Famiglia, dignita della procreazione e della fecondazione artificiale,. Alcune r

Alpha Omega, janvier 2004 *

Why is producing in human life in laboratory morally illicit if it is done to fulfill a noble desire such as having a child ? In the case of a couple unable to procreate, why must the sexual act not be substituted by technique in order to give life to a new human being ? This article concentrates on the analysis of the problem of in vitro fecundation in itself, putting aside other questions that may follow (if it is homologous or heterologous, what happens with the "spare" embryos, cases of "surrogate motherhood"). A child should come into life in a way worthy of his "being a human person", i.e., from an act of conjugal love, as a gift, fruit of the mutual donation of hi/her parents. He/she should be begotten, not made.

In vitro fecundation is intrinsically immoral because it is unjust. The child’s dignity is violated because hi/:her coming into being is "produced" as if he/she were a "product" of a technique. The relation that the parents would have with the child is replaced with the relation of a producer to what is being produced, a ralationship of awnership and property, instead of equality. The child also becomes a means for satisfying the parent’s desire to have offspring. The child does not existe "because we love each other and we have mutually shown this love", but "because we have wanted him/her and only and in the measure in which we have wanted him/her". Thus, the child is something "good" not simply for being and in the way as he/she is, but because he/she is wanted, and in the measure that he/she is wanted anD corresponds to their desires, as it happens with maTerial things. For these reasons in vitro fecundation goes "against nature", i.e., against reason, against natural moral law. The article takes into account the real and deep suffering of the couples that cannot procreate and proposes to them adoption, since it embodies the logic of love : "it is good that you existe and the way you exist". At the end some brief reflections are offered on the juridical and political dimension of the problem (if the fecundation in vitro can be prohibited by the legislator). The conclusion, in the light of this problem, deals with some considerations on the familily and hoçw it is man himself who is at stake - his "abolition".