have now done.
 
RPRPsych said:
Long time since I studied transplants, but I think there’d be two major feasibility issues:
  1. There would be an immune response to the sperm from the “donor” testis, which would probably neutralize them even before they could do the work of fertilization,
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The problem of histocompatability arises from any transplant and is not unique to a theoretical gonad transplant. Indeed, there are means by which to overcome this (which you yourself mention in your point #2 below). I’m not sure what you mean by “neutralize them”. A maladaptive immune response due to histocompatability causes massive sepsis-like symptoms and doesn’t “do” anything to the organ.
  1. The transplant process itself involves high doses of medication which can themselves affect fertility.
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This is a good point in terms of practicality, but I don’t see any moral issue here. The hypothetical patient is already infertile and is trying to heal his infertility. Assuming the gonads are successfully transplanted, but the medication required to allow for the transplantation subsequently caused infertility, there is no overall loss of fertility.
From a moral sphere, I’d say it would be illicit, because it would make a “surrogate father” of the transplant recipient. In effect, he would be using his body to father another man’s child (in genetic and biological terms) with his own wife. While this is not “adultery” in the strict sense of the world, I’m sure it wouldn’t be permitted - though I’m not enough of a theologian to actually explain why. 😉
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I don’t see how any of this follows. The Church seems to only step in to issues of fertility and parenting when either her teachings on sex are necessarily violated by the act, or her teachings on life are (i.e. the process requires the purposeful conception of embryos followed by purposeful destruction and/or the marital act is evaded). Neither of these occur in this hypothetical gonadal transplant.
 
xixxvmcm85 said:
I don’t see how any of this follows. The Church seems to only step in to issues of fertility and parenting when either her teachings on sex are necessarily violated by the act, or her teachings on life are (i.e. the process requires the purposeful conception of embryos followed by purposeful destruction and/or the marital act is evaded). Neither of these occur in this hypothetical gonadal transplant.
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Hmmmm, this is a very intriguing point, thank you for that 🙂 As a follow up, the resulting child in this situation would not be the genetic offspring of the father, and from what I’ve read on gay unions/parenting, one of the reasons the Church is against it is because the children would inevitably not know one of their genetic parents, which is seen as hurtful to the child’s well being. Though I’m not sure what premise this assumption is made from, as I’ve read that it’s not so much the anonymity of the donor as the secrecy or late reveal of the donor conception that is harmful to a child.

So I guess my second question would be, what teaching does the Church base this opinion that a child suffers when not raised by both biological parents?
 
anilorak13ska said:
As a follow up, the resulting child in this situation would not be the genetic offspring of the father, and from what I’ve read on gay unions/parenting, one of the reasons the Church is against it is because the children would inevitably not know one of their genetic parents, which is seen as hurtful to the child’s well being.
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While this may be offered as a tangential reason to be against so-called same-sexed marriage (and may even be offered as such by some Bishops!), I don’t know that the Church actually teaches, in principle, that children are deprived by not knowing their progenitors, otherwise, in principle, the Church would be against adoption by opposite-sexed parents (which She is not). It’s not so much that children are deprived by not being raised by their genetic parents than it is that they are deprived by not being raised by parents of the opposite sex. Furthermore, I think it’s a very lousy reason to be against same-sexed parenthood, lest we give the OK to a Lesbian couple and a Gay couple having biological children together in a parental foursome.
Though I’m not sure what premise this assumption is made from, as I’ve read that it’s not so much the anonymity of the donor as the secrecy or late reveal of the donor conception that is harmful to a child.
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Let’s assume that the Church does, positively teach that children are harmed by this. It would then be an argument against not revealing to children their non-biological relationship to their “parents” earlier, than it would be an argument against non-biological parenthood in of itself. Indeed, developmental psych research has shown time and time again that adoptive children adjust well to their adoption status when told earlier rather than later.

Nevertheless, let’s not get too bogged down by what I believe are such secondary or tangential reasons. IVF is wrong because it involves the purposeful destruction of human life and circumvents the marital act.
 
Just one quick point, IVF does not necessarily involve the purposeful destruction of human life. One can do a natural cycle IVF which involves fertilization of only the one egg naturally released without hormonal stimulation, leaving no “extras” to be cryopreserved (frozen) for later transfer. Of course, this does still involve bypassing the marital act, but IVF does not have to involve destruction of human life. 😃
 
anilorak13ska said:
Just one quick point, IVF does not necessarily involve the purposeful destruction of human life. One can do a natural cycle IVF which involves fertilization of only the one egg naturally released without hormonal stimulation, leaving no “extras” to be cryopreserved (frozen) for later transfer.
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You’re correct. But NC-IVF has been regularly supplanted by ovarian stimulated IVF, precisely because NC-IVF is incredibly costly and ovarian stimulated IVF has a 42% failure rate. This is why, in practice, everyone who goes the IVF route, does the all-or-nothing plan. Furthermore, NC-IVF still involves the destruction of human life! In most cases, multiple embryos are gestated due to the relatively low chance of implantation.
Of course, this does still involve bypassing the marital act, but IVF does not have to involve destruction of human life. 😃
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Exactly. Even if one were to find a way to bring about new life without harming previous life, said new life would come about outside of God’s glorious design. We cannot minimize the marital act in the creation of human beings.
 
I don’t understand how nc-ivf still destroys human life, or how it’s more expensive. One clinic I’m aware of charges something like $5K, compared to usually twice as much for ovarian-stimulated ivf. And bc it does not involve harvesting of eggs (that’s “mini-ivf” where there is some ovarian-stimulation, but less so), there can only be the one egg that is fertilized, and none are left over to be destroyed, bc the one is transferred back into the uterus.

