Child Born with "Three Parents"
Recently, the first baby born in the United Kingdom with DNA from three parents was born after doctors performed a revolutionary IVF procedure designed to prevent rare but dangerous mitochondrial diseases.
Apparently, "less than five” children have been born in the U.K. through this process. This is the first time the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority has confirmed any children in the country being born through this process. Because the embryos combine sperm and egg from the biological parents with tiny structures called mitochondria from the donor’s egg, the resulting baby has DNA from the mother and father as usual, plus a small amount of genetic material from the donor
Research on MDT, which is also known as mitochondrial replacement therapy (MRT), was pioneered in the UK by doctors at the Newcastle Fertility Centre. Progress with MDT led Parliament to change the law in 2015 to permit the procedure. The first case was approved in 2018. Approval is given on a case-by-case basis by the UK’s Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), which has given the green light for at least 30 cases. Doctors at the Newcastle clinic have not released details of births from its MDT programme, amid concerns that specific information could compromise patient confidentiality. The Newcastle process has several steps. First, sperm from the father is used to fertilise eggs from the affected mother and a healthy female donor. The nuclear genetic material from the donor’s egg is then removed and replaced with that from the couple’s fertilised egg. The resulting egg has a full set of chromosomes from both parents, but carries the donor’s healthy mitochondria instead of the mother’s faulty ones. This is then implanted in the womb.
The Catholic Church opposes the technique to create babies for parents with genetic abnormalities. Bishop Sherrington said:
“It shows a further step in the technical manipulation of new life with the loss of human life as part of the technique. The technique depends on the destruction of two human lives who had inherent dignity and rights and must be protected from their creation as persons in order to create a third embryo and life. It also fractures the child from biological parenthood. It steps into the unknown world of genetic engineering with manipulation of the human gene line. The gift of life, to be respected and treated with dignity from conception to natural death, is a mystery which cannot be reduced to technical manipulation.”
Professor David Albert Jones, Director of the Anscombe Bioethics Centre, an institute serving the Catholic Church in the UK and Ireland, said:
“Every child newly conceived is to be welcomed and we hope this new human life brings joy to his or her parents, but some way of conceiving children involve risks or harms to the child. This is a new and unnecessary technique that does not add to the safety of IVF involving an egg donor, but adds further risks. As with all IVF involving egg or sperm donors, this fractures parenthood and it is essential that the child is at least given identifying information about his or her egg donor parent. It is a fundamental human right to know about our biological origins”. The Catholic Church is opposed to IVF.
Life is a gift, not a right
No one is due another human person. God gives life as a pure gift, not as something owed. The Church teaches it’s not parents who have rights here, but the child: specifically, the right “to be the fruit of the specific act of the conjugal love of his parents” and the “right to be respected as a person from the moment of his conception.”
Doing justice to the Creator
God does not owe us children; but we do owe Him something: obedience to his moral law. It is God’s right to require that the transmission of life be the natural consequence of the conjugal act, that it flows naturally from the love between husband and wife, who cooperate with God as co-creators by calling into existence new persons with immortal souls and eternal destinies.
IVF, which substitutes the clinical collection of sperm and eggs for the marital act, and technological intervention for the natural cooperation between God and couples, fails to give God his due. This is the essence of what we call sin.
God nonetheless gives the gift of life to persons created through artificial means. God has chosen to bind himself to holding up his end of creating new human life whenever the bare biological conditions are met - whether through natural intercourse or through IVF, whether through a selfless act of married love or an act of fornication or even rape.
There are so many unwanted babies waiting for adoption in this world. If God chose not to give you any children why not adopt instead of using the IVF programme.I think it's vanity. This need to leave something of yourself behind ...a sort of immortality phenomenon.....Cressida
ReplyDeleteScience can do amazing things, but it can also burn countries and unleash global catastrophes. When we start messing with creation like this, I can't help but think we're living on credit which nature will someday demand we pay back.
ReplyDeleteOn a side note, it's strange how much interest and investment there is in advancing IVF technology at the same time as we're being repeatedly told (often by the same people) that the world is balancing on the edge of an overpopulation crisis.
And as Cressida has pointed out there is a national shortage of foster and adoptive parents.
DeleteThe modern mantra is 'I want, therefore I must have'. Couples want their 'own', biological child (which is again odd since we're now ignoring biology everywhere else), and if nature denies them that, then nature must yield. I don't at all mean to underplay the emotional anguish of couples who can't have children but want to, but sacrificing others to 'fix' that is not the way.
DeleteBut what about the technique to "create" babies for parents with genetic abnormalities?
DeleteThe moral principle of "Do no evil that good may come from it" is an even more difficult one for parents in this situation.
Effectively you end up in the same position, if the parents have a genetic abnormality which would mean that ordinarily they wouldn't have a child - either because they can't or they'd elect not to, then it's wrong to sacrifice the life of others to change the hand that nature has dealt.
DeleteIncidentally, I think this scenario - where the parents will pass on a severe or fatal condition to the child - also makes a hard case for a blanket prohibition of non-abortive contraception.
