What does the Catholic Church say about IVF?

Mouthful of a title, right? Let's just say I'm doing it for Google's sake.

So, painfully obvious disclaimer: I am neither a bioethicist nor a theologian. Well, not officially, anyway. I've got 2 semesters of grad theology under my belt, but the only letters associated with my name are Mrs. So read on, knowing that I'm just a girl with an internet connection and a voracious appetite for moral theology and science. (In other words, these here are layman's - or laywoman's, as it were - words.)

I have been blessed with 3 beautiful, exasperating children in just under 5 years of marriage. In other words, I am in no position to talk to anyone about the heartache of infertility, or about the devastating sorrow of losing a baby to miscarriage. But here's the thing: I have friends. And I've watched their pain and I've seen the ache of longing in their eyes. And I see the messages the culture is sending out to women (and men) who suffer from the desolating poverty of infertility, and they are being fed a steady diet of bullshit that only adds to their suffering.

I want to offer the truth. Anything less than the truth is an affront to their dignity, and to the dignity of the children who they long to conceive.

The Catholic Church has that truth. She holds it in sacred trust, the inalienable belief that every human life is sacred, from conception until natural death, and that the creation of human life itself is holy. Hallowed ground.

So that's where I'm speaking from.

There's one more thing I want to say before we dive in. And it's about authentic reproductive technology: NAPRO.

I have a dear friend who was pregnant when we first met, back when I was a full time office gal. I was only months away from my wedding and couldn't get enough of her pregnancy stories and baby kicks. As our friendship grew and her belly expanded, she shared more details. This was actually her fourth pregnancy, she explained, and she'd had three previous miscarriages. But she couldn't get a referral to a high risk OB until after that third loss.

And then, do you know what the solution was for her body to carry that fourth precious baby safely to term? Progesterone. One pill by mouth daily, for the first trimester. Cheap, simple, readily available... and an option she didn't even realize she had, because she wasn't yet "high risk" enough to be referred to a doctor who knew what the hell he was doing.

That kind of dismissive, laissez faire medicine, practiced all too often in ob/gyn groups around the country, is the worst kind of insult to women.

So do yourself a favor and google around for a NAPRO doc near you.

Because you deserve to be served by a doctor who understands how your body works, and why, and who isn't content to write you an annual scrip for birth control to try to shut your reproductive system down.

(And then happily write you another scrip for fertility drugs when you change your mind 3 years down the road but it turns out, your body didn't like being messed with. So now rather than worrying about getting pregnant, you're having to worry about getting pregnant. Because it seems like now you can't.)

But what if it's more serious than that? What about couples who have no other means of recourse than IVF or even surrogacy? How can the Church tell them no, when all she speaks of is the goodness of children and the sanctity of life?

For those very same reasons. Because children are good, and because life is sacred.

Children are good. And they are gifts. We vow to accept them lovingly from God, but the converse does not hold. We cannot demand them angrily, desperately, when they do not come. No matter how great the longing. His ways are not our ways, and oh how easy it is for me to write this while my 3 little gifts lie snug in their beds down the hall.

I haven't felt the pain of infertility. It is a pain I will never know, intimately. But I do that the Church, as our mother, never asks of us that which would harm another person, and certainly not that which takes another person's life.

Many of our current reproductive technologies are harmful, and some - IVF in particular - depend specifically on creating a number - sometimes a large number - of "backup" embryos, both to ensure the success of the couple's efforts to conceive initially and for future use, should they desire more children.

From the get go, IVF is problematic because it violates the dignity of those children created in a laboratory setting. A child has the fundamental right to be conceived in the dignity and privacy of her mother's womb, the fruit of the love between two parents who are committed to each other and to her.

Anything less is poverty for that child, no matter how well reasoned or rationalized the motives of the adults involved. Does that sound crazy? If it does, it's only because our technology has so rapidly outpaced our morality that we accept just about anything at face value, simply because it is possible.

In most cases of IVF, multiple embryos are created and introduced into the mother's uterus, with the hopes that a few good ones will implant. The remainder who survive remain in limbo, kept frozen in a lab until their parents decide whether to implant, destroy, or donate.

Once inside mom, if too many "successful" embryos implant, the joyous event of a longed-for pregnancy is now marred by the dark shadow of "selective reduction," aka abortion. The parents and doctors must now choose which of the baby(s) have the best chance at making it to term, and abort the remainders.