But again, I understand that it still involves going outside the marital act. But I have to wonder, given the choice of ivf with the spouse’s own gametes versus marital act post testicular-transplant with donor sperm (essentially), I find it hard to understand how the former would be worst for the child than the latter. The latter has lifetime implications, while the former, imho, does not. 🤷
 
I am not a biologist, so I may just be displaying my ignorance here, but if such a transplant were to occur and be successful (tissue not rejected), why wouldn’t it be the recipient’s own DNA that makes sperm?

(If someone gets a heart transplant, after the necessary transfusions etc. wouldn’t the recipient be making his or her own blood with that individual’s genetic markers? Obviously sperm and blood are not the same, but that’s what led me to wondering. Again, not a scientist of any sort - if this isn’t possible and someone could explain using small words, I’d appreciate it! :D)
 
silicasandra, excellent question! I only put this out there as a theoretical question, really to try to see if I could dissect which aspect of artificial reproductive technologies is considered the least acceptable by the church. I know it’s a bit of a moot point if it comes to actual infertile couples making actual informed decisions regarding their options, since the technology does not currently exist anyway. But I was just curious if there’d be sufficient motivation perhaps for the advancement of such technology if a significant portion of the population would thereby have a moral dillemma lifted off their shoulders.

They are currently working on the technology that would allow sperm to be grown in a lab, so this may not be as far off as we may think. I wonder, too, if such lab-grown sperm could somehow be transferred into the man’s testes, and allow natural conception to take place.

I suppose, silicasandra, that if the transplant would result in the patient producing sperm with his own DNA (which now that you mentioned it, I actually don’t see why it wouldn’t, since it’s an ongoing process), then I suppose this would be a godsend for couples facing male sterility.
 
I find it helpful to reduce all the Church’s “thou shalt not” teachings to the positive affirmations of faith that LEAD to the negative determinations. Almost all sexual rebellion in society today is rooted in a rejection of the church’s assertion that marriage, sexual intimacy and babies are ONE intertwined subject, not three separate topics. Sexuality is deeper than the physical and when people attempt to reduce it to the merely physical, destruction always results. Thus, contraception is immoral because it is sex unnaturally divided from babies. IVF is wrong because it is babies cut off from marriage and sex (children have a right to be the outcome of the loving union of their parents, not to be the product of a brilliant science experiment). ‘Gay marriage’ is wrong because it is a union that is inherently sterile (marriage and sex inherently cut off from babies). And so on.

Next, we need to talk science. If I understand it correctly, the testicles produce sperm cells via a specialized kind of cell division. If a testicle were transplanted, it would continue to produce sperm cells having its OWN chromosomes, not those of its host. Now we’re ready to make philosophical conclusions.

If human sexuality is the integrally intertwined ecosystem I described above, then the introduction of another person’s sperm into the union of a man and wife is a violation of the very meaning of their sexual union. Morally, I believe it woul be identical to the action of using another man’s semen to artificially inseminate the woman.

We barely comprehend the deepest meaning of these things and yet we arrogantly presume we can simply modify them all at will. Humans are strange creatures.
 
silicasandra said:
I am not a biologist, so I may just be displaying my ignorance here, but if such a transplant were to occur and be successful (tissue not rejected), why wouldn’t it be the recipient’s own DNA that makes sperm?

(If someone gets a heart transplant, after the necessary transfusions etc. wouldn’t the recipient be making his or her own blood with that individual’s genetic markers? Obviously sperm and blood are not the same, but that’s what led me to wondering. Again, not a scientist of any sort - if this isn’t possible and someone could explain using small words, I’d appreciate it! :D)
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This is a good question. The difference lies in the location of the multipotent stem cell for each case. All blood cells arise from the hematopoetic stem cell which exists in the bone marrow of large bones, such as the femora and pelvis. Primordial germ cells, which give rise to all gametes both egg and sperm, exist in the gonads.
 
anilorak13ska said:
I don’t understand how nc-ivf still destroys human life, or how it’s more expensive. One clinic I’m aware of charges something like $5K, compared to usually twice as much for ovarian-stimulated ivf. And bc it does not involve harvesting of eggs (that’s “mini-ivf” where there is some ovarian-stimulation, but less so), there can only be the one egg that is fertilized, and none are left over to be destroyed, bc the one is transferred back into the uterus.
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You’re right. I’m mincing my words here, and in hindsight I have no clue why I said it destroys human life. This is what I get for posting right after work at 2AM! 😛
 
manualman said:
If human sexuality is the integrally intertwined ecosystem I described above, then the introduction of another person’s sperm into the union of a man and wife is a violation of the very meaning of their sexual union. Morally, I believe it woul be identical to the action of using another man’s semen to artificially inseminate the woman.
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How would the two be identical? In the case of gonad transplantation, the child is still a product of conjugal love between a married couple whereas artificial insemination completely evades the marital act. The act lies in coitus, not the chromosomes.
 
Right, so which would be “worse” - being the product of one’s parents conjugal love post transplant, resulting in a genetic relation to a stranger, or being raised by one’s biological parents, though the conception itself took place outside the womb? I understand that one answer may be that neither is OK. My initial instinct is that the latter is “better” for the child.

Does anyone really dwell on the fact that one’s parents did or did not conceive them in the conjugal act? If those parents are married to each other and together raising the child? We have adults conceived this way in the world, and I’ve never once heard any of them lament that they feel any less loved or respected because their conception took place in a lab instead of in the womb. I understand that there is a disconnect between babies and sex in IVF or IUI, but what exactly is the intrinsic evil in that? Babies and sex and marriage ought to go together. Granted. But when they don’t, isn’t it better for two out of three versus zero? No one asks for infertility so they can bypass the marital act and do IVF.

Just philosophizing at this point 😃
 
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