IN VITRO FERTILISATION: Not OK for Jennifer Lopez, Catholic
Actress Jennifer Lopez has told a women’s magazine (February edition) that she would never consider In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) because of her traditional upbringing.
Starring in a film, soon to be released (”The Back-Up Plan”), about a woman who conceives twins using artificial insemination, she was asked her personal views.
She replied, “When it comes to family and relationships I’m quite traditional . . . I also believe in God . . . I just felt like you don’t mess with things like that . . . I guess deep down I really felt like either this is not going to happen for me or it is . . . if it is, it will, and if it’s not, it’s not.”
Jennifer Lopez has a husband and two children. She attended New York Catholic schools in her childhood. Some might say that, having children, she is in no position to understand others who, desperate to be parents, turn to bizarre methods of achieving their goal.
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But, as a Catholic, she has to think that way. The Church’s opposition to IVF is clear-cut. The Church explains its position in terms of body language.
All human acts say something to God:
Either, “I love you and want to obey and please you.”
Or else, “I know what you want, but I don’t care. I am my own God.”
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The human reproductive act is pleasing to God for two reasons:
* it makes the couple willing co-creators with God of a new human life.
* it unites a husband and wife in mutual self-giving .
These two meanings of human sexual intercourse cannot be separated without displeasing our Creator.
Artificial fertilization is immoral because it separates the act of creation from the act by which the spouses give themselves to each other.

