Discover or Rediscover Catholicism!
I've been triggered. I was watching television and the subject of invitro fertilization came up and what was a feel good Hallmark movie, suddenly become a horror flick for me. I am not sure if there is anything worse than this type of a procedure. I recently took a job as an Executive Director for a Pregnancy Center, and we fight against abortion every day, but the way i see it, this procedure of invitro fertilization is even more horrific than abortion.
Think about it, at the center we see woman who are encountering a crises pregnancy. Typically this is a pregnancy that was unintended and it is causing them distress and hardship. They are looking for a solution to a big problem, a problem they find unsurmountable. The problem is a single human life, still very small, but a human life none the less. They presume the destruction of that life will ease their suffering and solve their problem. We know this is not true, it just creates a whole new set up problems. Killing your own child goes against nature, when we act in defiance of nature, we are rebelling against God, and that typically doesn't work out so well. For some, if may seem to solve problems, but it kills the soul, and the heart. That next abortion is much easier, and then easier after that, until some woman become serial killers, of their own children. How can that lead to anything but death within our own hearts, even if Satan has convinced us otherwise.
Now let's look at invitro fertilization, which is a costly process that couples extend themselves into tremendous debt by doing in hopes of conceiving a child, they can call their own, and expand a family with. On the surface it seems good, the creation of life, what a noble task. The creation of families, what is better than that? Yet let's look closer, because again, when we go against nature, things typically don't end well. When we go against nature we are rebelling against God. This process typically creates several fertilized embryos and only one is implanted into a women's uterus to develop and carry, and hopefully to eventually give birth too. So, what happens to all the others? They are frozen!! These little tiny babies, who have already been infused with a divine soul and who are created in the image of God, are frozen, indefinitely. Sometimes these babies are frozen for years, and even decades! They are held hostage, still alive, but suspended, not able to grow and develop and become what they were meant to be. At the moment that sperm hit that egg and that life was created, everything about the baby was determined. The embryo has all the means to become a certain height, have a certain color hair and eyes, have a certain temperament, have a certain IQ. Yet, because of our selfish desire to create life on our own terms and in our own way, we have sentenced that baby to be suspended in development, as an embryo. We are denying her the right to grow and become the person God intended. It seems worse than death to me, we should really ponder the state of the soul of such an embryo. Where is that soul?
It is absolutely horrific. The souls of the aborted can at least go and be with God. Where do the souls of frozen babies created through invitro fertilization go? So many of us seem to think that individual sins aren't anybody else's business but the one who commits that sin. That is untrue. Sins, both mortal and venial, are like ripples in a pond, that a stones makes. They have effects that we can't even imagine. One day, we will know about these ripples, these ripples and all who were effected by them will be revealed to us, and as we stand in judgement before our creator, we will know the depths of how our actions affected humankind and the whole world, both good and bad. Most of us will feel bitter remorse, many of us already do feel that remorse. Many of us don't, and I suppose many of us won't. The theme song of Hell is "I did it my way", and those who are prideful enough to revel in this ability to do things their own way, will do things their own way without God. They will separate themselves from God in death, just as they did during temporal life. The doors to Hell are locked from the inside after all, those who go there, know they deserve it, they never tried to do anything to stop it..
The Church gives us guidelines, rules, and commandments to live by for a reason. They lay out the divine plan of God, and how we are to maneuver through that plan and have lives that flourish. Carrying our crosses, our sufferings and our disappointments are pathways along that divine journey. Certainly, the inability to conceive a child creates tremendous suffering and heartbreak for those experiencing it, and my hearts breaks for those couples, but it doesn't give any of us the right to "play God" and mess around with the greatest privilege he gives us. Think about it, not even the angels are able to create lives that are destined for eternity! So when we do against God's plans, we get off the path and start living outside the commands of God, and typically we find ourselves in a mess. It is always our choice though, and our choices matter and have eternal consequences. Those consequences are not just for us, they effect so many. They effect even those we don't know, like those frozen embryos who will never know life, never know brotherhood, but will someday enter into God's glory, despite the horrific frozen life they were sentenced to by their very own parents. Hopefully those parents will remorse, and then forgiveness, and ultimately the redemption Christ died to give us. Ripples are eternal after all, for everyone.