The Catholic Church teaches that sex has two purposes: the good of the spouses and the creation of new life – what are sometimes called the unitive and procreative meanings of sex. The Church comes to this conclusion by observing the reality of the male and female human bodies and how they function: Together, the man and the woman give mutual pleasure, grow closer, and create new human life through the self-giving act of sex.
The Church’s understanding of sex is based on the principles that God’s design of the human body and sex are good and intentional and that the body is capable of expressing love through the marital act, and therefore both are to be respected.
Sex is founded on the “inseparable connection, established by God” between the unitive aspect and the procreative aspect. Both aspects are inherent to the marital act, which means life-making and love-making must stay united. Man, on his own initiative, can’t divorce these two aspects, whether that’s through artificial contraception or artificial reproductive technology.
Sex is an expression of marriage – the two becoming one flesh, “definitively and totally” giving themselves to each other. Any subtraction or addition to the marriage act (such as one spouse masturbating or a doctor performing an embryo transfer) breaks or corrupts the essence of the marriage act. The procreative and unitive aspects of sex/marriage “cannot be separated without altering the couple’s spiritual life and compromising the goods of marriage and the future of the family.”
There are also the rights of the child to be considered. A child is equal in dignity to his mother and father. Even the natural desire for a child cannot override that dignity by turning the child into something the parents “deserve” to have; adults don’t have a right to a child at any cost. No human person can justly claim the right to the existence of another human, thereby raising themselves and lowering the child in value.
The dignity of the child should preclude them from being viewed and treated as a piece of property, a commodity, or a product that we have dominion over – an idea to which an alleged “right to a child” would lead.
A child is not something owed to one, but a gift. The “supreme gift of marriage” is a human person. In this area, only the child possesses genuine rights: the right “to be the fruit of the specific act of the conjugal love of his parents” and “the right to be respected as a person from the moment of his conception.”
IVF doesn’t fulfill the ethical requirements for procreation, marital unity, or the respect due to human life.
IVF separates the sexual act from the procreative act by substituting a lab procedure for sex. The child is no longer brought into existence through the loving, self-giving marital embrace of his parents, but through an act that entrusts the existence of the child to the hands of doctors and permits technology to dominate the origin and destiny of a human person. This domination goes against the dignity and equality that must be shared among parents and their children.
IVF also usually involves the destruction of unhealthy, damaged, and/or leftover embryos – the intentional destruction of which is equivalent to abortion. In the attempt to make a baby, many other babies die, or are left in frozen storage for years as parents agonize over what to do with them.
It can also happen that, to ensure one live pregnancy, multiple embryos are transferred. If multiple implant, parents might be offered “selective reduction” (i.e. abortion) to remove the unwanted “extra” pregnancies.
Even if only one egg is harvested and one embryo is formed and then transferred without any testing in an attempt to lessen some of the ethical issues of IVF, you cannot escape the fact that doctors and a lab have replaced the conjugal act.
It’s agonizing to suffer infertility, even more so when the most common treatment offered to those struggling to conceive – IVF – is a procedure we’re not permitted to undergo. The desperate desire for a child can overwhelm our fidelity to God’s plan for procreation. In our pain, we might be tempted to grasp at any and every available option – and worry about the consequences later.
Fortunately, the Catholic Church doesn’t leave couples with subfertility, infertility, or suffering from miscarriage high and dry. Couples are free to pursue restorative medical care that respects the human body, the sanctity of human life, and the unitive and procreative aspects of sex. Any procedure which assists marital intercourse in reaching its procreative potential is moral and licit.
Couples can pursue tests and treatments that attempt to discover and remedy the root cause of their infertility or miscarriage, manage their symptoms, support their body with hormones or medication, take Clomid or Femara to promote ovulation, undergo surgery to remove ovarian cysts, endometriosis, fibroids/polyps, or varicocele veins, receive physical therapy, modify diets and lifestyle, and more.
“The Gospel shows that physical sterility is not an absolute evil. Spouses who still suffer from infertility after exhausting legitimate medical procedures should unite themselves with the Lord’s Cross, the source of all spiritual fecundity. They can give expression to their generosity by adopting abandoned children or performing demanding services for others.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 2379)
The Catechism of the Catholic Church: The Love of Husband and Wife: Paragraphs 2360-2379
While references to marriage and family can be found throughout the Catechism, in order to understand Catholic teaching on infertility, it would be helpful to first read about the “fruitfulness” of marriage at 2366-2372 and the “gift of the child” at 2373-2379. The subject of infertility and medical techniques can be found at 2375-2377. A discussion on the immorality of artificial insemination can be found at 2376. The suffering of infertility is treated in 2374.
More Resources for the Catholic Church’s Position on IVF and Other Fertility Treatment Options
An excerpt from The Infertility Companion for Catholics: Spiritual and Practical Support for Couples, by Angelique Ruhi-Lopez and Carmen Santamaria, on artificial reproductive technologies like IVF:
“In her wisdom, the Church differentiates between technologies that honor the dignity of the couple and the life they are to create and those that devalue human life. Our human nature is both corporal and spiritual; therefore, any medical treatment we choose has spiritual ramifications and consequences. Many medical procedures for treating infertility reduce humans to our biological components, to mere procreative processes at the expense of the unitive bond, but God created us in his image, and this has important implications. First and foremost is that our human love should reflect the unitive and procreative elements of God’s love for us.
