By Father David Nix|February 25th, 2024
In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) is defined by Yale Medicine as “a procedure that involves retrieving a woman’s eggs and a man’s sperm sample and combining the two in a laboratory dish.” Most Catholics in the pro-life movement are against IVF because “IVF replaces the marital act with a laboratory act and that an affront to the dignity of a child who is conceived.”
While that is true, the main reason we should be against IVF is not a violation of the 6th Commandment, but rather a violation of the 5th Commandment: IVF eradicates many embryos (new individuals) to yield only a few living children. A Catholic woman named Jenny Vaughn has a blog called Catholic Sistas in which she courageously shared her conversion story following the IVF procedures done by her and her husband. She wrote:
The doctor had retrieved 38 good eggs, of which 31 are fertilized. Over the next week, 16 of our embryonic children die and are discarded. Thirteen are cryogenically frozen, mostly two to a vial. Two fresh embryos are transferred to my uterus… In desperation, we graduated to the expensive and complex process of IVF, where my eggs and my husband’s sperm would be taken out of our bodies, joined in a petri dish, and the resulting embryos would be inserted into my uterus. Even before we started down the IVF road, there was a voice inside of us whispering that it was wrong… After the first transfer in July 2008, we were thrilled to discover we were pregnant with twins, due the next April. But at 21 weeks gestation, our twins–Madi and Isaiah–were born prematurely and only lived for one hour each. During those brief, heartbreaking few hours, we held them, bathed them, dressed them, and baptized them, holding onto their tiny, fragile bodies as long as we could. For the next year, I floated numbly through life. I believed the twins’ death was God punishing me for my past sins. My husband remained silent. Through it all, my heart was torn about the route we’d taken, as well as the fact that we still had 13 frozen children whose lives were on hold… [Later] the contract also stated that, “It is rare for an embryo to not survive thawing.” Half of our babies didn’t survive thawing. And, “Occasionally, an embryo is not found in the vial due to the nature of embryos to stick to the vial or pipette.” What incredible dangers we’d exposed our children to! Only one phrase in the entire contract spoke to the humanity of our children by calling them babies… Of 31 embryos created in a lab, only one survived to be raised by us.
It is due to that last sentence that I call this article, IVF Kills Thirty Children For Every One That Survives. I glorify God for the conversion of Jenny and her husband. She wrote this about her conversion and her children: “Being created in a lab and then frozen violates the dignity of these tiny human beings. Thawing and discarding is killing. Reducing women to incubators and men to sperm donors is also undignified.”
MSM news reported a few days ago that “three couples whose frozen embryos were destroyed when a wandering Mobile hospital patient dropped the specimens can sue for wrongful death because the embryos were ‘children,’ the Alabama Supreme Court ruled Friday in reversing a judge’s decision to throw out the case.” This was an excellent decision of the Alabama Supreme Court. However, Mr. Donald Trump then made an astonishingly obtuse statement: “Like the overwhelming majority of Americans, including the vast majority of… pro-life Americans, I strongly support the availability of IVF for couples who are trying to have a precious baby.. Today, I am calling on the Alabama Legislature to act quickly to find an immediate solution to preserve the availability of IVF in America.”
Maybe Trump is thinking something as shallow as this: “Abortion kills babies. IVF makes babies. Therefore abortion bad, IVF good...” No, Mr. Trump—both abortion and IVF kill countless children as the first half of this article demonstrates. And no, the entire pro-life movement is not behind you in standing against the Alabama Supreme Court’s recent decision against IVF. In fact, I know of a consecrated woman in Louisiana who does all of her pro-life prayer and protesting in front of an IVF clinic, not an abortion center. She understands they are one and the same on the moral front.
IVF is always wrong because it kills a dozen unborn children via “embryo-reduction” and then freezes another dozen children in “cryopreservation” just for one or two born alive. That’s murder, not just “debasing the dignity of the child.”
“I know it looks like evil, but in all actuality he’s too ignorant to be evil. Harris on the other hand is culpably evil.”
Excuse making for Trump I see. How can a 78 year old president be ignorant? He’s far more devious than people will ever assess.
I used quotes to signify that it is not I that has this opinion.
My opinion is that the right option was not to cooperate with evil in any way and leave it up to the providence of God to decide in what way the US shall be chastised. Because no matter who won, chastisement was coming.
Sadly, it all reminds me of the heated ethical debate in Man with Two Brains with Steve Martin. Dr. Necessiter is arguing that it is moral to kill people to obtain their brains for later transplants into other people. Martin’s character strenuously objects. “But.. but.. you’re condoning murder!!” Dr. Necessiter angrily replies “I am NOT condoning murder! If we can save ONE INNOCENT HUMAN LIFE by murdering 12 it will have been worth it!!”