Do you see a common thread running through it all? It's all about the adults. None of this is done for the sake of the children, or with consideration for the dignity - or the suffering - of the children.

Conceived in a petri dish, selected from an unlucky crop of frozen siblings, perhaps the survivor of an early abortion on other siblings...and finally, against all odds and many thousands of dollars and hours of pain later, brought into this world, on demand.

Loved, yes. But demanded, first.

Openness to life, we talked about earlier in this series, means openness to loss. But it can never mean intentionally causing the loss. It doesn't mean going to any extremes to obtain life, to demand it and wrench it from God's hands and fit it into our own script.

Is it fair?

Hell no it's not fair. It's not fair that I have children while some couples who don't, can't.

But life isn't fair. And there are all kinds of sufferings and different-shaped crosses we're asked to bear. It sounds so crazy but it really boils down to this: just because we can do something, doesn't mean we should.

Just because we can harvest sperm and egg from willing and desperate would-be parents, willing to shell out thousands for a baby of their own, doesn't mean we should.

Just because we can create new human life in a petri dish, coaxing the requisite genetic material together and then discarding the chromosomal losers, doesn't mean we should.

Just because we can implant a half dozen viable embryos into a woman's uterus with the selective reduction of as many of 5 of them as the failsafe backup plan, does't mean we should.

There are all kinds of things human beings are capable of. But not all of them are good. And in this case, as in so many others, the ends do not justify the means.

For couples who are suffering this incredible pain, the Church has a message of love and of mercy, and more than anything, of being a safe harbor where you can rest and not be further harmed, or cause harm yourselves.

IVF is a terrible poverty to the children involved, first and foremost. But it exacts a terrible price from their parents, too. No parent wants to willingly participate in the harm, destruction, or death of their child. It's unfathomable. And yet we have this billion dollar industry, rushing grieving couples through their office doors and helping them to do exactly that.

There's so much more that could be said, and much more eloquently, but this is long enough. 

There is no judgement here. Only truth, and sorrow, and a genuine desire to bring clarity to a deeply problematic and painful suffering that is rampant in our culture. 

The world promises relief from suffering through denial, manipulation, and force. But Christ says something different. 

Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

Easier said than done, right?

Click here for the rest of the series.

Vatican roulette and IVF: What's the deal with Catholic sex?

(I promise I'm going to post other stuff this month aside from all the heavy heavy...in fact, tune in Tuesday for pictures of pumpkins and half dressed children destroying beautiful fall tablescapes.)

What we have today is a bit of a departure from my normal style, more of a "teaching" post, if you will. Maybe because it's Sunday? Or maybe because I slept for 9.5 hours last night and my brain is functioning at 130%. Probably that. But rest assured, I'm not planning to talk at you for the entire month. This one just came out kinda ... professorial. So proceed with caution. Or don't. It won't hurt my feelings.
------------------
Catholics seem to be, how can I put this ... a tad obsessed with life.

Life from the moment of conception until the moment of natural death. Life-long commitment within the marriage relationship. Openness to life within marriage. Support for life in all its ages and stages, especially among the poor and marginalized. Building a culture of life to combat the influence of the culture of death. Eternal life.

Yeah, we're totally enamored with life. And there's a reason or two.

It's worth noting that faithful Catholics take God literally (and seriously) when it comes to marriage being a life-long commitment. And hand-in-hand with the understanding that marriage is for life comes the concept of openness to life. 

Here's what openness to life does not mean. Having as many kids as is physically possible. Only having sex when the woman is fertile. Pumping out baby after baby to the detriment of the mother's health, the father's health, the overall wellbeing of the family, etc.

It also doesn't mean going to extraordinary lengths or using illicit means to achieve the heartbreakingly beautiful end result of a child. 

So we don't pop 'em out till we drop, we don't dial up Rome to find out if we're expected to produce 11 or 14 kids to fill those empty seminaries, and we also don't turn to IVF or surrogacy or sperm donation or any other illicit means in the pursuit of a biological child.

And it all comes down to respect for human life and for the autonomy of the human person.

Those might not seem like related topics (perpetual pregnancy vs. IVF, etc.) but there is a common thread that runs through them both, and it's the idea of the person as commodity. 

In the first example, both the mother and the child (but primarily the mother) are being used, are being viewed primarily for what they can do and whether they can produce and not for who they are.

