“Ask a Priest: What If Potential In-laws Own a Fertility Clinic?”
Q: The family of the girl I’ve been dating for years and intend to marry owns a fertility center. It was not until few months ago that I learned about the Catholic stance on fertility treatment. To be fair, these things are not taught to us in our upbringing and education. I feel that suddenly ending the relationship because of her family’s business would be unfair to her. Besides, it would make me look crazy. How do I take things forward? Also, will it cause scandal for other people if we were to continue together? – A.
Answered by Fr. Edward McIlmail, LC A: There are a few issues here. I’ll assume that by “fertility center” you mean a clinic that uses in vitro fertilization. The Church, as you likely learned, rejects IVF for various reasons. It involves immoral behavior (for the man to contribute his seed, for instance). It treats human eggs and seed and the children produced by them (in a lab) like commodities. Children are not commodities. They have a right to be conceived through the loving embrace of parents, not through a lab procedure. Children are gifts of God, not products. There is also the indignity done to human embryos — many are destroyed (that is, killed) in the IVF process or left in freezers for years. There is a terrible injustice to tiny human beings. There is the psychological trauma that IVF children can suffer when they discover how they were conceived. And then there is the ongoing trend toward greater manipulation of genes and embryos and the desire to produce “perfect children,” which opens a bigger Pandora’s box of moral evils. All this brings us to you. You as a potential husband and dad must be a spiritual leader in your home. To prepare for that role, it would be good to make it a priority to share with your girlfriend (and her family if possible) what you learned about Church teaching on IVF. A big part of your mission as a husband would be to help your wife get to heaven. Helping her and your children to live the faith fully is part of that mission. I realize that confronting your potential in-laws would be a big challenge. They might shrug you off or worse. In that case you would need to discern how close of a connection there is between your girlfriend and her family and the fertility center. Does your girlfriend support IVF? Would she continue to support it? Would she side with her family? And even if she embraces Church teaching on IVF, how would you and she relate to her family if they remained pro-IVF? Would you be comfortable having her family pay for a wedding or a starter house, knowing that some of their money comes from the killing or freezing of countless human beings? All this could lead to the scandal you mention. How would people perceive you, a Catholic, if they think you are supportive (or at least an indirect beneficiary) of your in-laws’ business? For now, it might be good if you educate yourself about Church teaching on IVF. You could find helpful links at the sites of the National Catholic Bioethics Center, the National Catholic Register, and Catholic Answers. Once you have a good grip on the issue, it would be good to have a heart-to-heart talk with your girlfriend. Let her know why you can’t in any way support IVF or her family’s business, no matter how good their intentions might be. You might also want to talk about how you and she might distance yourselves from the “family business.” This assumes, of course, that your girlfriend will share your views. If she doesn’t, you will need to decide whether this is someone you could spend your life with. And don’t worry about appearing crazy. The eternal destiny of you, your girlfriend and future children could be at stake. It might be good to intensify your prayers and speak with your confessor or pastor if necessary. Count on my prayers.
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