Wives and husbands have always been called by God to use their sexuality to unite and to procreate!
God blessed them and God said to them: Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and all the living things that crawl on the earth (Genesis 1: 28).
The unitive (i.e., the joining of the two bodies) and the procreative (i.e., the baby making) aspects of the marital act are meant to be inseparable:
a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and the two of them become one body (Genesis 2: 24).
Since the very beginning, wives and husbands have had the phenomenal call to be cooperators in God’s continuing work of creation. This is a mind boggling invitation from God Almighty!
Cooperators in God’s Continuing Work of Creation
There may be longstanding ignorance about its teaching on human sexuality, but Catholicism esteems sexual relations between wives and their husbands. So much so that even when used by a wife and her husband, the Vatican (e.g., Dignitas Personae) has adamantly said that IVF is absolutely wrong, because it separates the unitive (i.e., the joining of the two bodies) and the procreative (i.e., the baby making) aspects of the marital act:
The basic principle guiding Catholic reflection on infertility is that measures that assist a couple to conceive a child in their marital act are permissible while measures that replace the marital act are not….
Its very name, in vitro, means in Latin that the conception occurs “in glass” (a petri dish in most cases), not in the couple’s marital act. Ovum and sperm are extracted from the man and woman, often by masturbation, and are manipulated in the laboratory. Multiple embryos are usually created, because some do not survive the freezing before insertion in the mother; others are not used because they are judged to have low reproductive potential; and some of those with high reproductive potential fail to attach to the uterine wall. As laudable as sympathy for an infertile couple may be, there is more than a whiff of “eugenics” in IVF as medical personnel choose which embryos are worthy of life and which are not.
So, what happens to the embryos that are not used? Unless the couple objects, they are discarded. If the couple wants to keep them, they are kept frozen for possible future use.
Every help possible should be given to couples experiencing infertility but the ends do not justify the means. Technology in medicine as in warfare, commerce, and daily actions such as driving a car or using the Internet must be guided by ethical standards or else technology will betray the good which it pretends to serve. IVF looks for a short-term solution but does not recognize the longer-term damage it does by making the embryo an object of medical manipulation rather than a fruit of parental love….
It is the normal desire and expectation of most couples to have children but there is no absolute right to have a child. (Bishop Mark Brennan, 3/11/24).
What is Permissable is Infinitely Better.
The NY Times may be slowly waking up to the existence of restorative reproductive medicine (see As Trump Weighs I.V.F., Republicans Back New ‘Natural’ Approach to Infertility, 8/21/25). Absolutely different from IVF, Naprotechnology aids the marital act and does not replace it.
Absolutely Superior to IVF
Learning fertility awareness, a married wife and husband work with specialists, who may employ some surgery. Any techniques employed are absolutely different than IVF:
(1) They respect the inviolable integrity and right to life of a newly developing baby.
(2) They acknowledge the truth that parents ought to view their baby as a gift, not a right.
(3) They recognize the child’s right to be conceived, gestated, born into, and raised within a heterosexual, until-death-do-we-part marriage.
(4) They assist, not replace, the marital act.
(5) They promote the unitive love meaning of the marital act of sex that’s not only inextricably linked to, but that alone makes sense of, the mystery of sexuality and human procreation (Catholic World Report, 2/28/25)
It is possible for some Catholics to be unaware of the Church’s serious opposition to IVF. It appears to be a rule of thumb for many bishops, priests, deacons, and pastoral workers to avoid topics of a sexual nature. There seems to be so much fear of offending anyone for sinful behavior, that the full and beautiful message about human sexuality is dismissed. Who would wish to trade places with these silent leaders on Judgement Day?
Conclusion
Each new human deserves to originate in the loving embrace of a mom and dad who are married to each other. Yet no matter how that new person came to be, she is owed infinite respect and protection from her very first moment. Opposition to IVF is absolutely NOT opposition to life! On the other hand, we need to be cautious in interpreting the Trump/Vance changed position on IVF:
What I previously noted is unchanged:
As per a 7/16/24 email from the Pillar,
The GOP platform…seems to… deemphasize principled opposition to abortion, and…has dropped a man-woman definition of marriage….
On June 12, 2024, Republican senators issued a statement in support of morally repugnant IVF. (Catholic365, 7/17/24)
Let’s not be hasty in our applause for Trump/Vance on this issue. We need to wait and see if they are truly with us.
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