How many of us would like to have been conceived this way? It’s bad.
Trump has always been for abortion. The reason is simple.
Conservatism Inc. , Liberal Classic, and many Protestants – DON’T BELIEVE LIFE BEGINS AT CONCEPTION.
Some feign not to know when a ‘true’ human is developed.
They then logically bargain as to which stage abortion should and should no longer be permitted.
Given that this is where the discussion is concentrated – at terms well into the embryonic stage – IVF is a moot thing to allow to happen. No “human beings” exist at that stage, so it is kosher, and opens up the possibility of more scientific research using these “non-humans.”
Also, how else can sodomites and lesbians have biological children? It’s their American “right” to be “equal.” And Trump is all for sodomy!
Instead of confronting this, America’s bishops prefer bribe money for refugee services.
This is why the doomsday clock still ticks towards America’s annihilation.
Trump is for abortion because he’s an adulterer. He was never a conservative, and only became Republican to win in 2016. He has no Christian values, much less Protestant values.
Thanks, Mr. Obvious.
But are you suggesting Conservatives and Republicans aren’t for abortion? As if the ‘right’ has not moved further left, and been methodically doing so long before Trump??
I’m saying there are people who pretend to be good people and are total hypocrites. Like Donald Trump, and Catholics who support him.
I’m suggesting that the most powerful man in the world is increasing the baby genocide with his IVF nonsense.
And that’s a problem. Your attempt to do the “everybody is doing it” excuse making for Trump is, as usual, embarrassing.
Trump is pretending to be what, Mr. Obvious?
Pretending to a playboy who has divorced and remarried several times?
Pretending to do with IVF exactly what he said he’d do while campaigning?
What are you rambling on about exactly, Mr. Telling-Us-Things-We-Already-Know?
Why are you running away from the fact that the right was long compromised before Trump arrived?
Why are you equating Conservatism with Christianity?
Do you deny that Protestants have increasingly rejected Catholic moral teachings on marriage, divorce, sex and procreation that produce men exactly like Mr. Trump?
Johno,
Donald Trump has just opened the door to a baby genocide via IVF, and your response is: the right was compromised on this long before Trump.
But Trump is opening the door to this. Trump. Your boy Trump. Indeed, Your Orange Savior had his daughter in law remove pro life from the RNC platform this year. And his meerkat wife decided to show her support for baby genocide in her book.
You’re trying to pretend Trump is OK because the right is hypocritical. It’s embarrassing.
Mike, you accused me of defending Trump on IVF.
Where did I do that?
Did you hallucinate it like you hallucinated what Paul Craig Roberts and Archbishop Vigano said in your head?
And why are you dodging the fact that Trump ran in a party that has also been long open to IVF and some abortion?
Is there a reason you want to call out Trump but not the Republicans/Conservatives for doing the same?
I think that’s right. I agree.
IVF embryos that are destroyed without being baptised (excepting baptism by desire) can’t go to heaven. They are in exactly the same position as unborn children aborted by surgical, chemical or contraceptive means.
Yeah the Church does not say unbaptized babies can’t go to heaven. They’re entrusted to the mercy of God. I can’t see God, who is love itself, refusing to allow embryos (babies) into heaven because of the horrors of modern science and the evil of man.
The thief on the cross wasn’t baptized. He asked Jesus to remember him. Babies are completely at the mercy of others. God will take care of them.
Mike, your glossing over the doctrine of Original Sin is not to be taken lightly. Nothing is impossible for God, so we cannot know for certain where these souls go. Limbo is not some terrible place, but it isn’t Heaven, either.
I’m not glossing over original sin one bit. First, I correctly stated the Church’s position, and secondly, if a baby has no concept of original sin and his inheritance of it, I do believe he would be subject to God’s mercy. In fact, I can’t see how he wouldn’t. Hey, Mark, imagine you were thrown into a prison as a baby, grew up in prison, was only fed, never got out, and you died. Are you going to heaven or hell?
I never said one damned thing, yay or nay , about limbo which isn’t ironclad and not actually a
part of the doctrine of Original Sin. Indeed, the Church has always wrestled with the fate of the souls of babies.
If all it takes is one word from Jesus to save a guy who spent his whole life adding to his original sin, I seriously doubt any embryo is going to spend longer in limbo than that man spent on the cross.
Call that “glossing over” if you wish, I’m using logic based on a)The law, b)who God is as defined by the Church and c)scripture.
Keep em coming.