We know a couple who have adopted two siblings. And it has been a nightmare for them. Very often children who have been adopted come with serious behavioural and emotional problems. Now if you foster children, you cut a lot of support from the state. If you adopt, you're cast off with your new children, left pretty much to get on with it by yourself. And don't expect a particularly sympathetic approach from any social workers who might get involve if you have extreme problems with the children. One of the problems our friends hard was that the children were highly sexualized to spite of their very early age. They had been subjected to quite extreme p*** at a very early age. And consequently their behaviour could be quite inappropriate and violent. Of course don't expect to be advised by the social worker who is handling the adoption about these problems as they are under no obligation to do so. Or at least they weren't at the time. Our friends adopted. There are many reasons why adoption may not appeal, not all of them selfish.
DeleteParents of adopted children with special needs can and do receive ongoing financial, practical and emotional support. And social workers are professionally obliged to inform potential adoptees of anticipated difficulties and support available.
DeleteI know three families with adopted children. All have at least one with serious behavioural issues, all complain that they get zero to very little support. I suppose it's down to the same definition of special needs.
DeleteAnd the couple I previously mentioned were told that the issues they had with the kids living in a sexualy inappropriate household ( there were not serious enough to be for them to be told..
@ Lain
DeleteIt does make it hard - but do we trust God or not? Is a sick or disabled child 'unworthy' of life?
I think it is morally wrong (sinful ) to have children if there is a strong possibility of passing on a severe or fatal disease. Contraception is allowed by the Church if women have to take the pill as a medication for personal health reasons If a blanket prohibition applied to everything and special circumstances were ignored then that would not be Christian...God is good, not a psycho power driven obsessed deityl He sees and knows people's hearts and cruelty is not part of his being......Cressida
Delete@Jack - yes, a sick or disabled child is worthy of life, which is why selective abortion is wrong. But prior to conception there is no child to be either worthy or unworthy of life. Pre-existence of souls was anathematised in 553, it's not as if a child is being denied a chance at life if parents with these conditions don't have children.
DeleteYes, we trust God, but we also routinely take preventative action to mitigate known risks. By the same reasoning, one could ask 'why do you take vaccines, or look both ways before you cross the road? Don't you trust God?' If there is a substantial risk, for example, that the child will inherit a genetic condition and die after a short life of pain; or if the mother has a health condition that means getting pregnant would be fatal; or if the father has a life threatening sexually transmitted disease that he would pass to the mother and child, I find it hard to believe that God would want that. As Cressie says, he's not cruel.
@ Lain
DeleteThe difference is that reason tells us the conjugal act is designed to be an expression of love with the purpose of procreation. Contraception is wrong because it’s a deliberate violation of the design God built into the human race - the “natural law.” The natural-law purpose of sex is procreation.
@ Jack
DeleteEven if it kills the mother?
@ Lain
DeleteIt's a hard teaching - but yes.
According to Catholic teaching, contraception is an intrinsic moral evil, it is never permitted for a sexually active married couple to prevent the conception of a child. Directly and intentionally choosing contraception so that a life-threatening pregnancy will not result is choosing evil so that good may come from it.
Pope St. Pope Paul VI affirmed in his encyclical Humanae Vitae that Natural Family Planning can be used indefinitely for a serious reason like avoiding a potentially life-threatening pregnancy. A couple may choose in extraordinary medical circumstances to practice total continence during the wife’s fertile years.
But the couple in such a scenario are not preventing life, because that life can never be. The result is the same as if they abstain, unless the unitive role of sex is a moral wrong in itself.
DeleteThe logical outcome of this is that it would be morally right for a woman to fall pregnant and for her and her unborn baby to die (or for the woman and child to contract HIV etc.) but morally wrong for her and her husband to use a condom. Or it would be morally preferable for the woman to undergo a medical intervention necessary to (maybe) save her life, which results in the indirect but inevitable death of the foetus. It seems upside-down to me that the 'good' course of action results in the preventable death of at least one person, whereas the 'evil' option doesn't.
NFP is unreliable, which is why it's permitted. That would turn every act of lovemaking into a session of Russian roulette, which I would imagine rather undermines its unitive aspects. Practicing extended abstinence is also a moral wrong, which St. Paul warns drives people into the hands of the devil (1 Cor. 7:5) and, in the case of a husband with a disease such as HIV, would have to be permanent, not just during the fertile years.
The early fathers made no reference to contraception, but condemned abortion. A later misunderstanding of biology seems to have conflated the two. Western thinkers, like Augustine, came to believe that the essential purpose of marriage was procreation, and has privileged the procreative act above the unitive until recent times. This seems to stem from the Stoics' influence, namely that sexual desires are evil and that sex can only be permitted for marital procreation. In the East, procreation has been more traditionally understood as a normal feature of marriage, but not essential to it. Thus St. John Chrysostom:
Marriage does not always lead to child-bearing, although there is the word of God which says, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth." We have as witnesses all those who are married but childless. So the purpose of chastity takes precedence, especially now, when the whole world is filled with our kind. At the beginning, the procreation of children was desirable, so that each person might leave a memorial of his life.... But now that resurrection is at our gates, and we do not speak of death, but advance toward another life better than the present, the desire for posterity is superfluous. If you desire children, you can get much better children now, a nobler childbirth and a better help in your old age, if you give birth by spiritual labour.
So there remains only one reason for marriage, to avoid fornication, and the remedy is offering for this purpose.
NFP is highly effective - according to the NHS "If the instructions are properly followed, natural family planning methods can be up to 99% effective,". This is higher than barrier methods.
