Yes! 
Please don’t call this POV “pro-life” when it actually means “forced pregnancy and birth regardless of the health of the embryo and despite the wishes and health of the mother.”
I can’t have a conversation with a group about even Property Rights if they don’t think a woman owns her body. We don’t appear to have established common grounds on which to discuss things like Rights any longer.
“X is a person.” -is arguing with- “X doesn’t vote how I like so I don’t care.”
Agreed, and very much worth noting. The article provides a solid treatment, though I suspect we both agree that it was overly sentimental about pre-modern medicine.
I say the Catholic Church’s position is internally consistent now (or roughly so), just as they were when they believed that the fetus received its soul well after conception. In Biblical times, they imposed lesser punishments for killing fetuses than humans. In fact killing fetuses was considered less seriously than knocking out a tooth. Exodus 21:
22 “If people are fighting and hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely[e] but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman’s husband demands and the court allows. 23 But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.
Today, IVF slaughters thousands of embryos, something I consider morally irrelevant because I don’t accept assumptions that certain conservative Christians claim to make. Judging from their behavior, they don’t believe these assumptions either. So our philosophical differences are small: I say that people should say what they mean and should reflect upon the planks in their own eyes before they judge others, while conservative Christians disagree. Perhaps we could work something out.
At least the Catholic church has inveighed against IVF (though, they emphasize, not all reproductive technology) since its beginning.
It’s been a few months, but we saw this play out in real time back when the Alabama court case hit the fan. It seemed to trouble a lot of people for the couple weeks IVF was threatened, even people who are against abortion. I prefer the original hypothesis,
Be fruitful and multiply / more babies are good is popular, intuitive, and ripe for cherry picking. Life begins at conception is more nuanced but more effective in the specific case of argumentation. There’s a lot of overlap between the two, like a square peg that almost fits in a round hole. The corners of the peg correspond to IVF clinics that dispose of fertilized eggs…
~Max
I do not believe the Catholic church has a consistent position. They are opposed to all contraception whether it involves fertilized eggs or not. Basically, they seem to see all sex as sinful, relieved only by the possibility of reproduction. I think that explains their insistence on the virgin births of both Mary and Jesus. They were born without sin.
I am certain that there are individual Catholics who believe that, but that is not the official teaching. The official teaching is that the unitive and procreative aspects of sex are not to be deliberately separated - which means no birth control * other than some variation of timing and no IVF. It’s consistent, whether I agree with it or not.
The Catholic church does not believe that Mary was the product of a virgin birth. Although many people ( including some Catholics I’m sure ) believe " Immaculate Conception" refers to a virgin birth, it does not. It refers to the belief that Mary was free of original sin from the moment she was conceived in the normal way.
* I don’t want to get too deep but it’s the deliberate attempt to prevent conception that’s an issue. Taking medication for another condition that impairs fertility - OK if the contraceptive effect is not the reason for taking the medication. Post-menopausal women having sex - OK.
Yes, the Catholic Church employs the “doctrine of double effect” not only to sex/procreation but also things like self-defense vis-a-vis thou shallt not kill. A big part of the underlying theology is the individual actors involved and their intentions. For example, the Church does not necessarily endorse amplexus reservatus (where the husband and wife have natural sex but purposely avoid climax).
Much of the Church’s opposition to IVF has to do with the technical nature of the procedure. How it is wrong to make life and death decisions (because after the embryo is formed, life and death is God’s domain) and wrong to let a laboratory technician interject him or herself into the act of fertilization (because such an act is marital in nature and the technician is not part of the marriage union). I wonder, if there were an at-home single-use IVF kit that a husband and wife could use, if that could be permissible means for procreation. Unlike contraception, where the means are incompatible with the permissible end (procreation).
~Max
It also applies, for instance, to end-of-life care. Giving someone a lethal dose of morphine in order to kill them is murder, and is absolutely not allowed. But easing pain is a good purpose, and so you can give someone morphine to ease pain. And if the pain is so severe that only an extremely large dose of morphine would be enough, and no other alternative would deal with the pain, then it’s permissible to give that extreme dose to ease the pain, even if that dose is enough to be lethal. Same situation, same act in response to that situation, but different intentions, and that’s enough to make the difference between a permitted act and a prohibited act.