So basically the error Mr. Critical-Thinker Mike makes in his pride and lack of knowledge is:
– God is obligated to save unbaptized babies because Mike has feelings about God’s mercy.
– Therefore all unbaptized babies are saved and enter into the Beatific Vision.
– Ergo it is better to abort a child, because it guarantees salvation versus allowing them to be born, be baptized and grow up to eventually fall into sin. Viewing life on par with the heretic Manicheus.
– All babies about to be aborted must therefore be immaculately concieved, so Mary is nothing special. Or baptized by grace not too long after in the womb, so John was nothing special either.
– There is no need, really then, for baptism, because who needs the Church when Planned Parenthood provides all children with blood martyrdom. They’d all be like Jesus! It’s not like Jesus needed to be baptized either, but… oh wait… He led by example for some strange reason… But that would suggest unborn babies are more privileged than Christ, according to Mike…
– In the end, it’s all God’s fault anyway for knowingly giving women babies He knows they’ll abort. Miscarriages too. So God should take responsibility.
Any more of that fine ‘logic’ you want to keep coming at us, Mikey?
We shouldn’t let their being unbaptized stop our prayers for them, just as we shouldn’t presume their salvation. If they are saved, it may be because of our prayers.
I have a brother or sister who was never born. Please pray for their salvation, and mine.
I’m not going to presume their damnation, that’s for sure, there is no logic to it. Just fear. An all loving God isn’t throwing a baby into hell. He’s not. HE IS NOT.
Who presumed their damnation?
Mark: Uriel said he’s not going to presume their salvation. He said “if they are saved, it may be because of our prayers.” In the world of logic, then, there would have to be a presumption of damnation. The opposite of “saved” is “damned” or “lost”. And quite frankly, being in limbo forever also doesn’t make sense, since in the world to come limbo and purgatory won’t exist.
So, something good or bad happens to babies. I’m not going to presume their damnation.
And one more thing. God is not a victim of loopholes, ok? So when a baby can’t be born or is born and not baptized, and dies, he’s not going to go “welp, I guess I have to put him in limbo”. He can put him in limbo. But we don’t know what goes on in the afterlife, no clue, and as Jesus pointed out to the Jews, laws were made for them based on their wickedness. And so it goes in the new covenant. A baby inherits original sin but by virtue of its development, or lack thereof, cannot comprehend The Law and his place in it. If there is a limbo, it’s virtually empty as no baby commits any sin, he just carries the curse.
Keep in mind, the thief didn’t even ask Jesus to forgive Him, he said remember me. If Jesus can understand the nuance in that, then surely He can understand a baby deserves Heaven too.
So yes, maybe there is a limbo, but to say I’m “glossing over” something you apparently haven’t put any real thought into is peak irony. Stop being dogmatic. Stop being the guy who sits in the front pew. Stop lecturing others. This is why I hate Trads. They think they know so much more than they actually do.
“Stop being dogmatic.”
*Ba-Dum* Tish!* This is Mike, everybody!
Little wonder he likes to play very loose with the Truth and unashamedly misrepresenting others!
A guy who likes to criticize and lecture everyone else! But don’t you do that to him, even when he is caught pants-down lying, oh noooooo!!!!
But do we agree that God desires the salvation of all men, and can we say that God can desire the theoretically impossible? Practically it can be humanly impossible, but God desiring what is theoretically impossible?
Since Judas was not predestined to be damned, can we say that there is, in theory, a means of salvation for everyone, even those who are practically damned? If there isn’t we have God desiring the theoretically impossible.
Scripture says that God desires the salvation of all men, and that seems to mean it must be theoretically possible, if not in practice, even for men in a Petri dish.
Another reason to accept something like invincible ignorance and baptism of desire to be possible for non-believers of good will/seeking the truth.
Unless the scripture is not meant in a literal sense and I’m reading it wrong, even those who have no chance of choosing how they will be born are not without question excluded because of original sin, any more than the virtuous pagan adult.
God, being LOGOS itself, cannot commit anything that is irrational or logically impossible.
The child in the petri dish cannot rationally “desire” anything. No do they desire to sin or rebel.
Therefore the state they inhabit is not one due to sinners, nor one merited by the saints, nor one of purgation, for the inhabitants of purgatory desire cleansing.
At best they can only inhabit a state that is befitting of a natural Earthly happiness, like the limbo of the fathers, where they need never fear Hell, nor merit Heaven. Hypothetically, a state even we on Earth would envy, until we compared it to what we’d miss in Heaven.
ALL cannot be with God in the Beatific Vision without having their Free Will TESTED; making the choice to be with/submit/serve Him. Even the angels had to choose. God is not a tyrant.