DeleteThe Catholic position is that artificial contraception is, in and of itself, sinful so it is always gravely sinful for spouses to interfere with the conjugal act to impede the possibility of procreation. NFP is approved for "just reasons" because it does not interfere with the generative act. NFP never attempts to render an act sterile, it seeks to regulate pregnancy by observing abstinence during the woman’s fertile period.
John Chrysostom also wrote:
“Why do you sow where the field is eager to destroy the fruit, where there are medicines of sterility [oral contraceptives], where there is murder before birth? You do not even let a harlot remain only a harlot, but you make her a murderess as well. . . . Indeed, it is something worse than murder, and I do not know what to call it; for she does not kill what is formed but prevents its formation. What then? Do you condemn the gift of God and fight with his [natural] laws? . . . Yet such turpitude . . . the matter still seems indifferent to many men—even to many men having wives. In this indifference of the married men there is greater evil filth” (Homilies on Romans 24)
The science of conception may not have been understood by the early Church but the the natural law purpose of sex within marriage was. In the ancient world barrier methods, spermicides, and drugs to induce sterility were used. When these failed, there were techniques for abortion, including pharmaceutical abortions. If all else failed, some cultures used infanticide.
From its beginning, Christianity opposed these practices. Some early Christians believed that sexual activity was exclusively for procreation. Later Christian theology did not hold to this rigorist view and acknowledged the intimacy of sex in marriage and the legitimacy of sexual relations without the intent of conception.
"If the instructions are properly followed, natural family planning methods can be up to 99% effective,". This is higher than barrier methods.
DeleteIt's a contradiction to say that NFP is open to procreation and that it's more effective than barrier methods - both can't be true. If barrier methods are less effective, then using them with an openness to them failing surely means that you're statistically more open to procreation than a couple using NFP. And St. Augustine condemned the Manichaeans for rigorously using NFP in De moribus Ecclesiae catholicae et de moribus Manichaeorum.
'If' is doing a lot of heavy lifting in the NHS statement, and 'the instructions' are hiding an awful lot of variables - rather like the mpg figures that car manufacturers claim you can get under 'ideal conditions'. The instructions for condom use are: 1. Open wrapper. 2. Put it on. The instructions for NFP are: 1. For between three and six months keep a daily record of a) your temperature, b) your cervical fluids. 2. Accurately measure your menstrual cycle. 3. Compensate for changes that a) illness, b) stress, c) travel, d) exercise and general health, e) weight gain or loss, f) exposure to environmental chemicals, g) your age, h) sleep patterns can have on all of the above. It clearly has many more points of failure, and get any of these wrong and efficiency falls off a cliff - which is one thing if you're open to expanding your family and another thing altogether if it would kill you. Would I want to bet my life on possessing the borderline clairvoyance needed to know my cycle well enough to get all those calculations correct? Absolutely not.
The medicines of sterility that Chrysostom (and St Caeserius of Arles) wrote about were precisely that - herbal abortifacient or concoctions to sterilise the womb to prevent conception. They're not referring to barrier methods, which arguably date back to at least 1000 BC.
This also leaves unanswered the question of preventing the transmission of diseases such as HIV. As 'the Church does not consider illicit the use of those therapeutic means necessary to cure bodily diseases, even if a foreseeable impediment to procreation should result there from—provided such impediment is not directly intended for any motive whatsoever' (Humanae Vitae 15) - i.e., it's licit to take birth control pills for non contraceptive health reasons - it's surely also licit to use barrier contraception where the intent is not to avoid conception but to prevent the spread of a fatal communicable illness.
"It's a contradiction to say that NFP is open to procreation and that it's more effective than barrier methods - both can't be true."
DeleteBut the Church doesn't say that. She teaches that NFP is approved for "just reasons" because it does not interfere with the generative act. It's based on the natural rhythms of ovulation. It doesn't render an act sterile, it seeks to regulate pregnancy by observing abstinence during the woman’s fertile period.
Using the contraceptive pill for health reason, e.g., heavy menstruation, is not the same as using a condom to avoid HIV. The latter is to facilitate sex; the former to treat a physical condition. 'Double-effect' doesn't apply.
Has the Orthodox Church a clear position on contraception?
@ Lain
DeleteThe Orthodox position appears to be changing with the times.
For what purpose would one engage in NFP if not to regulate having a family by avoiding conception with, apparently, up to 99% efficacy? How is that different to avoiding conception with a barrier method of < 99% efficacy?
DeleteFor clarity: if I married a man who was, say, a haemophiliac or had a motorcycling accident and contracted HIV after a contaminated blood transfusion - then the Church's position is that I have to either abstain from sex for life (which I believe renders a marriage null and void anyway), or subject myself and any children to a death sentence instead of using a barrier contraceptive. And my husband is compelled to either abstain for life, or intentionally pass me a fatal disease (which is a crime in many jurisdictions). Is that correct?
The Orthodox Church has very few clear positions on matters of individual behaviour. Its canons are ideals rather than 'rules' in the Western sense. The Church believes that one's bishop (usually via one's priest) is responsible for one's individual pastoral care. On the Orthodox view, all bishops are successors to St. Peter and the Apostles and have the power to loose and bind. As laity, we look not to the written canons but to our bishop, for 'the bishop is the canon', and he has the power to apply them with oikonomia (economy) or akriveia (strictness) depending on each person's stage of spiritual development. The Church seeks to lay upon people 'no greater burden than those necessary things' (Acts 15:28) and, as the Sabbath is made for man and not man for the Sabbath, so are the canons of the Church made for man, not man for the canons.
