Last week Vatican has explicitly expressed its opposition to in vitro fertilization. A new document issued by the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, criticizes that method, claiming that it violates the principles that every human life - even an embryo - is sacred, and that babies should be conceived only through intercourse between husband and wife.
The 23-page instruction, entitled "Dignitas Personae," or "The Dignity of the Person," carries the approval and the authority of Pope Benedict XVI. The Instruction, released December 12, highlights "some anthropological, theological and ethical elements of fundamental importance" as well as "new problems regarding procreation" and "new procedures involving the manipulation of embryos and the human genetic patrimony." This Instruction was announced at the same time in Vatican and Warsaw, Poland, where it raised questions regarding the impact it may have on the Polish couples who consider IVF technique as the only treatment which is to combat their infertility.
Catholic Church officials regard this Instruction on bioethical issues as a guidance on how to respect human life and human procreation in everyday life. "Dignitas Personae" criticizes "embryo adoption," whereby infertile couples adopt embryos frozen during in vitro techniques, because it involves separating conception from the "conjugal act" and often results in the destruction of embryos. "The Church understands suffering of many infertile couples, but the desire to have a child cannot come first, before the dignity of every human life, including an embryo," said the Polish priest and professor Wojciech Bołos. The Church representatives underline that the ban on in vitro fertilization results from the fact that it violates the basic moral norms created by the Catholic Church.
The Instruction similarly opposes the techniques involved in IVF, because embryos are or can be destroyed. The Instruction's authors consider intentional selective abortion the deliberate and direct elimination of one or more innocent human beings in the initial phase of their existence. The authors also oppose pre-implantation diagnosis and embryo freezing, arguing that doing so exposes them to potential damage and manipulation, and that it raises the problem of what to do with frozen embryos that are not implanted. The document also says "no" to the morning-after pill, even if it doesn't cause an abortion, because an abortion was intended. The use of drugs such as RU-486, which causes the elimination of the embryo once it is implanted, is equivalent to the "sin of abortion," thus their use is "gravely immoral."
Experts say that there is little new in this document, but that it may still come as a surprise to many Catholics who are unaware of the church's ban on in vitro fertilization. However, Polish ethicists claim that Instruction should not change social attitudes towards IVF methods. "The document should be treated seriously, but one does not have to blindly accept its postulates," says Pawel Łukow, a Polish expert on bioethics.
Instead of IVF the Church supports adoption, and medical treatment of infertility or endometriosis. It does not oppose research on stem cells derived from adults; blood from umbilical cords; or fetuses "who have died of natural causes." The document does not prohibit the use of vaccines developed using "cell lines of illicit origin" if children's health is at stake. But it says that "everyone has the duty" to inform health care providers of personal objections to such vaccines.
The Vatican's intended audience is not only individual Roman Catholics, but also non-Catholic doctors, scientists, medical researchers and legislators who might consider regulating stem cell research and other recent developments in biomedical technology. With regard to the last group of addressees, the Vatican's statement is released just when the works on new bioethics law in Poland are being undertaken. Quite coincidently, a few days before the Vatican's Instruction was issued, the Church representatives in Poland for the Episcopate conference expressed their discontent regarding the idea of partial insurance coverage of in vitro fertilization methods, to be included into the new law on bioethics. Archbishop Józef Michalik said that "refunding IVF is paying for murder," and Archbishop Henryk Hoser stated that "it's moral schizophrenia." "There is no slightest doubt that IVF violates the right to life of conceived persons. At the price of one life, to give parents pleasure and give them a child, another one is killed," said Archbishop Józef Michalik, chairman of the Polish Episcopate Conference. However, Jarosław Gowin, the member of the Parliament, who is responsible for preparing a legal act on bioethics, was not surprised when he heard what the Polish Catholic Church authorities said, as well as the Vatican's instruction issued right after. And, even more importantly, he underlined that the new law would allow for the use of in vitro fertilization in Poland, because Poland is a secular state and while creating the law, his team did not take into consideration the Church's guidance related to reproductive methods.
The law will simply make legal all those practices which are already commonly used by many Polish couples suffering from infertility. Gowin is a co-author of a draft law which, although it goes against the Catholic Church ideology, radically improves the right to life. And Gowin still hopes for a positive opinion of the Polish Episcopate in that regard. But right now the Episcopate's acceptance is rather unrealistic. One may say that what the Church says should not be so important, but for some Catholic couples in Poland the decision over whether to undergo in vitro fertilization may become that much more difficult, knowing that the Church considers "a sin." It will certainly not make their lives easier.
