IVF: Pros and Cons

According to the US Catholic article, "the Vatican has been on record that most procedures resulting in the conception of a child outside the act of sex between a married couple are morally wrong." IVF is a topic of controversy in the Catholic Church, but the procedure offers both pros and cons. What leads to the Church's position against IVF?

The most obvious con to the IVF procedure is the cost. Because it is so expensive, IVF is very limited in its reach—only those who can afford it have access. However, in countries with centralized healthcare, such as Great Britain, IVF is included in healthcare costs. However, on the same note, some may argue that the cost restricts the process only to those who are financially able to care for a child. While I see the potential benefit of this point, I think it is partly this restriction that makes IVF an immoral practice in the eyes of the Church. If the overall goal is to create new life for those who seek it, the procedure should be more readily available.

Similarly, the Church is against the potential for couples to "play God." Because there is a possibility of donor sperm/eggs in the IVF process, there is a temptation to create the "perfect" baby—to manipulate the process to determine the characteristics of a child and select those embryos with the most favorable characteristics.

The Church is against the formation of an embryo in a petri dish not only because the extra embryos may be destroyed at any time, but also because of the involvement of a third-party, which diminishes the role of family and God in the creation of a child. And yet, the Church supports GIFT simply because the embryo is created in the uterus instead of a petri dish. Although I understand the thought that IVF leads to an embryo becoming a "science experiment," the comment that most hit me from the US Catholic article was a father's statement that God created those people who then discovered IVF. As we can see in the article, average Catholic parents have a wide variety of stances on IVF, but those who chose to pursue this method of fertilization do not feel any less Catholic. Therefore, the true morality of IVF is determined differently from person to person. Life is life, so does it really matter how we get there if the end result is the same?