The hardest issue to deal with in all of ethics - at least in my experience - has been the issue of In Vitro Fertilization. Church teaching on the ethics of technologized parenthood seems counterintuitive at first glance; for the action of conceiving a baby in vitro is not directed against human life. Thus, it is not contra-life, but apparently pro-life. So where is the difficulty? Why can't a married couple, who cannot conceive a baby on their own, turn to In Vitro Fertilization?
In a culture like ours in which the dubious principle that "one may do whatever one pleases, as long as it does not harm anyone" is regarded, for the most part, as the fundamental precept that ought to govern human action, I entertain no illusions about being able to convince many people let alone the general public that IVF, Artificial Insemination, sex pre-selection, and Genetic Manipulation for non-medical purposes are morally questionable. The following is nothing more than an attempt to explain why Church teaching on these matters is not contrary to reason, but entirely in accordance therewith.
In recent years, we read of a case of a couple whose teenage daughter needed bone marrow. The couple could not find a donor, so they conceived a baby for the sake of providing their first daughter with the needed bone marrow. Some had a sense that there was something wrong with this, but many people just couldn't quite put their finger on exactly what. The majority, however, tend to regard the choice of the parents as perfectly okay, from a moral point of view. But according to traditional natural law ethics, one may not make such a choice. Let me explain.
It was Immanuel Kant who taught: "Treat humanity as an end, and never merely as a means". The human person must never be treated as a means to an end, for this would be to use a person. And human persons are ends in themselves. All other things exist to serve the needs of human persons. This computer is a means to an end, not an end in itself. To use it is not to abuse it. But using a human person as a means to an end is abusive. This person or that person does not exist to serve my needs. As Pope John Paul II pointed out, "man is the only being that God the Creator willed into existence for his own sake." That is why I must relate to human persons in line with that divine will, that is, as ends in themselves, not as means to my own personal ends. To use a person is to abuse a person.
Now it seems that the couple conceived this baby, that is, willed the baby into existence, not for his or her own sake, but primarily and principally for the sake of what she was able to provide for another. In other words, she was willed into existence not for the sake of what she is, but for the sake of what she has (bone marrow). This is treating a baby as a means to an end, and we believe that this is wrong. What I or anyone would do in a situation like this is irrelevant. What should we do is the only relevant question at this point.
But many argue that compared to the tremendous good of saving a human life, the choice to conceive a baby for the sake of that life is almost insignificant.
It is true that it can appear morally insignificant, but I would argue that it isn't. If we are committed to being loyal to the good (moral good, which is in the will), we will not treat people as means to ends. Moreover, it is of the nature of evil to spread, as cancer spreads. It would be desirable if cancer were to remain the same size it was when it began to be, but it does not. It spreads. And it spreads until it engulfs the entire person. Moral evil is very much like that. It starts off small and apparently insignificant. But we shape our moral identity by the choices that we make, and if we start treating human beings as means to ends (at least initially, at the instant of its conception), who can predict where this will end? The instant we allow the principle that persons may be treated as a means, we set the stage for a quality of life ethics in which the value of individual human life is measured according to how well it serves human needs.
But IVF is a much tougher issue, even though the principles are the same. Let us go over a few of them before we begin.
Firstly, a child is not a right, but a gift, the supreme gift of matrimony. To make the child or any human person the object of a right is to reduce the person to the level of an object to be possessed. And yet many people today believe that they have a right to destroy a baby, and a right to have a baby, and a right to produce one in a laboratory if they cannot do so on their own, and a right to destroy the baby so produced if it begins to develop abnormally.
Now, the principle that human beings must never be treated as means to ends but always as ends in themselves can be translated as follows: human beings must be loved not for what they can do for me, but only and always for their own sake. This can again be re-worded: The very existence of a person must be willed not for the sake of what that existence can do for me, but simply for the person's own sake.
So how does this apply to In Vitro Fertilization? A couple would like to have a baby, but they cannot for some biological reason. What could be wrong with getting a little help from the medical profession? Nothing, as long as it does not involve treating a baby as a means to an end. The problem is that IVF necessarily involves treating a baby as a means to an end - although in a way far less obvious than the case above.
The best way to explain this - in my experience at least - is to distinguish between the act of procreation and that of production. To produce something is very different than the procreation of new life and it involves a completely different way of relating to the baby. Consider the following:
To produce something means to manufacture something in order to satisfy the desire for that product (the product of the making process, or the manufacturing process). It is an activity carried out for the sake of a product that is brought into being in order to satisfy the desire for that product. To manufacture anything is to subordinate what you are making (product) to the desire to possess it. Thus, the project of producing anything (a new car, a house, medicine, etc.) is to bring that possible product into existence to satisfy the desire to have it.
The project of producing a baby is to bring a possible baby into existence to satisfy the desire to have a baby. But a baby must not be evaluated by relating the baby's existence to my desire for a future which includes that baby. Thus, the principle that a person's existence must be willed for the person's own sake (and not for the sake of satisfying one's desire for a baby) is violated in the laboratory generation or production of human life. This involves treating a baby as a means to an end.
So, what then is the difference between the above and the choice of a couple to have sex because they want a baby? Consider how procreation is radically different than production.
Procreation is the bringing forth of new human life as the fulfillment of the one-flesh union, that is, the conjugal act (the sex act). Now, in performing the sexual act, the married couple become reproductively one organism. By intending to come together in the sex act (one body unity), the couple intend their marriage (their one flesh union). The first requirement of procreation is that the couple perform the sex act for its own sake, as a celebration of their one flesh union (marriage). The unitive and procreative good constitute the one single good of marriage.