The position on contraception, as far as it goes, of the Patriarchates of Constantinople, Moscow, and the Orthodox Church in America is that marriage should be open to life and that artificial contraception should be avoided, but that some use of non-abortifacient methods is acceptable if used with the blessing of one's spiritual father, not selfishly and not with the intention of permanently avoiding procreation. (Abortion, on the other hand, has been formally condemned since antiquity, even in cases where the mother's life is at risk. Here, the Church teaches that the baby should instead be delivered and cannot be intentionally killed).
In its 2020 document For the Life of the World: Toward a Social Ethos of the Orthodox Church, the Patriarchate of Constantinople wrote: "The Orthodox Church has no dogmatic objection to the use of safe and non-abortifacient contraceptives within the context of married life, not as an ideal or as a permanent arrangement, but as a provisional concession to necessity".
The Greek Orthodox Church in America's statement on sexual ethics says: The possible exception to the above affirmation of continuity of teaching is the view of the Orthodox Church on the issue of contraception. Because of the lack of a full understanding of the implications of the biology of reproduction, earlier writers tended to identify abortion with contraception. However, of late a new view has taken hold among Orthodox writers and thinkers on this topic, which permits the use of certain contraceptive practices [i.e., those I've outlined] within marriage for the purpose of spacing children, enhancing the expression of marital love, and protecting health.
"The Orthodox Church has very few clear positions on matters of individual behaviour. Its canons are ideals rather than 'rules' in the Western sense."
DeleteDoes that apply to abortion? Or homosexual acts? Sex outside of marriage? Cohabitation?
St. John Paul II rejected this approach it in Familiaris Consortio, saying:
"[Married people] cannot however look on the law as merely an ideal to be achieved in the future: they must consider it as a command of Christ the Lord to overcome difficulties with constancy.
And so what is known as 'the law of gradualness' or step-by-step advance cannot be identified with 'gradualness of the law,' as if there were different degrees or forms of precept in God's law for different individuals and situations."
Catholic teaching is that where there exists a genuine weakness in following a moral norm, the person is obliged to endeavour to place [or establish] the conditions for its observance. The role of the pastor is to encourage even if the journey towards a life of Christian wholeness involves special difficulties and repeated failures.
Some Catholic theologians push for a permissive attitude to moral norms, treating them as "ideals". This really is about "lowering the bar" of Church teachings that are deemed to be too difficult and gives the impression that repentance does not require a decisive break with sin.[
You seem to have omitted to answer my questions: would Catholic doctrine require me to contract HIV to fulfil my marital duties (or abstain for life and nullify it); and how is using 'highly effective' NFP to avoid pregnancy not frustrating the natural ends of sex, but using a less effective barrier method is?
DeleteThe other acts that you've listed are dogmatically proscribed by Ecumenical and/or pan-Orthodox Councils. No such council has ever ruled on the issue of non-abortifacient contraception, so it isn't a doctrinal matter. The opinions of churches and individuals have certainly changed as we have acquired a greater understanding of biology (as late as the 18th century, preformationist scientists believed that each sperm was a tiny complete person, thus rendering any contraception abortive), just as opinions about cosmology have changed, or how Vatican II changed the liturgy and Catholic attitudes towards other religions. But Orthodox doctrine hasn't changed because no Council has ever established one.
Pope Pius XI set out the Western Church's view of marriage in Casti connubii, written in response to the 1930 Lambeth Conference. In this, he writes that the primary end of 'marital rights' is procreation, and everything else - i.e., the unitive aspects - are 'secondary ends' (it's not unfair to say that procreation has often been treated not so much as the primary end as the only end in practice). Therefore, any act that frustrates the primary end of marital relations is inherently sinful (except NFP).
The OC, on the other hand, has never established a hierarchy of goods within marriage. The marriage service is full of references to the blessing of the gift of children, and any of the recent synodal affirmations of marriage make the place of child rearing perfectly clear. The OCA, e.g., affirms that 'The greatest miracle of this divinely sanctified love of marriage is the procreation of good, fair and holy children. In the image of God who brings forth life in love, the Christian marriage, a unity in love established by God, brings forth holy and good life (1 Cor. 7:14).'
However, the OC does not view procreation as the sole or primary good of marriage towards which the whole institution is oriented; it simply views it as the greatest blessing. It's not, therefore, intrinsically sinful to use certain birth control methods to protect one's health or regulate one's family. But it's out of step with God's will to avoid children permanently. Being open to procreation is generally understood as an expectation that a marriage should produce at least one child - with some exceptions, roughy corresponding to Josephite Marriages.
The role of the pastor is to encourage even if the journey towards a life of Christian wholeness involves special difficulties and repeated failures.