We must never reduce the human person to the sum of her parts ... or productivity.

In the second case, the matter of IVF and other illicit means of fertility assistance, the person being reduced to the level of commodity is the child.

The parents are too, to a certain extent, with the collection of the proper parts and pieces (usually done via means which violate their dignity and the integrity of their sexual relationship) and in the use of their bodies (or the bodies of donors) as little more than incubators or parts-suppliers. But primarily it is the child(ren) who suffers the evil of being reduced to a thing, a commodity, a very intensely desired and sought after prize ... but a prize nonetheless. In other words, a possession.

A lot of people have a really hard time seeing any connection between contraception and reproductive technologies because we have such a mental block in place. Sex and babies have been so effectively severed from one another that there's almost no capacity to dialogue with somebody of the prevailing cultural mindset about the personhood of the parties involved, or the dignity of human sexuality.

Since sex has been reduced to a recreational activity at best and a financial transaction or a laboratory procedure at worst, it's a tough sell to the modern mind to reveal the mystery and the dignity inherent in sex and it's procreative power.

It's also a really tough sell to tell someone who wants a baby that there's no guarantee, and that they don't actually have the "right" to possess a child of their own genetic makeup.

Because children are only and always a gift. 

It is this sacred and inviolable belief that informs both our rejection of contraception and our inability to participate in illicit or immoral means of fertility assistance.

So to the couple seeking to avoid a pregnancy at this time in their marriage, the answer is: wait. Do not do the thing that could bring a child into your lives right now. You might not be prepared to care for or to fully welcome a child right now, and that is fine, but a child is only and always a gift. 

And to the couple desperate for a child of their own, a child to carry their genes and their hopes and dreams into the future...wait.

However, your heart is breaking (and this is so hard to write, and this is so hard to understand) manipulating and creating human life in a petri dish denies your child/children their basic human rights and dignity. Even if only one embryo is created (thereby avoiding the moral conundrum of frozen embryos (and the even greater sorrow of little teeny persons filling dumpsters with other medical waste) your child deserves to be conceived in the safety and privacy of his or her mother's body. It is his fundament right.

This is such a hard concept. In only a few decades we've gone from "could we possibly?" to "why the hell not?" in so many areas of science, and reproductive science is at the forefront of innovation. But just because we can, doesn't mean we should.

Just because we can harvest eggs and sperm and spin them and clean them and genetically select the most promising embryos from a batch created in a lab...doesn't mean we should.

Just because we can keep the "extra" embryos frozen on ice, suspended indefinitely until the parents either save up for another attempt or decide to dispose of them or "donate" their children to science (or to another family)...doesn't mean we should.

Just because we can take a donor egg from one woman and fill it with the genetic material from another woman and combine it with the sperm from a man...doesn't mean we should.

Just because we can extract the raw material from an older woman and her husband and implant the created embryo into the uterus of a younger, healthier surrogate to carry their pregnancy to term and surrender the child who grew inside of her body back to them...doesn't mean we should.

In each of these examples the dignity of the human person is being trampled upon. But, you may protest, what about the dignity of the parents and their right to have a child?

I would gently remind you that no such right exists, that we are not guaranteed genetic offspring of our own making, and that the rights of the individual are always superior to the desires of another person.

Our children do have the right to exist, but we do not have the right to summon them into existence by whatever means necessary. And we certainly don't have the right to dispose of other lives in order to arrive at the successful delivery of another.

This includes the mother's life. So by the same line of reasoning, to ask a woman to carry as many pregnancies as is physically possible, to expect her to go beyond openness to life and to demand total surrender of her will and her intellect in the realm of family planning and mothering...this also is unethical.

But so is contraception. So is forcing a woman to alter her body, either chemically or surgically or by means of a barrier, so that she is conveniently available for use without fear of repercussion. Even if she is a willing participant, an enthusiastic participant, even, in her own sterilization...it is still a grave violation of her human dignity.

Okay, this went way longer than I was expecting and I have to get dressed for the day, but I promise we'll talk more about IVF and contraception and being chained, barefoot and pregnant, to the cookstove.

Until then, keep the Synod (which started today!) in your prayers, and ask the Lord for wisdom and understanding as you ponder these teachings for yourself. They're not easy. But they are life-giving (ha.)