Now, the child is the completion of their one flesh union. So the intention to become one body in the conjugal act (which they perform for its own sake) is identical to the intention to have a child. By willing a child as the fulfillment of their one body unity, the two are willing their fulillment as parents. The baby is perfecting and completing the couple as a one flesh union. In other words, the couple become reproductively one organism and they will to become so in joining in the sexual act - they will the child as the fulfillment of their potentiality to be completely one flesh. Their will to be completely one body is the same as their will for a child. If they will to be completely one body for its own sake (since marriage is a basic human good sought for its own sake), then they intend the child for its own sake. The child is an expansion of the community of the couple's marriage.
In other words, the child's existence and the fulfillment of the couple's procreative potential are the same thing. The child is the blessing and crowning perfection of what the couple is doing (the marital act). And what the couple get when they conceive a child in the act is simply more of them - it is an expansion of their marriage - an enrichment and enlargement of the community of their marriage.
So the couple simply will to be more of what they are, that is, they want to be one body as much as possible, as much as they can be, and the child makes them more deeply one body. The couple is trying to function as a one flesh unity and they hope that their marriage act will be fruitful. When they conceive, they are delighted that their marital love is blessed and made complete.
Now in the labaratory generation of human life, the child does not perfect or complete the one body unity of the couple. The couple pretend that it does. For they do not become reproductively one body; for the child is generated outside the marital act. The child is the product of the individual act of the scientist who unites the male and female gametes in vitro. The manufacturing of human life in vitro involves willing the child's existence to satisfy one's desire to have a baby - thus treating the child as a means to an end, as a means of satisfying the desire for a future which includes the baby.
Similarly, having sex not as a marital act but simply in order to have a baby would also be wrong for precisely the same reason. The child would not be willed as the fulfillment of their one body union. It would also constitute an abuse of the marital act; for it violates its integrity.
Obj: A married couple who do not plan to have a baby abstain from having sex while the woman is ovulating. Then, when they choose to have a baby, they do have sex while the woman is ovulating. They say in their minds, "I want/desire to have a baby" and thus they choose to have sex while the woman is fertile because they understand that if they do that, they will eventually have what they desire: a baby.
Reply: Yes, but their desire to have a baby is good, and the "means" of having that baby is not a means by which the baby itself becomes a means to an end. Rather, the means is an action which is an end in itself, willed for its own sake, namely the coming together in one flesh union. So the baby comes to be as the fulfillment of their one flesh union. The action of sexual union is willed as an end in itself, namely the expression and celebration of one flesh union (marriage).
If the couple just have sex not as an expression of one body union, that is, not as an expression of marriage, but rather as a simple "let's get this over and done with", then the sex act is trivialized and reduced to a kind of production (re-production), rather than procreation.
Obj: Even if they have a baby for its own sake, they still say "I want to have a baby" and so they have sex during that time because they know they need to do just that in order to conceive.
Reply: Yes, and what they desire in desiring conception is the complete fulfillment of their one flesh union. In production, they do not desire the fulfillment of their one flesh union because there is no one flesh union, rather conception occurs outside of the sex act. If the couple just have sex, not as a marital act, but as a simple means to a baby (perhaps they are not even married), then the marriage act is reduced to a form of production in which the activity is carried out merely for the sake of the product.
Obj: Not many couples view having a baby with the perspective outlined in your article. Rather, they view having a baby with the above perspective.
Reply: This is true in a sense. They may not understand the distinctions. But they would know what separating the unitive and the procreative purposes implies. As long as their act of intercourse is a real marriage act, there is no problem with the perspective you outlined above.
Obj: But when a married couple decides that it is time to have a baby, they begin to have sex when the woman is fertile to satisfy that desire to have a baby.
Reply: And there is nothing wrong with that. Yet their action is not merely to satisfy their desire for a baby. There's more involved. The action of having sex is itself a marital act, willed for its own sake, and in willing a baby, they will that their act of intercourse be completed in the conception of a child, which is the union of the male and female gametes.
Obj: It's as if you're treating any DESIRE to have a baby at all as being morally wrong.
Reply: But it is not morally wrong to desire to have a baby. It is good to desire a baby. And it is incumbent upon us to desire a baby for its own sake, not for our sake.
Obj: We must all accept the baby as a fulfilling outcome of the one flesh union without any "desire" whatsoever, because once we DESIRE it means we are treating the baby as a means to an end.
Reply: No, not at all. The desire for a baby and the desire to become one flesh ought to be a continuum, so to speak. The conception is just the fulfillment of the desire to be one flesh. The desire for a baby is not outside of the desire to be one flesh. In this way, the baby is desired for its own sake, as the fulfillment of the couple's coming together in one flesh union.
Obj: Unfortunately, many couples don't view having a baby via the sexual act in this way. They DESIRE to have a baby, and they know the only way to do it is to perform the marital act while the woman is fertile.
Reply: But there is nothing wrong with this. Again, it matters how they regard the act of intercourse. As long as the sex act is an act of marriage, there is no problem, no willing the child as a "means to an end".
Obj: Is it wrong to have sex as a marital act but without any intention of having a baby (ie. when your wife is infertile)?
Reply: No, there is nothing wrong with that at all.