Bishop Thomas John Paprocki | Diocese of Springfield

A sweeping decision by the Alabama Supreme Court in February sent shock waves through the world of assisted reproduction. Justice Jay Mitchell, writing on behalf of the court’s 7-2 majority, concluded that human embryos in IVF clinics “are ‘children,’ … without exception based on developmental stage, physical location, or any other ancillary characteristics.”

A firestorm followed. The decision uncomfortably reignited basic ethical questions that those in the IVF business had hoped were behind us. It had obvious financial implications since it allowed parents to seek damages against IVF clinics when their embryonic children were lost or destroyed. It effectively upended the tacit assumption guiding the work of every IVF clinic, namely, that human embryos are nothing special, just a “means to an end” or objects to be used in the quest to satisfy customers and improve profitability. As one commentator put it, the court’s decision is “clearly extraordinary in its determination that in vitro, 8-cell, microscopic embryos are considered people.”

But should it really be so extraordinary? What’s extraordinary is the fact that so many people, for so long, could become so riveted to the falsehood that little human beings are not human beings just because they are little.

IVF has become so ingrained in lifestyle choices that it’s now not only awkward but positively impolite to suggest that pre-born life has intrinsic value, whether in a petri dish, a freezer, or a womb. Yet scientific facts have a hard edge to them. As O’Rahilly & Muller put it in Human Embryology & Teratology: “Although life is a continuous process, fertilization is a critical landmark because under ordinary circumstances a new genetically distinct human organism is formed.”

The awkward truth for purveyors of IVF is that we are all embryos who have grown up; if all men are created equal then all embryos are human beings who ought to be unconditionally safeguarded and never exploited.

The Alabama court ruling thrust the state into the national spotlight and sent panicked lawmakers on both sides scrambling for a quick legislative fix. Only weeks after the judicial decision, the powerful infertility industry succeeded in convincing both the Alabama House and Senate to pass legislation guaranteeing fertility clinics and doctors immunity from prosecution for any “death or damage to an embryo” during the IVF process.

Rather than running scared and caving to pressure from IVF advocates, we should face how we have become complacent about something so glaringly wrong. Why have we stood by allowing industrialized commodification and destruction of younger human beings?

IVF involves at least two major moral problems — collateral damage and intrinsic issues.

The collateral damage problem means achieving one IVF birth may involve creating multiple embryos: prescreening several "best" ones while discarding or freezing "leftovers." If more than one implants successfully selective abortion might follow. Those born through this gauntlet still show elevated birth defect rates compared with normally conceived babies.

This high tolerance for collateral damage arises from prioritizing older adults' desires over voiceless embryonic children's rights and needs. Parental wants often trump children’s best interests allowing grave human rights violations as standards of infertility care.

Regarding intrinsic issues: IVF actions contradict marriage's meaning and core designs of marital sexuality. Even if parts assert otherwise sex remains fundamentally about bringing forth new life within marriage's stable bond—children aren't commodities entitled instead brought lovingly via marital acts within protective maternal environments rather than manufactured under laboratory lights by hired hands at fertility clinics.

Through IVF we create an exploitable subclass unjustly instrumentalized dehumanized brought into existence distinctly different ways—a subclass produced subjugated through craftiness scheming instead arriving freely undeserved gifts via bodily self-surrender fruitful spousal love within marital embrace.

For those interested understanding these issues more completely I recently produced two full-length professionally filmed videos available on YouTube Vimeo titled The Struggle Infertility Why Is IVF Wrong?

Let us hope Alabama court’s decision provides impetus serious soul-searching ongoing calamity our society concerning this matter.

Father Tadeusz Pacholczyk Ph.D earned his doctorate neuroscience Yale did post-doctoral work Harvard priest diocese Fall River Mass serves Senior Ethicist National Catholic Bioethics Center Philadelphia See www.ncbcenter.organd www.fathertad.com