QUESTION (Deirdre):
I would like to preface my comments by saying that I was raised Catholic. I was baptized, received communion and was confirmed. I am confused on the Church’s stance on fertility treatments to conceive a child. Why is it not okay to use fertility treatments to “artificially” create life but it is strictly enforced to use “modern medicine” and any means necessary to artificially pro-long life, i.e. feeding tubes, ventilators etc.?
RESPONSE:
First, certain fertility treatments are permitted by the Church. This would include medications to induce ovulation, increase sperm count, etc. Second, it is judged wrong to manipulate the elements of life through artificial insemination or in vitro technologies to create new human persons. The reasoning for the prohibition has to do with the meaning of the marital act and the dignity of human persons. The child should never be reduced to a commodity. Further, the Church views every fertilized embryo as a human person with an immortal soul. The freezing of human beings and/or the mass destruction of embryos that are part of this process is judged as the killing of persons.
You make the false presumption that the Church would agree without qualification about technologies that keep people alive. Pope Paul VI established that we are not morally obliged to use every extraordinary means to prolong human life. What the Church would insist on is that we provide necessary hydration and nutrition. Also, we should not employ “active” euthanasia as in suffocating someone with a pillow or injecting them with a deadly poison. Feeding tubes should not be judged as medicinal; however, the stomach can reach a point where because of swelling and infection, such processes of feeding will no longer work. A person may also suffer great discomfort and pain, making such a procedure difficult or impossible to employ. Painkillers like morphine might also inadvertently speed up death, but are permissible as long as out immediate intent is to relieve suffering or pain. The rule about ventilators is also not absolute, especially if there has been liquefaction of the brain. Although, I must say, there is a serious debate among ethicists as to what signifies true death of the human being. The late Pope John Paul II resisted extraordinary means at the end of his life. The Church has no issue with a terminally ill person who wants to die at home or in their own bed. While the Church has important ethical principles, each case varies from another and needs specific attention.
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