Fertility Services

Couples’ access to fertility services is restricted at the more than 500 hospitals in the United States that are affiliated with the Catholic Church, because these hospitals operate under Ethical and Religious Directives declaring that “reproductive technologies that substitute for the marriage act are not consistent with human dignity.” In practical terms, this stance means that Catholic hospitals and affiliated outpatient clinics do not offer artificial insemination or in vitro fertilization (IVF) to their patients.

But the Catholic church’s opposition to modern reproductive technologies goes beyond restricting their use at Catholic hospitals. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, along with other conservative religious bodies, is actively opposing the development of new assisted reproductive technologies and the use of such screening tools as pre-implantation genetic diagnosis to identify embryos that carry genetic defects or inheritable diseases. These conservative religious leaders fear that IVF patients will decide not to implant such embryos.

In a nationwide campaign seeking to protect embryos and fertilized eggs as part of “pre-born life,” the Catholic Bishops and their allies in the Christian Right are working to establish legal personhood status for embryos. Such status would grant what amount to “human rights” to embryos and fertilized eggs, and would interfere with the ability of couples to determine the future of the embryos they have created. Both the American Fertility Association and RESOLVE, the National Infertility Association, have expressed alarm at such proposals.

To learn more, read our 2005 publication, Embryo Politics: Implications for Reproductive Rights and Biotechnology .