Would IVF still be wrong under these circumstances?

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Let’s say a couple does IVF under the following circumstances:
  1. The husband’s sperm and wife’s egg are used – no donor sperm or eggs.
  2. The sperm is obtained through normal intercourse with a perforated condom, not through masturbation.
  3. All embryos are implanted and none are frozen or destroyed.
Would it still be wrong? If so, why?
 
sdeco said:
Let’s say a couple does IVF under the following circumstances:
  1. The husband’s sperm and wife’s egg are used – no donor sperm or eggs.
  2. The sperm is obtained through normal intercourse with a perforated condom, not through masturbation.
  3. All embryos are implanted and none are frozen or destroyed.
Would it still be wrong? If so, why?
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Yes. IVF creates life using artificial methods. God intended new life to be the expression of the unitive AND procreative expression only found iin the marital act.
 
jmjconder said:
Yes. IVF creates life using artificial methods. God intended new life to be the expression of the unitive AND procreative expression only found iin the marital act.
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But technically, the new life still came from the procreative/unitive lovemaking of a married couple. They used a perforated condom while engaging in the marital act…

I’m not saying I disagree that it is wrong… just seeking to clarify exactly why. 🙂
 
But WHY is it wrong? I understand why masturbation, destroying embryos, and using donor sperm or eggs is wrong. I thought those were the main objections the Church had to IVF, especially destroying embryos. Why is making a baby without sex wrong, as long as those other evils are avoided?

I asked on another thread what the Church means by “unitive,” and haven’t gotten an answer. I don’t understand what “unitive” means.
 
Debora123 said:
But technically, the new life still came from the procreative/unitive lovemaking of a married couple. They used a perforated condom while engaging in the marital act…

I’m not saying I disagree that it is wrong… just seeking to clarify exactly why. 🙂
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Your initial premise is flawed. Tho the act may be unitive it is not procreative since fertilization takes place outside the act in a Petri dish. Fertilization is part of the marital act and that is why IVF is never justifiable.
 
Do you have a link to the statement made by the bishops? Everything I’ve found on the usccb site seems to say otherwise, that contraception must take place within the marital act and anything that involves a “third party”, i.e. a laboratory, would be immoral and go against the teachings of the Church.
 
jmjconder said:
Your initial premise is flawed. Tho the act may be unitive it is not procreative since fertilization takes place outside the act in a Petri dish. Fertilization is part of the marital act and that is why IVF is never justifiable.
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Apparently it may be an open issue.
 
IVF is not an open issue. IVF is intrinsically evil.

GIFT is an open issue.

This is what GIFT is:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamete_intrafallopian_transfer

With GIFT conception is occurring in the woman’s fallopian tube, (as would occur naturally). Conception is not occurring in a petri dish in a lab.

From the Catechism:
2376 Techniques that entail the dissociation of husband and wife, by the intrusion of a person other than the couple (donation of sperm or ovum, surrogate uterus), are gravely immoral. These techniques (heterologous artificial insemination and fertilization) infringe the child’s right to be born of a father and mother known to him and bound to each other by marriage. They betray the spouses’ "right to become a father and a mother only through each other."167 2377 Techniques involving only the married couple (homologous artificial insemination and fertilization) are perhaps less reprehensible, yet remain morally unacceptable. They dissociate the sexual act from the procreative act. The act which brings the child into existence is no longer an act by which two persons give themselves to one another, but one that "entrusts the life and identity of the embryo into the power of doctors and biologists and establishes the domination of technology over the origin and destiny of the human person. Such a relationship of domination is in itself contrary to the dignity and equality that must be common to parents and children."168 "Under the moral aspect procreation is deprived of its proper perfection when it is not willed as the fruit of the conjugal act, that is to say, of the specific act of the spouses’ union . . . . Only respect for the link between the meanings of the conjugal act and respect for the unity of the human being make possible procreation in conformity with the dignity of the person."169
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sdeco said:
But WHY is it wrong? I understand why masturbation, destroying embryos, and using donor sperm or eggs is wrong. I thought those were the main objections the Church had to IVF, especially destroying embryos. Why is making a baby without sex wrong, as long as those other evils are avoided?

I asked on another thread what the Church means by “unitive,” and haven’t gotten an answer. I don’t understand what “unitive” means.
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Well, I’m no theologian, but it seems to me that said couple endangers the new life they created because of the unnatural process the little person will be subjected to before it will come to rest (possibly) within its mother’s womb. And why is the new person subjected to this? Answer: Because mother and father want to have a baby. They WANT! This is all about want–not the child’s need. It appears to be a case of placing human wants far above the WILL of God, which is focused on the need of the child. Also, if the first attempt is unsuccessful (child dies in the process), will the couple try it again (risk another little soul)? Will they continue this madness until they get what they WANT?! JPII’s Theology of the Body explains that the couple should, through prayer, accept their suffering (childlessness). They should carry their cross and not look for an expeditious way around this salvific suffering.
 
sdeco said:
Let’s say a couple does IVF under the following circumstances:
  1. The husband’s sperm and wife’s egg are used – no donor sperm or eggs.
  2. The sperm is obtained through normal intercourse with a perforated condom, not through masturbation.
  3. All embryos are implanted and none are frozen or destroyed.
Would it still be wrong? If so, why?
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There is one problem to your scenario. The technician will evaluate the embryos that are created and will only implant the ones that are “viable”, making the odds that there will be some embryos they will not implant and will be destroyed.

Its wrong because the embryos are created outside the marital act, by a “third party”. Unitive means nothing comes between the marital act, between the husband and the wife. Creating an embryo outside the marital act violates the unitive nature because it introduces a “third party”, the laboratory.
 
Memaw said:
When in doubt, don’t do it!, God Bless, Memaw
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I agree! Even a well formed conscience may not be formed enough. When the Catholic Church as clear teachings on faith and morals, and in this case IVF…is there room for personal justification to do otherwise?
 
sdeco said:
Let’s say a couple does IVF under the following circumstances:
  1. The husband’s sperm and wife’s egg are used – no donor sperm or eggs.
  2. The sperm is obtained through normal intercourse with a perforated condom, not through masturbation.
  3. All embryos are implanted and none are frozen or destroyed.
Would it still be wrong? If so, why?
Click to expand...
Any medical procedure must help further the act not replace it. It is not an open issue. It is wrong. Some forms of AI are licit because they do not replace the marital act as IVF does.
 
I wondered if that was the procedure you were actually talking about. It wasn’t making much sense to me.
 
Debora123 said:
When in doubt, use your well formed conscience. That’s what it’s there for. 😉

God Bless.
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A well formed conscience would know and do what the Church teaches. IVF is immoral no matter how you try to go around it. Babies are a gift and not a right. We do not have the right to go against or around God’s will by doing something that is immoral. God Bless, Memaw
 
sdeco said:
Let’s say a couple does IVF under the following circumstances:

…3. All embryos are implanted and none are frozen or destroyed.

Would it still be wrong? If so, why?
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It is very important to understand that this is only a theoretical question. Nobody has ever done IVF without the destruction of many human embryos.
 
I know that the USCCB will allow a perforated condom when the husband is going through fertility testing - never read it was allow for a later medical procedure that may achieve fertilization. I need to see documentation from the Conference.
 
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