It's rather different when the 'failure' results in not contracting AIDS or killing your child. The OC does not view the observance of 'moral norms' as the measuring stick for spiritual wholeness, as it's much easier to circumcise the flesh than the heart. Where matters of discipline (because contraception is not a matter of doctrine) are burdensome for a soul, the bishop has the Apostolic power to loosen them as he sees fit (cf. Paul VI's reduction of the Eucharistic fast). In this, the bishop is simply doing what Orthodox bishops have done for two thousand years: applying the canons of the Church to the pastoral needs of his flock, seeking not to overburden them and drive them into despair or sin (for where there is law, there is sin - Rom. 5:13). The overwhelming percentage of Catholic couples who contracept and whomare de facto plunged into a state of sin suggests that very many souls are being overburdened by this doctrine, which is in danger of 'shutting up the kingdom of heaven against men' (well, women again) and 'not allowing those who are entering to go in.'
"Would Catholic doctrine require me to contract HIV to fulfil my marital duties (or abstain for life and nullify it;"
DeleteYou wouldn't be able to marry validly in the Catholic Church if there was no intention to have sex or bear children. If the decision was taken after the vows the marriage would remain valid.
How do you respond to this:
"But few today are willing to join Patriarch Athenagoras in his endorsement of the Pope’s simple and clear affirmation of the traditional Christian teaching on this subject. In fact, I cannot think of any other Christian teaching which has been so universally rejected even by Christians as the Church’s teaching on contraception. I have mentioned before that in America 91% of all people believe birth control is morally acceptable, and even 89% of American Catholics believe that, on this subject, they know better than the Pope ...
"50 years ago, Pope Paul VI issued a papal encyclical entitled Humanae Vitae, which he addressed not only to Catholics but also “to all men of good will.” In it, he reaffirmed the universal and unbroken teaching of the Church Fathers, both of the East and of the West, that artificial contraception is intrinsically sinful and incompatible with the Christian life. At the time of its publication, the widespread Orthodox response was summarized simply and concisely in the words of the Ecumenical Patriarch, His All-Holiness Athenagoras: “I agree absolutely with the Pope. Pope Paul VI could not have spoken otherwise ...
"Many have responded with the assertion that the Church Fathers only knew about abortifacient methods of contraception, and that therefore we are dealing with a fundamentally new situation which has not been previously addressed by the Church. But this claim is demonstrably false. Actually, the ancient world was indeed familiar with non-arbotifacient contraceptives. Soranus of Ephesus wrote in the 2nd-century work Gynaecology: “A contraceptive differs from an abortive, for the first does not let conception take place, while the latter destroys what has been conceived. Let us therefore call the one ‘abortive’ [phthorion] and the other ‘contraceptive’ [atokion].”
St. John Chrysostom wrote specifically against sterilization, which is obviously not an abortifacient method, and other such methods have also been specifically forbidden by the Fathers.”
When was the last Ecumenical Council held by the Orthodox Church?
You wouldn't be able to marry validly in the Catholic Church if there was no intention to have sex or bear children. If the decision was taken after the vows the marriage would remain valid.
DeleteIn other words, the Catholic Church doesn't allow a person who's contracted HIV to marry valid unless they're prepared to kill their partner? And this is moral?
So, again, if I marry a man who contracts AIDS for such a reason (after the marriage), I'm expected to abstain for life or contract AIDS myself? 'Thou shalt not kill ... except to satisfy Church teachings on condoms'?
And how is the use of NFP, which is apparently almost foolproof in preventing pregnancy, being more open to life than a less effective barrier method?
I don't know the context of the article, but my response to the first two paragraphs would be if almost all American Catholics think that they know better than the Pope, then there's either a significant failure of catechesis or the teaching needs revisiting.
Barrier contraception was indeed known to the early fathers, which makes the near absence of it in their writings all the more pointed. Their primary concern is for 'concoctions' and 'potions' which either induced abortion or short or long term sterility.
The last Ecumenical Council was in 787. The latest pan-Orthodox council was in 2016.
Stop grandstanding, Lain.
DeleteIf one accepts that (a) artificial contraception is intrinsically evil, and (b) the moral principle "do no harm that good may come from it", then it follows that there are no circumstances justifying its use.
Incidentally, it seems the Orthodox Church has compromised its position on contraception in recent times. See these two articles here and here.
The Greek Orthodox encyclical of October 14, 1937, is of interest, as is
this.
I'm not grandstanding anything. Taking a life is the gravest evil. The unavoidable endpoint of contraceptive legalism is that it's more moral to kill your partner than to use a piece of latex. We can se the effects of this in the AIDS epidemic in Africa, where cheating husbands come home and infect their wives because condoms aren't allowed. Then the wives and children suffer and die for their husband's sins and the Church's inflexibly in a continent with some of the worst healthcare on earth - so yes, that angers me. It's not a conceptual problem. It's a human disaster, and it's pharisaic and immoral - I have no wish for people to die of policy, ecclesiastical or secular.