The unborn who therefore have to grow/develop somehow in order to reason, and would have to somehow receive grace to overcome original sin of their flesh, would then have to be tested. Meaning some could still fall like Adam and the angels. Of this we are given no revelation.
Perhaps they might have to wait for the final judgement to receive a new incorrupt body, but Original Sin also stains the soul. Therefore as the Church teaches, both body and soul suffer and die.
While the sacraments of Baptism and Reconciliation clense the soul of sin, the body must still die as the natural consequence. Mary alone, immaculately conceived was priviledged to be bodily assumed whole and entire, necessary so that the Incarnation’s flesh should also bear no stain.
There are all manner of complications with revealed Truth. So you cannot so simply posit any easy theory where the unborn automatically go to Heaven. Neither can you dare to declare that God is somehow not merciful for not privileging these souls thus any more than to say God unjustly does not grant the animals immortal souls, or that to exist in natural paradise is less fitting a state of perpetual existence after He declared their Creation, “Good.”
Suffice to say, that whatever their fate, any who have deprived them of being born will be held to account as guilty of something serious.
And before you judge me as a heretic, you might want to learn some theology and check this out:
http://www.therealpresence.org/archives/Eschatology/Eschatology_003.htm
Many trads inherited SSPX errors in theology, to the extent that truth sounds like heresy to them.
I’m not judging you as anything. What I’m saying is that a baby isn’t an infidel, a baby isn’t consciously aware of its own original sin, a baby cannot commit sin. A baby is a baby. If there ever was, in the real world, something close to innocent, a baby is it.
I mean, we receive our first communion at the age of 7, right? Because it is presumed by that point we can understand some basics about our religion, most importantly the idea of living in communion with Jesus and acknowledging sin.
I refuse to believe a baby goes to hell. Any baby: a Muslim baby, a Jewish baby, a pagan baby, etc. God isn’t a jerk. God isn’t subservient to His own law, He is the law. And as we’ve seen in the bible, All Things are Possible with God.
You’re hallucinating again, Mike.
Nobody said anything about babies going to the Hell of the damned.
Who are you arguing with?
Who are you talking to?
Not absolutely “everything” is possible with God, Mikey. Only what is logically possible. And some things are set in stone forever. There will never be more or fewer than Three Persons in the Trinity. Nobody in Hell, not the angels, not the damned, are ever leaving there ever again, no matter how much you wish it. And those souls will never be annihilated from existence. And nothing unclean shall enter the presence of God. And no other being will ever be Immaculately Conceived other than Mary. Catholism will always be a dogmatic religion. God does not change. God cannot create square-circles or make a rock He cannot lift or other nonsense contradictions by definition. He will not violate your free will to make you choose Him. The LAW is always logical. Baptism will ALWAYS BE NECESSARY – Either by water, blood, or desire.
That God may save an unbaptized non-Catholic would either come down to desire (The good Thief) or blood shed on His behalf (martyrs), an exceptional case being the Holy Innocents killed by Herod, who didn’t know what was going on.
But this is in line with the same idea of desire where it is held that Melchizideck, and other pagans of reknown pre-dating Christ DESIRED THE TRUTH and spent their lives searching for it, and lived as figures foreshadowing Christ as types.
Adam, and Abraham, Moses, etc. were not baptized. So they went to the limbo of the fathers and waited.
So unless miscarriages, abortions, or IVF children are deliberately being killed out of personal or state animosity toward Christ, they don’t qualify for blood. But at best will go to a limbo of their own as the unbaptized virtuous adults did.
This is God’s mercy despite that they have no desire or reason. The children cannot enter closer to God’s presence because they will suffer. Purgatory exists for a reason. Reincarnation is out of the question, their bodies are forever theirs. If God somehow grants them reason and wipes away original sin, then some or even many might still choose Hell, even in innocence, like Adam and Eve fell. Whatever happiness they are given is only known to God. God is not a jerk, but you have no standing to critize God for having you born to a Hindu beggar rather than into Catholic royalty. Inequality is part of God’s Creation, Providence and Kingdom; and envy at another’s spiritual good or heavenly rank is a sin. Be thankful for where you are. I guarantee you the unborn souls are more content than we are on Earth and suffer no more. We’ll meet them all at the Final Judgement, but they like us will all go and remain exactly where we are to be and they will hlorify God still.
How you feel is irrelevant. You humble and conform yourself to the Truth. Period. That’s the desire that saves the good pagans who know not Christ. But it is a harder path with greater burdens that extremely few take. Those who know Christ and the Sacraments have an easier yoke. But if they could do it, then we have little excuse.