On the subject of in vitro fertilization and its progeny, Michigan’s archbishop Allen Vigneron recently opined,
In Michigan’s Compiled Laws, the fetal protection act is precise on punishing individuals who harm or kill a fetus—or embryo!—during an intentional assault.
How can there be such a disconnect with what happens in an assault case and what occurs in a laboratory when a human life is destroyed? The person who harmed an embryo in an assault is charged with a felony. The person who destroys an embryo in a petri dish is held harmless and likely considered some sort of medical pioneer. Yet the results were the same: two fewer people in the world who had no power to stop what was happening to them and had no voice in their demise.
On a similar note, famed philosopher Diogenes of the Catholic Culture website explained to his readers that the accolades being thrown beneath the feet of ailing Dr. Robert Edwards, of in vitro fertilization fame, are not based on fact but rather on what the media perceives to be results. He insightfully pointed out that, if not for Edwards and his partner, Dr. Patrick Steptoe, and the introduction of IVF in 1977, we would not be dealing with human embryonic stem cell research (HESCR) today—a practice which has yielded zero positive results for the suffering, but countless numbers of dead preborn babies.
Diogenes wisely points out that results are not what the Nobel Prize in medicine is about anyway when one considers last year’s recipient! Agreed. Sadly this worldly honor has come to represent not the paying of a tribute to a public figure who epitomizes human sacrifice for the good of life itself, but rather the honoring of public figures whose human arrogance contradicts everything good about man, while presuming the position of being a god!
In a column wisely entitled “Nobel award: misconceived,” Carolyn Moynihan wrote, “On balance, Dr. Edwards’ great invention may have contributed more to infertility than it has appeared to solve. Strictly speaking it has not cured any type of infertility, it has only circumvented it, and in doing so has failed both medically and socially.”
And yet, a Nobel prize is being awarded to this infamous man for work that literally has resulted in the production of designer children.
The ever wise Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, who spoke and wrote so eloquently about man’s love affair with himself, wrote a most applicable insight in his book On Being Human,
There are three possible kinds of God: the god of one’s own ego, in which the atheist believes, and which is also the god of modern confusionism; the god of nature, of stone and gold and silver, which belonged to the old religions of idolatry; and the Supreme God, who made both man and nature, and redeemed them both upon the cross. Those who tell us that they deny the existence of God are merely substituting one god for another.
Considering the unadulterated mess that Edwards and Steptoe, chief architects of reproductive technology, have made, perhaps it’s time to pause and question what the practice of IVF has to do with a Nobel prize. Substituting God’s perfect design with pipettes and petri dishes has wrought havoc on hopeful couples, not to mention vulnerable patients who hear false promises and have their hopes routinely dashed by practitioners of human embryonic stem cell research.
Edwards and Steptoe invented what is essentially an immoral practice that has not only undermined the search for the true causes of infertility, but has altered the way prospective parents view children. What was once a hope for consummating the marital act between two partners in marriage has now become a financial plan for selecting a perfect specimen for impregnation.
Today, man is confronting a seismic decision: Will human beings respect the laws of nature or destroy the future of the human race by surrendering to man’s selfish desires instead of God’s perfect love?