DeleteThe Orthodox Church recognises human frailty and the unfair burden that the Church hierarchy (celibate men living off the common purse) would impose on the faithful (mainly women having to eke out their own living), if they were to continually fall pregnant (which is what's driving ~90% of Catholics to ignore the Church on this - the Church certainly won't help pay for all those babies it wants people to have). Therefore, the OC allows contraception in some circumstances. The Catholic Church also does this but with some theological sleight of hand, which pretends that NFP is not contraception/birth control in order to maintain the appearance of continuity of teaching. If I intended to get pregnant, I would monitor my cycle, take my temperature and so on to determine when I'm most fertile. If I do the same, but in reverse, then what is my intention? Clearly, my intention is to not get pregnant (in violation of Pius XI's teachings). I'm certainly not spending six months cataloging mucus for fun and general interest. The intention here is no different to using a condom, and that intention is forbidden - unless it's NFP. While it's true that the Fathers recommended NFP as a natural way to space children (again, suggesting that childbearing is not the primary good of marital rights), it's impossible to compare the knowledge that second century women had about their bodies (which made NFP a best guess scenario) with what we have today. Second century Greek physicians thought that the uterus could wander freely around the body and could be repelled by pungent odours or tempted lower by fragrant smells 'like an animal within an animal'. I, on the other hand, can measure my body temperature fluctuation to tenths of a point of a degree, and work out my least fertile days to achieve a measure of efficacy that the ancient fathers (or even Pope Pius XI in the 1930s) would never have been able to dream of, and which - as you said - knocks the contraceptive success rate of the proscribed measures out of the park.
The Catholic Church needs to get out from under the shadow of the Augustinian (i.e., Stoic/Manichean) belief that marital sex is intrinsically wrong and can only be redeemed by procreation - because this is the persistent philosophy that still implicitly underlies its position on contraception; even if it now begrudgingly admits that it's sometimes ok for married people to enjoy themselves why they're procreating.
HJ has heard these arguments and accompanying moral outrage before - generally from secularists and progressive Catholic bloggers.
DeleteYou think HIV in Africa spread because of the Catholic Church's prohibition on condoms? Seriously? If "cheating husbands" were following the Church's teaching they wouldn't commit adultery!
The solution to this doesn't lie with moral consequentialism - doing evil that good may come from it.
In 2005, Pope Benedict advised senior Catholic clergy from Africa that, while the disease was a "cruel epidemic", it could not be cured through using condoms. He said: "The traditional teaching of the church has proven to be the only failsafe way to prevent the spread of HIV/Aids ... It is of great concern that the fabric of African life, its very source of hope and stability, is threatened by divorce, abortion, prostitution, human trafficking and a contraception mentality."
Do condoms actually play a practical and important role in the fight against HIV? The evidence suggests no. Reseach suggests public education programs stressing abstinence before marriage and faithfulness afterward is more effective.
HJ has explained the difference between artificial contraception and NFP to space one's children. And be honest, the Orthodox Church has caved to societal pressure and shifted its position away from the Church Fathers. What's your response to this?
You need to update your information on Catholic teachings about marital love and sex. Start with Pope Saint John Paul II's encyclicals and his 'Theology of the Body'. The Catholic Church does not teach marital sex is intrinsically morally wrong!
Contraception is wrong because it’s a deliberate violation of the design God built into the human race - “natural law.” The natural-law purpose of sex is procreation. The pleasure that sexual intercourse provides is an additional blessing from God, intended to offer the possibility of new life while strengthening the bond of intimacy, respect, and love between husband and wife. The loving environment this bond creates is the perfect setting for nurturing children.
But sexual pleasure within marriage becomes unnatural, and even harmful to the spouses, when it is used in a way that deliberately and artificially excludes the basic purpose of sex. God’s gift of the sex act, along with its pleasure and intimacy, must not be abused by deliberately frustrating its natural end—procreation.
NFP respects and does not tamper with the natural procreative ordering of the sexual act; other methods of contraception directly inhibit and violate the natural procreative ordering of the act.
NFP is merely non-procreative, since it avoids pregnancy as a result of the sexual act occurring during the natural period of infertility of the woman’s menstrual cycle; contraception is positively anti-procreative, as it changes the sexual act in kind by removing its procreative dimension.
A child containing DNA from more than two people is nothing new. I had four grandparents.
ReplyDeleteThe miniscule quantity of third party DNA which this technique uses is less than I would have from my 50 x great grandparents, at which point I am probably related to everyone else in the world.
If another embryo has to die for the new child to be created, that is wrong. But surely it lives on as a part of the new child? That was the whole point of the former argument. You can't have it both ways.
"But surely it lives on as a part of the new child?"
DeleteLife isn't about our DNA. It's about our unique immortal souls being wedded to our bodies. How can it "live" when the immortal soul is not with its physical body? This is the technological manipulation of human life. It usurps God.
That's right. So you can have it that way. But you can't have it both ways.
DeleteIf your argument is accepted then the child has two parents and a transplant. It doesn't have four parents.
@HJ So I assume that you would oppose certain types of gene therapy in children and adults?
DeleteA child containing DNA from more than two people is nothing new. I had four grandparents.
DeleteYou receive exactly 50% of your DNA from your mother and exactly 50% from your father. You do receive genetic information from your grandparents, but this is via your parents and is mixed around in an event called genetic recombination before it's passed on. Each chromosome you inherit from, e.g., your mother, is a novel mix of both maternal grandparents' information, and is extremely unlikely to come purely from one grandparent.
But even if it were identical, inheriting genetic material doesn't mean that you contain the DNA of more than two people, and certainly not in a way comparable to this process.
@ Clive
DeleteDoes gene therapy result in the death of the life of others? Does gene therapy "create" life in a petri dish and break the connection between sex and new life in cooperation with God?
