The IVF Rule
Posted by Arwen Mosher in Faith on Wednesday, August 19, 2009 5:44 PM
I hadn’t thought about IVF in a long time, but this article over at the Register about Celine Dion’s latest pregnancy brought it back to my mind, and sent me back in time five years.
In the summer of 2004 it had been a year since Bryan and I had begun actively trying to conceive a child, and when that twelfth cycle brought us up short, I was devastated. Six months, eight months, ten months hadn’t seemed like a big deal. But a year? It could mean something was wrong.
We didn’t know what we were going to do. We did know that we were not going to do IVF, or any other fertility treatment forbidden by Catholic teaching.
At that time I had only a basic knowledge of the teaching. I knew what constituted illicit treatments, and I had a rough idea of why they were illicit, but my understanding didn’t go any deeper than that.
I wasn’t bitter, but my feelings about IVF were slightly wistful. As in, too bad we can’t do that.
Christ said, “The truth shall set you free.”
Here’s how that played out in our lives: despite wistfulness, and thanks to the grace of God, my husband and I managed to hold firm in avoiding illicit fertility treatments. We prayed for discernment about how God wanted us to meet the challenge of our continued failure to conceive. We did our best to do what He was calling us to do.
And the truth did set us free, because month by month, as we came to understand the Church teaching, the ban that had seemed so restrictive began to look like a blessing. We continued to grieve and to hope, and it was sometimes incredibly difficult, but the teaching on IVF had protected the sanctity of our marriage and given us the opportunity to hear God’s call for our lives.
That’s why every time I see a story like that of Celine Dion’s, it makes me sad. Children are a blessing no matter how they’re conceived, but we know that God has the best way to build families. I’m sure Ms. Dion doesn’t regret her choice to do in vitro fertilization, and it certainly doesn’t make her children less valuable than other children. But the truth, as represented in Catholic teaching, offers us a better option.
Embracing the truth does set us free: it gives us real freedom, meaning the ability to choose what is good. I’m so grateful that my beloved Church gave me the chance to do that.
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