So how do you 'do' NFP?

I got a lot of good follow up questions to my previous post on NFP vs. Contraception and I thought I'd link up some excellent resources here.

First and foremost, Humanae Vitae: Read with an open heart and a questioning mind, and ask yourself, "how have Pope Paul VI's predictions panned out? Does this lend credence to the Church's teachings on sexuality and procreation?

Second, Bishop James Conley's pastoral letter on the above mentioned encyclical (official teaching of the Pope).

Finally, for some practical, hands-on instruction (see what I did there?) in the actual practice of NFP, I heartily recommend Creighton's NaPro technology, great for both the practice of NFP to delay or avoid pregnancy or (and perhaps even more excitingly) to achieve pregnancy in the face of infertility. 

Borrowed from Haley over at Carrots

Seriously, it's twice as effective as IVF? And, um, free-ish. Or at least covered by insurance.

Mind blown.

There's also the Sympto Thermal Method, which I'm also trained in but, um, don't really 'get' postpartum, and then there is the Marquette Method and the Billings Method.

And I think my cousin uses something called a Lady Comp and pees on strips of test paper. Idk, you're gonna have to google that one yourself.

I'll link up some more resources on a permanent page on the 'ol blog, but right now we've got tons of family in town and I haven't showered in...well, I'll never tell.

;)

A Love that Multiplies

... and subtracts years from your life.

It's 8:16 on a Tuesday night, and it feels like midnight on Saturday. I just yelled to my 3-year-old from across the house threatening to "call Mr. Traynor so he can come over and spank you." as he lies wailing in his room for the 5th consecutive evening in a row of bedtime protestations. (Mr. Traynor, for the record, is my parent's 70-something next door neighbor and a good family friend and not at all scary, except I guess he is, when I use his name in vain.)

Yesterday Lizzie and her brood crashed at our house for what effectively turned out to be a 24 hour toddler endurance marathon, complete with sword fighting injuries, slapping fights, incidences of public urination, and nap boycotting. Holy hell, there's a reason kids usually come one at a time. Mothers of twins and beyond...you have my unending admiration and respect. Mothers who custom-order Duggar sized broods from laboratory facilities...you are effing crazy.

You see, in between wiping up vomit and spreading peanut butter on tortillas, I thought good and hard about grace and nature and the way God designed parenting and motherhood in particular to function.

And I realized something: He won't give us what we can't handle. Unless, of course, we demand it, ripping it from His hands like spoiled children who 'know better.' And I think that's a decent explanation of what is going on with forms of assisted reproductive technology like IVF, and perhaps part of why, aside from the obvious moral quandaries regarding selective reduction of pregnancies, eugenic screening, and sex-selective abortions, the Church steadfastly condemns its practice.

I can't speak for every mom of course, but for myself and my comrade in arms yesterday, bare minimum mode would have been a generous description of what was going down. All these babies, all this noise, unbelievable chaos...and of course, it was good. It was very good. Children always are, no matter the circumstances of their conception or birth. But it was so evidently not ideal. And I kept thinking to myself, why, why oh why would anyone try to have three 2-year-olds at the same time? There's a reason triplets are genetically rare. It takes a special kind of mother with amazing grace to do this kind of zone defense, and the ladies who hit that kind of fertility lottery are few and far between. Except increasingly, they're not. And I wonder if that's a good thing.

Our particular cousin buddies are 3.9 years, 3 years, 1.9 years, 18 months, and 5 months, respectively. There's a good reason why one single family could probably not have put up those kind of numbers, biologically speaking. (Adoptive parents, my hat goes off to you for a million and one reasons, and this line of reasoning excludes your beautiful families, fyi.)

Charlie and John Paul, separated by a mere 6 months and a whopping 12 pounds.

What I'm rambling on about is the fact that God didn't intend biological motherhood to produce children this close together in age, or (in 99.9% of naturally occurring cases) in number. The ratio is untenable. The chaos is unimaginable. And the fun...oh yes, there was fun. But mostly there was screaming. From all parties present, I think, until bedtime rolled around and the world's best daddy  spelled us girls for a much-needed night excursion to my favorite thrift stores.