As the Bishop Sherrington said:
“It shows a further step in the technical manipulation of new life with the loss of human life as part of the technique. The technique depends on the destruction of two human lives who had inherent dignity and rights and must be protected from their creation as persons in order to create a third embryo and life. It also fractures the child from biological parenthood. It steps into the unknown world of genetic engineering with manipulation of the human gene line. The gift of life, to be respected and treated with dignity from conception to natural death, is a mystery which cannot be reduced to technical manipulation.”
No I don't agree with that. New Life isn't being created by the use of genetic material. It is being used to repair the flaws in existing life.
DeleteThere are objections to make, but that is the weakest
Lain - Genetic recombination means that I either contain DNA from nobody but myself or I contain DNA from everyone who is my ancestor. There is no logical alternative position.
DeleteThat's not how DNA works. 50% of your DNA comes from your father, 50% from your mother. Unless my maths is very bad, that leaves 0% from third parties. You're setting up a false dichotomy: both statements are correct(ish). You contain DNA from nobody but yourself insomuch as it's unique to you, otherwise DNA wouldn't be evidential useful in criminal proceedings. You inherit bits of genetic information from your recent and ancient ancestors, but this is not direct - as is the case in the article, which is the reason this is a 'breakthrough' - and is rearranged in a way unique to you. Thus, two siblings can appear to have completely different genetic ancestry.
DeleteThis helps drive evolution, repair damaged genes and weed out harmful mutations - otherwise we'd simply be like photocopiers making increasing deteriorating copies of ourselves. It was discovered in 1911 by a biologist investigating why some heredity traits appear to 'skip' generations.
So much for the mechanics of DNA. The practical outworking is that we all have identifiable characteristics inherited from both parents, from our grandparents and much further back. My hairline and the shape of my sister's feet can be traced back at least four generations. These traits are carried in our DNA. So are the genetic defects which the process in question seeks to eliminate. If parentage counts then grandparentage counts. We all carry traits which are expressions of DNA sequences that have existed in multiple ancestors.
DeleteAnd you're now describing heritable genetic traits, which have no bearing whatsoever on the article's claim that the child in question has 'three parents'. On your view, we each have the DNA of an unquantifiable number of people, which makes it strange that geneticists are making such a big deal out a baby containing DNA from a paltry three.
DeleteYou have the position exactly. It is indeed strange that geneticists are making sensational claims about their own achievements, but sometimes people do that.
DeleteAnyway, I am much enjoying the Greek-on-Roman action over contraception. You are right of course. Jack knows but he will never admit it.
@Jack, I apologise for going off topic, but there’s a scrap of archaeological news that caught my attention because of its Biblical connection. It’s about a 3,000 year old Hebrew curse discovered in Samaria.
ReplyDeleteUsing recently developed x-ray technology, archaeologists have deciphered an inscription carved on the inside of a small folded lead tablet found near a Bronze Age altar on Mount Ebal in Samaria. The inscription, in what may be the earliest known form of the Hebrew alphabet, turns out to be a curse reading:
You are cursed by the god Yhw, cursed.
You will die, cursed—cursed, you will surely die.
Cursed you are by Yhw—cursed.
The folded lead tablet measures about three-quarters of an inch (2 cm) square and about one-eighth of an inch (3 mm) thick. It has been dated to around 1250 BC.
Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim are two hilltops about three miles apart in Samaria. In Deuteronomy 27:11-12, Moses instructs the Israelites that, on entering the Promised Land, they are to assemble first on Mount Ebal and then split into two groups, one to stay on Mount Ebal and pronounce curses, while the other group crosses to Mount Gerizim and pronounces blessings. The tribes of Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph and Benjamin are to go on to Gerizim, while the other six tribes are to remain on Ebal.
The purpose of the folded lead tablet is stated by the archaeologists in these terms: “Once a religious functionary inscribed the text and sealed the tablet, the incantation became binding. It could not be erased since the tablet would crumble and the curse would disappear, if opened. Neither humans nor supernatural beings could cancel or negate an occult message since they could not see it.”
The full text of the archaeologists’ report can be read here:
https://heritagesciencejournal.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40494-023-00920-9
It all sounds very 'occulty' and HJ wasn't aware of this aspect of Judaism.
DeleteReading Deuteronomy 27 and 28 indicates the 'curse' follows breaches of God's law rather than being called down by individuals. It was about the people affirming their part of the covenant with God and agreeing to keep the whole law and understanding that breaches of the law has consequences.
@ Ray - That's interesting. It reminds me of the Roman era 'curse tablets' addressed to Sullis Minerva found at Bath, also made of lead alloys. Those date from the second to fourth centuries AD, so it seems so have been a very widespread and long-lived practice. Your article says that the practice existed among other peoples at the same time, so it's perhaps unsurprising that some of the ancient Jews picked it up: particularity considering how often the OT chastises Israel for mimicking the practices of the pagan nations!
Delete@ Jack - true, but the imprecatory psalms seem to indicate a tradition of calling for God's vengeance on one's enemies. In Ps. 68[69], the first person speaker calls for God to 'pour out your indignation upon them, and let your wrathful displeasure take hold of them. Let their habitation be desolate, and no man dwell in their tents'.
None of the imprecatory psalms direct the individual to be an agent of vengeance. The psalmist expects God alone to avenge injustice. The psalmist expects vindication in this life to demonstrate God’s fidelity to His people. The psalms recognise and, in times of moral complacency, encourage a response of horror at the evils perpetrated by wicked people.
