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The Vatican and Birth Technology
| Article
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13154 |
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Section : |
MODERN THOUGHT
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| Issue
Date : |
11 / 1987 |
3,600 Words |
| Author
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Dinesh D'Souza
Dinesh D'Souza is Senior Domestic Policy Analyst at the White
House. Research assistance for this article was provided by
Angela Grimm, director of the Catholic Center at the Free
Congress Foundation. |
The recent Vatican document calling for moral restraints on birth technology has generated animated debate and controversy in the United States and abroad. This debate has been generally welcome in Rome, because it was one of the main objectives in issuing the "Instruction on Respect for Human Life in Its Origin." Many countries have not figured out how to legislate on and adjudicate controversial issues such as surrogate parenthood, in vitro fertilization, and other artificial means of creating and sustaining fetal life. The "Baby M" case and the confused response it drew from the American public, politicians and the press is the latest evidence of this. The Vatican hopes to give the technology-driven discussion a moral resonance. In this respect it seems to have succeeded.
Although the Vatican's initiation of an ethical discussion of artificial conception and birth has been favorably received, the specific content of the teaching has not been so welcome. As usual, dissident Catholics have led the crusade against Rome. Former priest Daniel Maguire found the church document "another example of celibate men pronouncing on the reproductive rights of women when women's voices have not been heard." Colman McCarthy, a Trappist monk emeritus, fulminated in the Washington Post against a "heavy papal hand hitting people hard rather than offering a compassionate pastoral touch." Groups like Catholics for a Free Choice, a pro-abortion lobby, have also weighed in with derogatory remarks.
Writing in the New Republic, Hendrik Hertzberg notes that the papal document is "an argument from faith, which in this case means an argument from authority. Take it or leave it." The implication is that anyone who does not share Roman Catholic theology need not take the teaching seriously. Moses Tendler of Yeshiva University told the New York Times that the Pope was confusing the natural with the virtuous. "The word natural is a holy word to the Pope and unnatural means evil," Tendler observed. But as he viewed it, "Unnatural is not a sin but an opportunity to complete God's work." Reinforcing this point, Rabbi Seymour Siegel of the Jewish Theological Seminary noted that "when nature plays a trick on us, we have to outwit it."
Finally, the press stressed the apparent impracticality of the Vatican teaching by printing numerous feature stories on families--Catholic and non-Catholic--who cannot seem to endure the anguish of remaining childless. "Parenting is such a strong urge, I don't think the Church can stop it," remarked Heidi Plummer, a 40-year-old Catholic who came to the attention of the New York Times. Backing her up is George David of the
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