Making Sense of Bioethics: Column #217 : Poking the Hornet’s Nest of IVF

IVF involves at least two major moral problems —the ‘collateral damage problem’ and the ‘intrinsic problem.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationMarch 29, 2024Artificial Insemination, Embryos, Frozen Embryos, Imposing Our Beliefs, Infertility, In Vitro Fertilization, Law and Ethics

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column #216 : Surrogacy and Child Trafficking

Surrogacy involves a form of “trafficking” of children, implying that children are being bought and sold, treated as property and often transported across international borders, which, all in all, sums up many contemporary aspects of surrogacy.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationFebruary 29, 2024In Vitro Fertilization, Parenting, Surrogacy, Infertility

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column 168: Securing Authentic Children's Rights

Notwithstanding rapidly changing social mores, a truly civilized society will never prioritize the desires of adults ahead of the innate rights of vulnerable children.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationJune 30, 2019Artificial Insemination, In Vitro Fertilization, Surrogacy, Parenting, Same Sex Parenting

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column 165: It’s Not Just About the Frozen Embryos

Through IVF, husband and wife use their own (or even another person’s) sex cells to become “donors”, while constructing their own offspring through a kind of programmed project, with the marital act no longer an essential part of the equation.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationMarch 30, 2019Embryos, Frozen Embryos, In Vitro Fertilization, Infertility

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column 162: Gene-Edited Babies and the Runaway Train of IVF

Should JK's human gene editing work be condemned and should he be branded as a rogue scientist violating significant moral boundaries? The answer will, in fact, be linked to whether we understand IVF to be ethical or not…

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationDecember 30, 2018Genetics and Genome Editing, In Vitro Fertilization, Research

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column 157: Promethean Medical Temptations

Today, as modern medicine tries to rebuff death and control our humanity in ever more sophisticated ways, new temptations arise...

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationJuly 30, 2018Abortion, End-of-Life Issues, In Vitro Fertilization, Physician-Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia, Research, Gender Identity and Being Transgender

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column 154: Cowboys, Infertility and Deeper Moral Questions

…we realize how the procreation of our own children is meant to involve a strict exclusivity between husband and wife.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationApril 30, 2018Artificial Insemination, Embryos, In Vitro Fertilization, Infertility, Parenting, Banking of Sperm and Eggs

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column 146: The Expendable Children

This attitude of seeing our offspring as expendable is becoming more widely accepted not only among IVF customers, but also among biomedical researchers…

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationAugust 30, 2017Abortion, Embryos, In Vitro Fertilization, Genetics and Genome Editing, Research

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column 145: Considering the Options for Infertile Couples

It can be helpful to keep in mind a particular “rule of thumb” for determining whether a procedure is morally acceptable: treatments that assist the marital act are permissible, while those that replace, or substitute for, the marital act raise serious moral objections.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationJuly 30, 2017Infertility, In Vitro Fertilization, Artificial Insemination, Intrauterine Insemination, Marriage, Natural Family Planning (NFP), Pregnancy Complications

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column 140: How Does the Catholic Church Resolve New Bioethical Questions?

Many people appreciate that the Catholic Church holds firm and well-defined positions on moral questions, even if they may remain unsure about how or why the Church actually arrives at those positions, especially when it comes to unpacking new scientific developments like embryonic stem cell research.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationFebruary 28, 2017Artificial Insemination, Cloning, Embryos, Infertility, In Vitro Fertilization, Science and Religion, Stem Cell Research, Universal Morality, Conscience, Research

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column 136: The Multiple Moral Problems of Surrogacy

Surrogacy raises grave moral concerns, and powerfully undermines the dignity of human procreation, particularly when it comes to the women and children involved in the process.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationOctober 30, 2016Surrogacy, In Vitro Fertilization

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column 120: The Banking of Sperm and Eggs before Cancer Treatments

… if the egg harvesting step could be carried out with low risk to women, if the egg freezing process would not cause any deleterious effects on children who might later come into being, and if the eggs were only used for morally legitimate purposes like LTOT, freezing a woman’s eggs would appear to be morally allowable.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationJune 30, 2015Banking of Sperm and Eggs, Intrauterine Insemination, In Vitro Fertilization, Artificial Insemination, Infertility

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column 118: Pondering the Implications of 3 Parent Embryos

It should be obvious how any approach that weakens or casts into question the integral connection between parents and their offspring will raise grave ethical concerns.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationApril 30, 2015Embryos, Genetics and Genome Editing, Mitochondrial Diseases, In Vitro Fertilization, Parenting

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column 062: When the Kids Grow Up and Find Out About the Test Tubes

…subtle psychological burdens may be placed upon children born from donor sperm as they subjectively struggle with broken or absent relationships, and experience a sense of being a “commodity” or an “object” because of how they were created.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationAugust 30, 2010Artificial Insemination, Banking of Sperm and Eggs, Intrauterine Insemination, In Vitro Fertilization

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column 051: The Ethics Of “Correcting” Mitochondrial Disease

We are not actually ‘repairing’ a defective egg, but constructing a new, alternative, and clearly different egg out of the contributions from two separate women. The final egg produced really belongs to neither woman...

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationSeptember 30, 2009In Vitro Fertilization, Mitochondrial Diseases

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column 045: Parental Desires, Children and IVF

Marital acts are a way of ‘petitioning the Giver for his gifts.’ By insisting on or demanding the gift (through in vitro fertilization), the child is no longer that ‘gift’ but a kind of entitlement or project to be realized.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationMarch 30, 2009Infertility, In Vitro Fertilization, Parenting

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column 042: Germany and Italy Have Done It — Shouldn’t We?

In the United States today, we urgently need Embryo Protection Laws.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationDecember 30, 2008Infertility, In Vitro Fertilization, Law and Ethics, Embryos, Frozen Embryos

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column 026: Ethical Blind Spots, Complacency & Nazism

There is a certain banality about evil. It doesn't necessarily present itself in a monstrous or dramatic way. It can take the shape of simple conformity to what everyone else is doing, to what the leadership says is right, to what the neighbors are doing...

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationAugust 30, 2007Embryos, Frozen Embryos, In Vitro Fertilization, Abortion

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column 022: Recapturing the Soul of Bioethics

…women (and men) should never be paid for their eggs (or sperm), as we insist they not be paid for organ donations. This is done to prevent the human body from becoming “commodified” by powerful economic and market forces, and to stave off the prospect of trafficking in human parts.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationApril 30, 2007In Vitro Fertilization, Law and Ethics, Banking of Sperm and Eggs, Cloning, Embryos, Stem Cell Research, Organ Donation

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column 021: Thinking About Sex and Marital Surrender

The inner structure of human sexuality thus includes this central and discernible meaning: that the root origin of new human life is meant to ultimately lie beyond our own direct determination...

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationMarch 30, 2007Human Sexuality, In Vitro Fertilization, Parenting, Birth Control and Contraception

“Making Sense of Bioethics” CMS