DeleteThat said, HJ struggles with this:
“O daughter of Babylon, you devastator! Happy shall he be who requites you with what you have done to us! Happy shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock!”
(Ps. 137:8-9)
An expression of just outrage over acts of wickedness? These prayers are not expressions of personal vengeance but a plea to God for justice.
in Deuteronomy 27-28 the Levites pronounce imprecations against Israel if she proves unfaithful to the covenant. Israel, in accepting the law, brought herself under its sanctions. She in essence pronounced curses upon herself should she break the covenant. In other words, God's people were commanded to pray for God's curses upon themselves if they forsook him! God is no less severe on his own covenant people than he is on the unbelieving nations who are regularly given to idolatry.
I'm not reading those tablets as directing the individual to be an agent of vengeance, more like a receipt that the author has passed their complaint to a higher department to deal with. In other contexts where similar tablets are found, they're effectively an appeal from the aggrieved for the gods to administer justice on their behalf.
DeleteCS Lewis wrote that 'little ones dashed against the rocks' should refer to our sins - they should be smashed against the rocks before they can grow. Given the world that they inhabited, I think the original author(s) of the psalm more than likely experienced the Babylonians doing horrible things to their own infants and are crying out for God to do what he'd promised that he'd do: protect them and render and eye for an eye. It's better to scream one's own dark desires for revenge at God than to enact it oneself.
I think that the tablets being found at Mt. Ebal is due to its association with the Deut. curses, rather than being an extension of them. If you had a grievance, you'd probably go to the Cursing Mountain.
It is a fascinating article and a jolly good read. Thank you for the link, Ray.
DeleteMy pleasure, Chef.
DeleteI know more than three families who had there own children and the kids were abominable.....so being adopted does not necessarily make for problem children.One family has Christmas in shifts because they cannot all be under the same roof at the same time without some drama occurring. Cressida
ReplyDeleteYes that's true, but you have to remember why a lot of children are put up for adoption. They have been removed from an extremely damaging and unstable home life. Drug addicts. A violent partner, neglect. These kids are damaged and have can have extreme issues. My mother was head of children's services for a council and she said these adoptions could completely break down. They had incidences of parents literally sending them back. This isn't a problem of naughty behaviour, these children can be violent and extremely destructive.
DeleteNow these are extreme examples, but are not uncommon.
@ Clive - the Orthodox Church views marriage and family life as a type of martyrdom because it involves self-emptying and dying to oneself. Those who adopt or foster really are carrying the Cross and following the Lord's command to love those whom society regards as the 'least of these'.
DeleteAs you say, children don't usually end up in the system for good reasons; they can, quite understandably, be very challenging behaviourally - especially the older ones. I think that one of the huge problems here is that, like just about everything in our society, the process is broken. The authorities don't particularly care about children in care - as we saw on a large scale with the Rotherham abuses, but which happens on a smaller scale every day. A lack of interest means a lack of support and investment, the services are under-provisioned, understaffed and often treated as no more than holding pens for difficult animals that nobody wants to rehome. Foster carers and adoptive families are more-or-less left to fend for themselves. I think you get more follow up when you adopt a pet than a child. It's a tragedy.
@Lain,
DeleteYes you are right about the process. The children are abandoned twice.
My point however is it's too easy to say, ahh these parents who are unable to have children on their own are being selfish, there are lots of children in care looking for families. The children that should present the least problems ie the newborn have no problem in being adopted (although even then the process can cock things up big style),, it's the difficult, older ones from a challenging background that struggle and to be frank, most potential parents do not have the necessary skillset, time, or emotional understanding to take these kids on
The whole system stinks, and needs total reform and increased financial investment.
@ Clive
DeleteProbably more than twice, as they get shunted from pillar to post. I knew a police child protection officer once; he said the same thing about babies being easy to foster or adopt, but you could forget ever placing a teenager. He had some horrendous stories about kids who'd gone into the care system who'd had difficult home lives but basically been good kids, but had come out of the other end as monsters. He said he sometimes wondered if it did then more harm than good.
No, I don't think all couples who don't want to adopt are selfish; of course some will be, but overall it's more nuanced than that. For one, I'm not sure that adoption is really ever presented as a serious alternative to couples who can't conceive - the whole care system for children and the elderly is still hidden away like a shameful secret (rightly so in some respects). Most couples also aren't equipped to handle the kinds of children who are most in need of adopting, and there aren't enough adorable babies to go round. I think this could be mitigated to some extent by proper training and support, but a troubled older child is a lot to take on (although having one's own children isn't always a bed of roses either, as Cressida said).
I do think, though, that there is something inherently selfish in a society that keeps on coming up with these ideas. I think genetic splicing isn't a huge step away from designing babies: hack a bit off a tall embryo to get a tall one, a slice of the blonde gene from over here. Given that some countries already have close to a
100% abortion rate for children with Down Syndrome, the underlying principles here concern me.
It is disgraceful that we have said to a section of our society, who do understand, that their life is worth nothing. That they are to be wiped out.
DeleteI agree with many of your concerns, about how this technology will be mis-used.
This technology must be stopped. Otherwise I might not be the only person who is perfect in every way. Think of it... The world becoming a competitive place in which one has to expend effort. Terrifying.
Delete