"The sexual act should reflect the
total self-giving of two couples in love, through marriage. Likewise it should
express the quality and the potential of the relationship as open, loving and
life-giving."
"Life
must be protected with the utmost care from the moment of conception; abortion
and infanticide are the most abominable of crimes"
Statement
from the Roman Catholic Church
"From the
time that the ovum is fertilised a new life is begun which is neither that of
the father or the mother. It is the life of a new human being with its own
growth. It would never become human if it were not human already"
Document on
Procured Abortion (1974)
"Artificial
Insemination (AI) is different from natural intercourse.
AI violates the dignity of the person and the sanctity of marriage. It is
therefore contrary to the Natural and Divine Law. In an address to Catholic
doctors, Pope Pius XII condemned AI. It is condemned because a third person
becoming involved in a marriage is like "mechanical adultery": the
donor fathers a child (with his sperm) yet he has no responsibility to the
child; and a process that isolates the sacred act of creating life from the
marriage union is a violation of the marriage union (which alone is the way to
create life). However, if the marriage act is preserved, then various clinical
techniques designed to help create new life are not to be condemned."
Adapted
from Modern Catholic Dictionary
According
to the Catholic Church, IVF and AI are acceptable as long as:
(1) ‘spare embryos’ are not produced
(2)
the sperm and the ovum belong to the married couple and are not donated
by a third party
(3)
IVF and AI are not used to replace the act of sexual intercourse in which
the husband and wife express their love
Surrogate
motherhood strikes at the heart of the family and the dignity of motherhood and
is not acceptable.
1987
Respect for Human Life in its Origin and the Dignity of Procreation
"The
human embryo has the right to proper respect. ‘Test tube babies’ are real
babies not simple embryos to be manipulated, frozen or left to die.... Human
beings are not be treated as a means to an end"
The Roman Catholic Truth Society - 1985