You may have seen this article on Zenit, if not, read it - it is very important. For years IVF has been hailed as a great move forward in treating infertility - thousands of children have been born to childless couples, bringing them great joy and easing the burden and stigma of childlessness.
The Church, however, has its difficulties with the procedure, and rightly so - it fulfills the prophecy Pope Paul VI uttered in Humane Vitae. This article shows why the Church has her issues with the procedure.
Some interesting facts: since 1991 100,000 children have been born of the procedure, out of 3 million children conceived. Of these children 1.5 million have be discarded during treatment - think about that - 1.5 million children have been thrown out, destroyed by doctors and scientists. The abuse crisis pales in comparison with that! And many, many more remain frozen in IVF centres, most of them destined to be destroyed also. These are human beings we are talking about.
Other interesting facts: one man has fathered 150 children so far through the process. There are cases of other men fathering 50 or more children. This means incest is going become an issue in the years ahead, and when siblings marry there are genetic consequences. As regards those born of so called "sperm donors", while there is no definite figures, there are estimates that there could be as many as 60,000.
And all of this costs money - people are getting rich through these processes, and that, my friends, seems to make children a commodity - a "product" which is desired and then "made. As we see now, if the "product" does not fit the bill, then it can be discarded (aka abortion) and another made.
I have no desire to offend anyone, and certainly not those burdened with infertility, but life is precious, it is a gift, it cannot be made and discarded, subject to the will and whim of another human being. IVF might seem to solve problems, but it creates even more, and while it may seek to bring the joy of a new life into the lives of loving couples, it does so by killing hundreds of thousands of other lives.
Here is a very disturbing fact - when you see a child born of IVF, 30 other children were "created" in the procedure that brought this one to birth: where are they? Dead? Discarded? Experimented on? Frozen? Do not forget that they too are children.
If we are supposed to be putting children first, and as the great mantra "Best Practice" is repeated over and over again like a Eastern chant, is it not time to really put children first - not just install and sign register books in sacristies and hoard forms filled by everything that moves within a mile of a church property?? For years the Church has been silent about IVF for fear of offending those who avail of it - God forbid we catechise! Time to stop being selective - time to think of children - all children, particularly those who fall victim to the culture of death.
A researcher at the University of Aberdeen started looking into adnonymous donor insemination, and found that the level of denial, psychological trauma and so on was pretty striking. One gentleman, whose anonymity was respected, actually took his own life rather than face the reality of his own abandoned or never known children. The case of "accidental incest" has already occurred and one donor born child has already sued in the UK to know who her father is. It's a very distressing business.
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