Religion: Technology and The Womb

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A child must never be "desired or conceived as the product of an intervention of medical or biological techniques; that would be equivalent to reducing him to an object of scientific technology." With those stern words of admonition, the Vatican, acting with the full endorsement of Pope John Paul II, last week denounced virtually all the rapidly spreading methods of artificial procreation, deeming them to be violations of both the rights of man and the laws of God.

That strongly conservative stand was proclaimed in a 40-page document issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican agency that is responsible for monitoring orthodoxy. Said West Germany's Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, head of the congregation, at a Rome press conference: "What is technologically possible is not also morally admissible." The document is being termed "Ratzinger's catechism" because of its substantial use of a question-and-answer format. Clinical in tone, the text bears the title Instruction on Respect for Human Life in Its Origin and on the Dignity of Procreation: Replies to Certain Questions of the Day.

The Instruction is not published as an infallible pronouncement but carries definitive authority as an exercise of the church's teaching power. The document, however, does more than insist that Catholics submit to its instructions; it also calls on governments to pass laws prohibiting a number of the controversial reproductive techniques. The Pope clearly expects his bishops to lobby for such statutes. The day after the text was published, the Italian bishops urged their nation's legislators to create a "legal order conforming to the needs of moral law."

The Vatican is not only boldly resisting trends in biological research and medicine but, in the case of a few practices commonly in use, also rejecting the opinions of numerous Roman Catholic moral theologians. The document's release quickly provoked widespread debate not only on the ethics of the reproductive techniques it discusses but on the propriety of the Vatican's attempt to influence public policy on a medical issue, particularly in pluralistic societies. Many Americans claimed the words from Rome would have little impact on daily practices.

To theological experts, the text contained no major surprises, since there has been a long development of consistent papal teaching on reproductive technology. But the statement is dramatic because it collects points from scattered pontifical addresses and other church pronouncements into a strong, coherent policy about medical techniques that have become widespread.

The major practices condemned:

ARTIFICIAL INSEMINATION. This is the oldest and by far the most common of the techniques prohibited. The Instruction not only opposes the introduction into a womb of sperm from a "third party" donor other than the husband but rejects the use of a husband's sperm. The first condemnation of artificial insemination came in a 1949 speech by Pope Pius XII, but the teaching has been ignored by many Catholic couples and disputed by some theologians.