Assisted Reproductive Technologies and the Catholic Church in Context: An Examination of Catholic Moral Theology Post-Vatican II

The development of assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) coincided with important developments in Catholic moral theology, as evinced by sweeping changes in the Church implemented through the Second Vatical Council... [ view full abstract ]

The development of assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) coincided with important developments in Catholic moral theology, as evinced by sweeping changes in the Church implemented through the Second Vatical Council (1962-1965). Vatican II helped to shift the basis of the Church’s social ethics to a more historically conscious perspective, replaced an emphasis on human nature with the importance of the human person, including freedom, equality, and participation, and shifted the Church away from a deontological or legalistic ethical model. The same changes were not seen as strongly post-Vatican II in the realm of sexual ethics: the Church continued to rely on a more classicist worldview and a strict interpretation of natural law. This is evident in the magisterial commentary on ARTs: in 1987, the Church deemed artificial insemination and in vitro fertilization morally illicit using largely the same principles and reasoning invoked in Pope Paul VI's 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae, which condemned the use of contraception. By examining the Catholic Church's opposition to ARTs, we can look more closely at tensions within moral theology and in particular within sexual ethics, endeavoring to suggest alternative ethical frameworks within the tradition using insight from moral theology from beyond the West.