By Judie Brown
Today’s hyperactive milieu seems to erase any opportunity a person might have to reflect on the awesome gift of life, one’s own and that of each of those in his family, his sphere of influence, and the broader community. How often do any of us take a moment to look at another person and see a miracle?
It is in that one act, however, that we are inspired to consider the infinite dignity of a single human being. We know that each person is special, and still there is the ongoing business of manufacturing people in laboratories, which presents a moral dilemma to those of us who comprehend the truth that science should not create people. Rather, human beings exist because God wills them to exist.
As the Vatican instructed in Donum Vitae:
The inalienable rights of the person must be recognized and respected by civil society and the political authority. These human rights depend neither on single individuals nor on parents; nor do they represent a concession made by society and the State: they pertain to human nature and are inherent in the person by virtue of the creative act from which the person took his of her origin. Among such fundamental rights one should mention in this regard:
a) every human being’s right to life and physical integrity from the moment of conception until death; b) the rights of the family and of marriage as an institution and, in this area, the child’s right to be conceived, brought into the world and brought up by his parents. . . .
The law cannot tolerate – indeed it must expressly forbid – that human beings, even at the embryonic stage, should be treated as objects of experimentation, be mutilated or destroyed with the excuse that they are superfluous or incapable of developing normally.
A conundrum to be sure. The simple truth is that IVF does not afford total respect for every innocent human embryo whose life is created in this petri-dish environment. So, while the embryo is to be respected regardless of how she comes into existence, the very concept of artificially creating people so that they can be quality tested before acceptance is the worst form of abuse of the human person. This is why the Church is opposed to in vitro fertilization and other forms of artificial procreation. The resulting human embryos are not the problem; the process is the problem.
Once embryonic babies are viewed as commodities and their tiny bodies are subjected to quality control, nothing good can result, especially considering that “more human embryos are destroyed through in vitro fertilization than abortions every year.”
This is the crux of moral and ethical concerns regarding a practice that does not respect every single human being as a precious person created in the image of God.
On July 5, 2009, Pope Benedict XVI spoke these words regarding the dignity of the human person: “The blood of Christ is the pledge of God’s faithful love for humanity. Every human being, even in conditions of extreme moral wretchedness can say, fixing his eyes on the wounds of the Crucified One: ‘God has not abandoned me, he loves me, he has given his life for me’, and thus discover hope.”
It is our duty to remind others of this truth, to affirm human dignity, and to sound the alarm regarding practices designed to destroy members of our human family. There is no human individual whose life should depend on the whims of the godless. People are not commodities, no matter what society condones.
One single person created in His image is of immeasurable value to God, the Father of all—born and preborn.