Open Letter to Religious Leaders on Assisted Reproductive Technologies"

UPDATE: Please see my colleague Dr. Kate Ott's blog on this at http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2009/02/05/be-fruitful-and-multiply-ethical-takes-art

You no doubt have read or heard the news about the woman who gave birth to octopulets last week through IVF, after having already had six other children through assisted reproductive technologies. Many of the news reports had interviews with medical doctors saying that they were not prepared to talk about the ethics of the situation.

Last spring, we brought together theologians, ethicists, and experts in ART to develop a new Open Letter to Religious Leaders on Assisted Reproductive Technologies. It calls for religious leaders to become knowledge about ARTS and for scientists to engage with religious leaders and theologians to consider the ethical implications of these new technologies. One of the participant's words still ring in my ears: "Just because we can, should we?"

I'm copying the press release below. Please go to our web site and read the Open Letter and the accompanying support materials, including books for more information, a responsive reading, and questions for reflection. And weigh in.

Just because we can, should we?

Press Release

The Religious Institute on Sexual Morality, Justice, and Healing today issued a call to the nation’s religious leaders to engage the ethical considerations of assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) and to become stronger counselors and advocates for the safety, effectiveness and accessibility of these technologies.

The Open Letter to Religious Leaders on Assisted Reproductive Technologies, developed by a group of clergy, theologians, ethicists and reproductive health advocates, appears amidst a national debate over the use of in vitro fertilization and other technologies that can produce multiple births. "The broad spectrum of assisted reproductive technologies calls for deeply personal and complex moral decisions that are unprecedented in human history," the Open Letter says. "Religious leaders and theologians have an integral role to play with families, medical providers, and scientists as these technologies unfold."

The Open Letter calls on religious leaders to:

Study the teachings of their faith traditions as well as the current science related to reproduction, families and ARTs

Promote denominational study of pastoral and ethical responses

Advocate for counseling, accurate medical information, health and safety regulations, and increased research into the risks and efficacy of ARTs

Speak out against ART practices that violate human rights and dignity

"When you consider that one in eight American woman of childbearing age has used an infertility service, it is clear that the ethics and efficacy of reproductive technologies is a growing pastoral concern," said Rev. Debra W. Haffner, director of the Religious Institute. "The use of these technologies raises important moral questions regarding the need for regulations, prohibitive costs that deny access to low‐income families, and discriminatory policies and practices. Unfortunately, the rapid growth of assisted reproductive technologies has outpaced religious and ethical discernment."

The Open Letter urges faith communities to support public funding of prevention, screening and diagnosis of infertility, as well as access to information, health care and unbiased counseling. Effective and safe ARTs should be made available in ways that "respect the diversity of family structure and not exclude on the basis of partner status, economic circumstances, or sexual orientation," the Open Letter says.

The Open Letter to Religious Leaders on Assisted Reproductive Technologies was developed at a colloquium sponsored by the Religious Institute. Participants represented a diverse range of religious perspectives, including Roman Catholic, Jewish, Mainline Protestant and Unitarian Universalist, as well as leading universities and national reproductive health advocacy organizations.

The full text of the Open Letter, including a list of participants, is available on the Religious Institute web site. This spring, the Religious Institute will publish a guidebook, A Time to be Born, to assist religious leaders in addressing the moral and religious implications of assisted reproductive technologies.

Just When You Thought It Was Safe To Go Back in the Water

Right after the election, a congregant asked me what would happen to the advocacy work of the Religious Institute now that we didn't have to worry about the President and the White House.

I told her that there would still be plenty of work for us to do.

In the past week, as you know if you've been reading, the inauguration team asked Rev. Rick Warren to do the invocation, dismaying many in the progressive religious (and secular) community -- and yesterday the Bush administration with only a few days in office released the new regulations that require any federally funded health facility, including family planning clinics, to hire staff who can choose not to provide health services they disagree with.

The Vatican last week issued a major paper against Assisted Reproductive Technologies. I asked my colleague Dr. Kate Ott, a Catholic ethicist, for her response. She wrote:

Released on December 8, 2009. “Dignitas Personae: On Certain Bioethical Questions” is a statement of the Roman Catholic Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

As Catholics, like myself, celebrate Advent and re-tell the mystery of the Christmas story – it's fitting to reflect on reproductive technologies. The document is internally dated September 8 by the Vatican, which is the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin. The Church has drawn our attention to two doctrines regarding extraordinary births - Mary (Jesus’ mother), born free of original sin and Jesus, well let’s just say he was a reproductive mystery. The miraculous biblical stories of birth fit more closely with our notions of reproductive technologies than with the Vatican's re-assertion that the authentic context for human life is an act of reciprocal love between a man and woman in marriage.


An analogy of Jesus’ birth and modern IVF is not a direct corollary. Yet, it does leave me puzzled every Christmas that a tradition who so staunchly advocates a strict pro-heterosexual marriage, anti-abortion/reproductive technology stance celebrates an unwed, young woman becoming pregnant without engaging in sexual intercourse. The story lacks marriage and a male/female act of “reciprocal love” a.k.a. penile-vaginal sexual intercourse.


I don’t raise this issue in support of open doors to all reproductive technology or that faith in God alone cures infertility. Rather, I suggest we reflect with greater care and more awareness on our stories of birth, infertility, and disease. The biblical tradition and our religious heritage are not neat and tidy. Infertility and disease affect communities. Births and how they come about affect communities.


The title, Dignitas Personae means “the dignity of a person.” What Dignitas Personae, and Donum vitae before it, have failed to articulate is how the dignity of all lives is to be affirmed from conception to death. Instead the Church focuses completely on an embryo’s dignity to the exclusion of women’s lives, their families, and those who live with chronic diseases. Ethical positions on assisted reproductive technologies and embryonic research become more complex and richer when we ask about the dignity of ALL persons. The seamless ethic of life from conception to death is one we can affect positively or negatively with responsible scientific exploration and intentional ethical deliberation. To truly recognize the dignity of all lives – a couple struggling with infertility, a patient with Parkinson’s disease and his family, or a community that suffers from genetic disorders - we need to look beyond heterosexual procreative rules to a communal understanding of reciprocal love and justice.

I don't think the Religious Institute needs to worry that we will not be needed any time soon.