Excerpts From Vatican Statement

The following are excerpts from the Vatican document, released Tuesday, entitled “Respect for Human Life in Its Origin and On the Dignity of Procreation.” The document was prepared by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, headed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, and approved by Pope John Paul II.

The criteria (of moral judgment by the Church) are the respect, defense and promotion of man, his primary and fundamental right to life, his dignity as a person who is endowed with a spiritual soul and with moral responsibility and who is called to beatific communion with God. . . . Thus the Church once more puts forward the divine law in order to accomplish the work of truth and liberation.

Science and technology require, for their own intrinsic meaning, an unconditional respect for the fundamental criteria of moral law. . . . The rapid development of technological discoveries gives greater urgency to this need to respect the criteria just mentioned: science without conscience can only lead to man’s ruin.

Advances in technology have now made it possible to procreate apart from sexual relations through the meeting in vitro of the germ cells previously taken from the man and the woman. But what is technically possible is not for that very reason morally admissible.

Since the embryo must be treated as a person, it must also be defended in its integrity, tended and cared for, to the extent possible, in the same way as any other human being as far as medical assistance is concerned.

Medical research must refrain from operations on live embryos, unless there is a moral certainty of not causing harm to the life or integrity of the unborn child and the mother, and on condition that the parents have given their free and informed consent to the procedure.

The unity of marriage involves reciprocal respect of their right to become a father and a mother only through each other. The child has the right to be conceived, carried in the womb, brought into the world and brought up within marriage.

Heterologous artificial fertilization (using the egg of a woman and the sperm of a man not her husband, or the sperm of a man and the egg of a woman not his wife) is contrary to the unity of marriage, to the dignity of the spouses, to the vocation proper to parents, and to the child’s right to be conceived and brought into the world in marriage and from marriage.

Surrogate motherhood . . . offends the dignity and the right of the child to be conceived, carried in the womb, brought into the world and brought up by his own parents. . . .

The fertilization of a married woman with the sperm of a donor other than her husband or the fertilization with the husband’s sperm of an ovum which does not come from his wife are morally illicit. Furthermore the artificial fertilization of a woman who is unmarried or a widow whoever the donor may be, cannot be morally justified.

The origin of the human being . . . follows from a procreation that is “linked to the union, not only biological but also spiritual of the parents, made one by the bond of marriage” (Pope John Paul II, 1983). Fertilization achieved outside the bodies of the couple remains by this very fact deprived of the meanings and the values which are expressed in the language of the body and in the union of human persons.

The suffering of spouses who cannot have children or who are afraid of bringing a handicapped child into the world is a suffering that everyone must understand and properly evaluate. . . . Nevertheless, marriage does not confer upon the spouses the right to have a child, but only the right to perform those natural acts which are per se ordered to procreation.

Physical sterility in fact can be for spouses the occasion for other important services to the life of the human person, for example, adoption, various forms of educational work, and assistance to other families and to poor or handicapped children.

Civil law cannot grant approval to techniques of artificial procreation which, for the benefit of third parties (doctors, biologists, economic or governmental powers), take away what is a right inherent in the relationship between spouses; and therefore civil law cannot legalize the donation of gametes (reproductive cells) between persons who are not legitimately united in marriage. Legislation must also prohibit, by virtue of the support which is due to the family, embryo banks, post-mortem insemination and “surrogate motherhood.”

It is part of the duty of the public authority to ensure that the civil law is regulated according to the fundamental norms of the moral law in matters concerning human rights, human life and the institutions of the family.

Licit, Illicit Procreative Acts

Here is what the Vatican-based Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith said is morally permissible and impermissible in matters of human procreation:

Masturbation, for purpose of collecting semen.

No, because it is done outside the married sex act.

Surrogate motherhood or use of donated sperm or ovum.

No, because a party besides the married couple is involved.

Test-tube fertilization and embryo transfer.

No, because even when only the husband’s sperm and wife’s ova are used, the fertilization is attempted outside sexual intercourse and at times “spare” embryos which are not implanted are discarded or frozen.

The Gamete Intra-Fallopian Transfer technique, or GIFT.

Yes, though not mentioned in the document issued Tuesday, because the technique developed by Dr. Ricardo Asch, does not substitute for the conjugal act. Through a complicated procedure the semen and ova are collected in a catheter and implanted in the wife’s Fallopian tubes.

Prenatal diagnosis, including amniocentesis and ultrasonic techniques.

Yes, if the aim is to safeguard or heal the embryo. No, if an abortion is contemplated upon results showing malformation or the effects of a hereditary defect.

Therapeutic interventions and procedures.

Yes, if aimed at improving health or survival chances of the embryo. No, if disproportionate risks to the embryo exist.

Research and experimentation on embryo.

Yes, if limited to simple observation. No, if involving any risk to embryo or mother.

The document also condemned as illicit the freezing of an embryo regardless of purpose, any artificial fertilization involving people who are unmarried, attempts to create a human without any relationship to sexuality through methods such as “twin fission,” cloning or parthenogenesis, and any efforts to change chromosomic or genetic inheritance intended to produce humans selected according to sex or other predetermined qualities.