Should they be encouraged? Kathryn Jean Lopez asks, "Are we really okay with our Brave New IVF world?" She points out that it is 30 years ago this weekend that Louise Brown was born, the first baby born via in vitro fertilization. She asks,
But if we had to do it all again, if we really thought about it, would we do IVF, the most common method of assisted fertilization? Would a society taking into consideration what the mechanization and laboratorization of sex has done to marriage and families, do it again?
Her discussion is worth a read.
Update 7/26/08 - A respondent wrote Kathryn Jean Lopez:
Your observation that there is something good about giving yourself
totally to your spouse struck a chord.
My husband and I confronted a case of "unexplained infertility"
for seven years. One particularly caring doctor recommended IVF,
saying that while she could never guarantee anything, she felt certain
that with IVF we would be holding our baby within a year. Those were
enormously powerful words. Our parenthood quest had gone on for so
long and had become so sad and consuming. IVF didn't sound right,
though, and the Catechism of the Catholic Church had recently been
published in the US. I went home and compared its advice against the
doctor's ... several times. I am a lawyer, "I'm a professional
loophole finder," I said to myself. My husband was agnostic, so I
thought, "I can't demand that he choose between his hopes for
fatherhood and his desire to marry only once." On my last reading of
those passages of the catechism, the words struck me as beautiful,
almost poetic, and it occurred to me that there is beauty in obedience
for the sake of obedience.
Long story short, I vaguely mentioned some hesitance by the Church and
my husband cut me off, announcing that we would have nothing of IVF because
he didn't want me to do anything that would violate my beliefs. That's
giving yourself totally!
We left the dismal fertility road. Some time later, I heard a story on
NPR that led us to adopt a child from China. While we were at the
orphanage, that child (... who just this week turned 13, won a
tennis semi-final and placed third in a regatta!) took my husband by the
hand and pulled him through forbidden corridors to another child, who
is now our eldest daughter... (whose credits are too numerous
to mention and who is heading to high school in the fall). The next
day, my husband told me that he finally understood why we'd been unable to
have a child ... "because God had our baby waiting for us here."
Our daughters are the most wonderful girls in the world. No
exaggeration! What interests me most about that line of yours is
this ... I, too, was adopted. I remember my mother in an unguarded
moment, saying that she thought that her own marriage might have been
better had she and my father had biological children. She didn't
elaborate, but I think I understand why she said that. I had begun to
wonder the same in fits and then your line made me stop. It must be
almost magic to see your spouse in your child, mixed with you. That
must be a pretty powerful daily reminder of the love you owe. But it's
also awfully cool to have the daily reminder of a face that doesn't
look like yours. It just reminds you of different things; one is total
giving in the physical sense and the other is total giving in, for
lack of a better word, the deeper sense.
I'm probably not explaining this all that well and I don't want to
take the time to edit because I'll never send this if I do, but you
probably get the point. So, thanks for those words. Thanks for
yelling, "Stop!" or at least "Pause!" For what it's worth, there is no
power on earth that could convince our family that we were not always
meant to be.