Issues connected with IVF
Dr Metropolitan Nikolaos
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1)
Homosexual parenting
Invasive fertilization techniques give the opportunity to homosexual couples to have children. The Church should by all means express Her opposition to this option, because it is not only a physical abnormality, but also an ethical perversion, bearing destructive psychological consequences upon the child and society.
2)
Asexual conception
This modality deprives the moment of man’s psychosomatic beginning of the atmosphere of the spouse’s intense love and their complete psychosomatic union. The law of God designates that each human being be born out of profound marital love and not just out of the artificial union of genetic cells (gametes).
3)
Surplus embryos
The so-called ‘surplus embryos’ are preserved in a frozen state (cryopreservation) so as to be used in the future by the natural parents; or to be donated to other ‘parents’; or to experiment with; or to be used for organogenesis so as to cover transplant needs; or, finally, to be destroyed. The Church cannot give Her blessing for any of the above. Christian Orthodox anthropology and theology cannot justify the existence of embryos that are independent from the pregnancy procedure. Each embryo constitutes the image of God and should be given the chance to become like Him.
4)
Single parenthood
IVF also gives the opportunity to unwed mothers to have children. The Church ought to reject this alternative, because, on the one hand, it implies that children be born out of unwed parents, and, on the other hand, it is unfair for the child to grow up without a father. The practices of fertilization with the spermatozoa of a deceased husband and of frozen embryo transfer after the husband’s death fall within the same category
5)
Preimplantation genetic diagnosis (eugenics)
When the tests are positive namely, when a genetic disorder has been diagnosed –the affected embryo will not be transferred. If no unaffected embryos are produced, then the chance of a pregnancy is prevented. Moreover, preimplantation testing could eventually lead to selection of special traits (e.g. gender, colour of hair or eyes), or even to destruction of embryos bearing undesired traits; consequently, it may generate a eugenic perception of life.
7)
Reproductive cloning
Cloning is a technique that abolishes the natural procedure
of conception
8)
Financial interests, psychological consequences
The new techniques of assisted reproduction often defile the parents’ pure desire to have children with uncontrollable financial interests of physicians, clinics and companies.
Moreover, changing the act of donation into a practice of trading, which is very easy and basically uncontrollable, tends to downgrade the sacred character of reproduction to an act of financial transaction and, thus, turn love into a business agreement.
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“In vitro fertilization technology is a gross interference in the mystery of child-bearing”
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Archpriest Oleg Stenyayev
Source:
https://www.bioethics.org.gr/MMLN%20assisted%20repro.pdf