Glenn McGee and American Catholics in Assisted Reproduction Barfight
First published in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and then the Washington Post, Glenn McGee makes the provocative claim that American Catholics aren't any more likely to follow the most recent edict from the Vatican that Catholics should not use IVF for reproduction than they are heeding admonitions against using birth control.
The statistics say that only 4% of married Catholic couples use natural family planning--so what do you think the rest of them are using? So to extrapolate, what do you think that Catholic couples having trouble with fertility are going to do? Listen to Rome and not have a child or go see a fertility specialist and use reproductive technologies? What do you think?
I think McGee has it right. The teachings of the Church are out of sync with that American Catholics are likely to do--but hey, it's not the first time.
Summer Johnson
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This issue isn't whether the Vatican is "out of sync" w/ the attitudes of American Catholics, but whether the Vatican's instructions concerning IVF and other bioethical issues are correct, justified, or reasonable. The Vatican was "out of sync" w/ American attitudes regarding eugenics in the early twentieth century, but it wasn't long before history made its judgment on that movement.
- by Jason T. Eberl on Feb 26, 2010 at 11:12 AM | link
I'm just wondering if it's too thin a connection between the two. I know many people who use artificial contraception (which is cheap readily available and very hard to sufficiently differeniate why it's not allowed when you get down to it.) Yet have no interest in IVF should they not be able to have children (Yes, my friends and I discuss this in our spare time.) It's suffiecently more complicated. There are for example concerns of cost, and whether one is justified in spending so much and whether one has a social obligation to adopt.
But then we wouldn't want to make these issues more nuanced would we? Better to keep them back and white.
Be careful of wanton extropolation: http://www.xkcd.com/605/
- by tsrblke on Feb 26, 2010 at 11:51 AM | link
Summer, don't you have anything better to do than use bioethics.net as your own personal Catholic-bashing platform? Why not give us some of your takes on bioethics instead?
- by Charlie Camosy on Feb 26, 2010 at 12:31 PM | link
I thought that it was the proper role of religion to be "out of sync" with popular opinion--and the ruling class. After all, Jesus didn't turn out to be the political Messiah most people wanted, and He pissed off a lot of secular and political rulers.
Robert at bioethike.com
- by Robert on Feb 27, 2010 at 5:32 PM | link