If you managed to hang on this far, I salute you, because the prose it is a 'ramblin and the letters on my screen are kind of blurring together. All I'm really sure of is that my mini van was the picture of serenity on our drive home this evening, sans cousins, where my thoughts were interrupted only by intermittent strains of "Happy birday!" chirped from the backseat, accompanied by the soothing dialogue of Disney's "Cars" bumping on the system. 2 exterior babies, 19 months apart? Bliss, sheer bliss, I tell you. I have one arm for each of them, so far, and I'm crossing all my fingers and toes that when little Miss makes her debut this winter, Master Joseph will be a whole lot lower on the imminent physical needs scale than he is even now. And that's how it was designed.

Joey is awfully fond of baby Charlotte. "I just love her and she is so pretty."

They come out a squalling bundle of needs and then gradually, almost imperceptibly, the needs ... change. They don't necessarily let up, but they grow and evolve with the child, and the next thing you know, the baby who nursed round the clock and whose diaper was always in need of a change is suddenly a little boy whose most pressing demand is the knowledge of why cats meow and what makes the clouds turn colors at night.

Nothing like a little perspective to help put your own house in order.

Big baby gets what he wants. And speaking of big babies, check out that 28 week mountain. 

In Vitro Violence

I've never given much thought to the post-implantation violence begotten by the process of IVF, but after a heart wrenching discussion with a dear friend last night, I've had my eyes opened to a hidden world of incredible loss and unimaginable evil.

The process of in-vitro fertilization is intrinsically evil in its commoditization of human life by the intentional creation, manipulation of and, far too often, the destruction of designer embryos, purchased by desperate, misguided parents and coaxed into existence by truly mad science. 

What I failed to realize was that even after the creation of 7 or perhaps 9 tiny babies, 3 of whom would perhaps be lucky enough to be considered 'viable' and implanted into their mother's womb, these 'chosen ones' were still far from home free.

My sweet girl friend lost one of her precious twin daughters at birth last year, and has been attending a grieving group for mothers of multiples who've suffered similar losses.  Except, as it turns out, they have much less in common then one might imagine. 

For starters, of all the member couples of their group, my friend and her husband are the only couple with 'natural' twins.  All the other parents resorted to IVF to conceive their double (or triple) blessings.  What was sickening, however, was the process by which those 'lucky' children were selected for implantation into their mother's wombs.

IVF is known for its practical application of eugenics, whereby the medical team identifies the 'highest quality' embryos for consideration, taking into account the parental preference for health, strength and even gender.  Practically speaking, parents can custom-order their children from a sampling of 7 or 9 embryos yielded from a successful round of IVF.  What the medical staff will usually downplay, however, is the fate of those unlucky 'extra' embryos - children who end up frozen in sterile labs for an indeterminate number of years at best, or at worst, discarded as so much laboratory waste.


I thought this was where the heartache of IVF ended, but I was wrong.

As the grieving parents went around the group sharing their tales of loss and struggle, a macabre theme began to emerge, as couple after couple recounted choosing to 'selectively reduce' the number in their brood following a successful embryo transfer.  Too successful, it turned out.

One couple remembered the feelings of 'relief and certainty' which followed the selective elimination of one of their triplets at 20 weeks.  (Note: selective elimination = mid term abortion) The mother shared her certainty over the decision being 'just so right... and that rightness was confirmed when the doctor told us that the remaining twins were one of each gender!'

As my girlfriend recounted the story through her own tears, I gripped her counter top as my head spun, trying to process what I was hearing. Her own loss of a daughter was so raw and recent, and here she was, face to face with another mom in her grieving group who had willingly ended her child's life.  But why her participation in a grieving group?  Had she been moved to remorse and conversion by her violent choice.

Not exactly.

As the result of her 20 week abortion of baby #3, the perfect, remaining set of twins were compromised when her cervix failed to close completely following the 'procedure.'  She was ordered onto strict bed rest and required to lay at an awkward, inverted angle to maintain the pregnancy, but sadly she lost another baby at 27 weeks.  A few months later she delivered the surviving triplet, a little girl.  Incredibly, this woman went on to share with the group that she and her husband had tried for another child 'just to be fair' to her daughter, now an only child, but were forced to abort baby number 4  after an amniocentesis showed possible evidence of Down's.

In summary,  thanks to the miracles of modern medicine, this infertile couple was able to conceive, select, freeze, destroy, and eventually deliver one perfect 'product' of conception into this brave new world...  No word on whether surviving daughter came with a warranty or a return policy.

Isn't progress grand?