ART: Assisted Reproductive Technology such as in vitro fertilization (IVF) A friend recently sent an article my way with this interesting headline: “Number of ‘ART’ Babies Reaches 5 Million.” The article explained that, according to statistics, there are around 1.5 million ART cycles every year with a resulting 350,000 babies. This means that the success rate […]
In Must Not See TV news, last night NBC debuted its latest attempt at humor: The New Normal, a 30 minute sitcom about a young, single mother who agrees to become a gay couple’s surrogate mother. In the trailer for The New Normal, there is a scene in which the gay couple is speaking to someone […]
Astounded, I had to take a seat when I read the latest from Rebecca Taylor. Taylor, a clinical laboratory technologist in molecular biology—and a Catholic—wrote about the horrendous results of man’s unbridled lust for controlling the human being and his ability to either live or die. Discussing Great Britain’s statistics, she reports, The United Kingdom’s Human […]
In the world of commercialized conception, it seems we’ve decided the freezer is a great place to keep eggs, sperm, and “spare” embryos until we need them. We think they do pretty well in the freezer, but the verdict is still out on what happens over the long haul when you freeze and store human […]
For children of anonymous sperm donors yearning for a connection to their biological father, the world can be an unwelcome place. Instead of meeting compassion, many say that society treats their pain with a dismissive or even hostile attitude – a rift caused by lack of awareness as much as by the brute force of […]
A recent headline proclaiming the great advances science has made in detecting genetic defects in preborn children sent a chill down my pro-life spine. Proclaiming the incredible news that a day is upon us when scientists will be able to run genetic tests that will identify more than 3,500 genetic irregularities, the reporter echoed a concern raised […]
When I talk to my fellow Americans about biotechnology, they have this idea that all the bad stuff will happen in places like China and that the horrors of Huxley’s Brave New World will never happen here. Cloning, human genetic engineering and the like will happen somewhere else, but not in the good ol’ USA. […]
The Supreme Court of the United States has ruled that children conceived posthumously with IVF are not entitled to Social Security survivor benefits. In 1939, the Social Security Administration put in a provision that allowed dependent children to collect their parent’s benefits as survivors. In 1939 they did not have a crazy fertility industry willing […]
When the news broke that Mitt and Ann Romney welcomed grandchildren numbers 17 and 18 this past Friday via “gestational surrogacy,” those of us here at CBC central—who oppose commercialized conception—wondered where the bottom is in these murky waters of assisted reproduction. Tagg Romney posted this on his facebook page after the twins were born: […]
Recently, Emily Herx, a teacher in a Catholic school, announced to the nation through major media outlets that she had been fired from a Catholic school because she used in vitro fertilization in an attempt to get pregnant. Herx is now suing St. Vincent DePaul Catholic School and the Fort Wayne, Indiana, Catholic diocese for […]
We’re all well aware of the fact that the “adult entertainment” industry rakes in major profits by exploiting women and their bodies, but they aren’t the only ones. Recently, Rebecca Taylor explained how the cloning/embryonic stem cell research industry is dependent on women putting their bodies on the line in order to obtain the “raw materials” needed […]
Every time the subject of human personhood is raised, somebody immediately argues that legal recognition of personhood would mean an end to in vitro fertilization (IVF). It is true that any procedure that has as a byproduct the killing of human beings prior to birth would be outlawed—and that includes IVF. But few want to […]
Because of her opposition to third party reproduction, the Catholic Church is often accused of being anti-science and insensitive to those who suffer the pain of infertility. Last year’s CNN Belief Blog op-ed from Sean Savage calling on the Catholic Church to reverse her opposition to IVF is a good example of the anger that […]
Why Is Selling Eggs an Exception to Law? Catholic teaching is consistent and clear. The sale of human organs and tissues is immoral because it demeans human dignity and regards the human person as a commodity. John Paul II addressed the subject in a speech to the 18th International Congress of the Transplantation Society in […]
Thirty-nine years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, in Roe v. Wade, that the laws outlawing abortion in Texas were unconstitutional because a woman had a right to privacy, guaranteed by the Constitution. Suddenly, the unborn had no legal protection in the United States. But Roe v. Wade did not just deny legal protection to […]
Over the past couple of years a great many shocking facts have emerged about the inherent dangers associated with “reproductive technology,” including and most specifically in vitro fertilization (IVF). As couples persist in believing that pursuing petri dish babies is the best alternative to suspected infertility, the negative evidence continues to mount—building a case on […]
There are many Americans who define themselves as human rights advocates yet who are, at the same time, wary of those of us who take great care when defining the meaning of human personhood. We are suspected of being over-zealous because we point out the killing of preborn embryonic children in IVF labs or the […]