Just as the use of contraception might attempt to create a loving union through sex but intentionally excludes the procreative meaning, so many forms of artificial reproductive technology might attempt to create a new life but intentionally exclude the unitive meaning. Although it happens in different ways, both of these violate the inseparable link between the two meanings of the gift of human sexuality.
How do we know if a treatment upholds human dignity? The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has developed a helpful rule of thumb with regard to fertility treatments, to help us determine if a treatment upholds the innate dignity of the human person by maintaining the procreative and unitive components of marital love:
– Any procedure which assists marital intercourse in reaching its procreative potential is moral/licit.
– Procedures which add a “third party” into the act of conception, or which substitute a laboratory procedure for intercourse, are not acceptable/are illicit.
Our bishops are essentially guiding us to consider any procedure or treatment that assists marital intercourse with both its unitive and procreative functions. The Church stresses the importance of diagnosing and treating the underlying medical issues that may be impeding the couple from conceiving. However, these treatments should never replace intercourse with a third party or laboratory procedure because then the unitive aspect of marital love is absent. ‘Simply put, life-making and love-making must stay united. The gift of life and the gift of love are inseparable parts of a marital union.”
Access the digital resources provided in the book here.
Reproductive Technologies: Guidelines for Catholic Couples, from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops
When Expecting Doesn’t Happen: Turning Infertility into a Journey of Hope, by Marie Meaney, D. Phil
The Catholic Church’s teaching on what’s permissible and what’s illicit regarding infertility treatments is grounded in the dignity and inherent value in each human life. As Marie Meaney explains in her book, When Expecting Doesn’t Happen, “another opposite of love (other than hatred) is using the other. Instrumentalizing another for my needs goes against love and against the dignity of the other person, for it means turning them into a means. And as the philosopher Immanuel Kant already stated, the person may never be used as a means to an end, but is always an end in their own right.” See Meaney’s book or the Infertility Companion for a deeper exploration of the Church’s approach to infertility treatments, as well as a deeper examination of options like IVF, egg harvesting, embryo freezing, sperm donation, egg donation, and surrogacy.
Donum Vitae (Respect for Human Life), published February 22, 1987
Document from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith concerning biomedical techniques which make it possible to intervene in the initial phase of the life of a human being and in the very processes of procreation, and their conformity with the principles of Catholic morality. Some of the topics covered: biomedical research and Church teaching, the respect due to the human embryo, egg or sperm donation, surrogacy, IVF, and the suffering infertility causes in marriage.
Dignitas Personae (On Certain Bioethical Questions), published in 2008
Released by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, this document grapples with a number of bioethical questions raised in response to modern technological advancements in the field of human fertility and infertility. Using the principles of Catholic moral teaching, the document brings clarity and truth to the debates surrounding both procreation and genetic manipulation.
Humanae Vitae (Of Human Life), published July 25, 1968
This encyclical defended and reiterated the Catholic Church’s stance on family planning, reproductive ethics, and reproductive issues such as abortion, sterilization, and contraception. Written in light of a study commissioned by the Vatican on modern reproductive issues, its timing coincided with the sudden prevalence of contraception and concerns about overpopulation in society at large. Pope Paul VI’s writings reaffirmed long-held Church teachings about human nature and new life, but also explained how this wisdom was to be applied in a modern cultural context. The encyclical states 7 key points: 1) God is the author of life, and life is sacred, 2) procreation is the heart of marriage, 3) openness to procreation affirms the dignity of women, 4) it’s not always God’s will for a couple to conceive, 5) couples may use the woman’s times of natural infertility in her cycle to avoid pregnancy, 6) birth control will have bad effects on society, 7) convert the culture.
Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life), published March 25, 1995
While realistically countering unprecedented threats to life and the spread of a “culture of death,” the primary intention of this papal document is to proclaim the good news of the value and dignity of each human life, of its grandeur and worth, also in its temporal phase. It reaffirms the value and inviolability of every human life and appeals to all people to respect, protect, love, and serve every human life.
Life-Giving Love in an Age of Technology, 2009
This pastoral teaching on marriage and infertility from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops brings Catholic moral principles into the discussion on modern reproductive technologies. The bishops defend the dignity of procreation, reserving it to the conjugal union of spouses. The moral and immoral means of remedying infertility are discussed.
This article is a case study illuminating the experience of a cradle Catholic who pursued a career in the field of Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) as a laboratory director and embryologist. Twenty years after leaving the field, the observations leading to the crisis of conscience are further amplified by the reports of social, legal, ethical, and medical consequences of the technology. These consequences are explored in detail and can serve as a mini-review of the published scientific literature describing the obstetrical complications, peri-natal outcomes, and the long-term health effects on the offspring.
Our Fruitful Love Digital Resources
Catholic Infertility Resources 