"What's wrong with in vitro fertilization?" This question is not infrequent among Catholic parishioners, especially from those who have family members facing the apparent tragedy of the inability to conceive a child. These same couples all too often have been referred to a fertility clinic or physician that is advising them to attempt to have a child by using in vitro techniques.

Infertility affects about 6.1 million people in the United States, about 10 percent of women and men of reproductive age. However, of that number, only about 430,000 women have the kind of infertility that might make them turn to in vitro techniques as their only recourse.

In vitro fertilization became available in the 1980s as a method of artificial procreation. This technique largely refers to a procedure that removes eggs (9-12) and sperm from a married couple or from donors and uses them to create human embryos in the laboratory. Then some of the embryos are implanted in the woman's uterus, the others are frozen in case they are needed for further attempts at pregnancy.

Often the Catholic couple brings a moral rationale with them when they are seeking moral guidance. The rationale might be stated as follows:

"The Church teaches us that having children is one of the two goals of marriage. We don't use contraception and have tried for years to get pregnant, but sadly without success. If medicine can help us do what nature cannot why is that wrong, especially since we are such a pro-life church? If God has given us a mind to invent things that help us thrive, like modern medicines that cure and planes, trains and automobiles that move us faster and farther than legs could ever take us, why is using the invention of in vitro fertilization wrong? After all, we're using our own eggs and sperm, just like if we conceived naturally. Isn't this just another example of us using our minds to do something good, something that God wants from every married couple?"

The Church wants to respond to such loving couples with both compassion and wisdom. First, it needs to be noticed that the language of medicine is not always appropriate for describing the issue of infertility. Infertility is not a "disease" for which in vitro fertilization is the "cure." Hopefully, post-menopausal women are not considered diseased because they are infertile.

"Infertility" is a condition found in a marriage. IVF doesn't and can't "cure" the pathology underlying a couple's infertility. IVF is really a "response to a desire" rather than the "cure of a disease." While no one should doubt the innate goodness of every infertile married couple's heartfelt desire to have children of their own, there are several basic moral principles that we must keep in mind.

First, we can never be satisfied to define every moral act simply by evaluating the intention behind the act. St. Augustine reminded us centuries ago that "the road to hell is paved with good intentions." His admittedly polemic statement does clearly remind us of its more theological translation, "One may not do evil, that good may come about."

The Church has always made it clear that while she encourages the use of reason and human invention in all areas of human endeavor, especially medicine and science, she at the same time recognizes that there are limits to the applications of some of humankind's interventions in nature. Just because science can do something does not mean that it should do it. Anything that harms or attacks the human person is immoral.

Thus the Church's moral analysis of ICF clearly sets boundaries to protect both the married couple and potential children from inappropriate and immoral interventions by science:

1. A child is ultimately a gift from God, not something manufactured in a laboratory. No child should ever been seen as a commodity, which is what they are when one considers that IVF treatments cost tens of thousands of dollars.

2. The Church has never taught that couples have a right to children, simply that they need to be open to them, should God bless them with children.

3. Conception outside of natural intercourse turns the couple and family into a biological laboratory.

4. IVF involves the destruction of embryos, vulnerable human lives. "Leftover" embryos are first frozen and then often abandoned and left to slowly disintegrate over time, or may be given away for experimental purposes.

In the end, the Church's teaching is clear: never does the end justify the means. When IVF is used to achieve fertilization outside the fruit of a sexual union, the child is deprived of its innate right to be the fruit of a conjugal act "in which the spouses become cooperators with God for giving life to a new person"(Donum Vitae, 1987).

Infertile Catholic couples are encouraged to investigate any and all forms of fertility intervention that are morally acceptable --- in other words, those that do not attack the very meaning of the sexual union of the spouses or the innate dignity of a child as a gift from God.

When children do not seem to be part of God's plan for a particular couple, they are encouraged to be "fertile" in other ways. They can become parents through adoption or by being foster parents. There are many ways that childless couples can be fertile without every having or even adopting children. They can find creative ways sharing their love with those in need of all ages.

Infertility need not be seen as a "disease" or a "curse" but can become, for those who choose, a path to fulfilling their Christian vocation and parental desires in ways very different and creative than they every imagined. In fact, if they choose, infertility can be a way that can lead them to share their married love in a chaste and holy way beyond the confines and limits of the nuclear family.

"Whatsoever you do for the least of your sisters and brothers, that you do for Me."

Vincentian Father Richard Benson is academic dean and professor of moral theology at St. John's Seminary, Camarillo. His column appears monthly in The Tidings.