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Catholic Archdiocese of Atlanta
Vol. 16 No. 27
Thursday, August 3,1978
$5 Per Year
Test Tube Baby — Moral Questions Raised
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The Bottle Babies
We should be celebrating this
month. It has been 10 years. And we
can hardly forget the incident. It
brought moments of heart rending
anguish to a gaping world wide Church.
They called it Pope Paul’s perplex
mistake.
Following the death of the most
popularly acclaimed Pope in history,
John the Twenty Third, Paul came to
his lonely Roman throne. He was the
man for the job.
Everyone said it.
Even the plump
and happy
reformer John had
said it. Montini was
the man. He would
completely master
and energetically
e n force the
penetrating decrees
of the most famous
Council in history.
He came, he saw
and he did.
But he did more. Not only was the
Council unfinished but the blank pages
of John’s letter to the world on
marriage were unfinished. He listened,
studied and wrote. It reached us like
thunder in July 1968. He gave it the
funny name of “Humanae Vitae” -
Human Life.
The understatement is that few
liked it. The non-Catholic world turned
to a fading memory of John, schism of a
kind struck the Roman Church.
Biasedly they joined together as an
angry tidal wave beating down the
condemnation of artificial birth control.
The Pope was wrong, his view was
antiquated, his decision was
unexpected. Nonetheless, the
condemnation firmly stood.
“Human Life” absorbed the abuse
and the stinging edge of the storm. But
strangely it was never completely read.
Paul set out his document on the
mystical beauty of marriage not on the
timely or untimely use of the pill. The
theme to be seen was “marriage is the
wise institution of the Creator by which
husband and wife collaborate with God
in the generation and education of new
lives.” It was never seen. In the heat of
angry discent it was missed. The beauty
of the letter languished.
It has been 10 years. Like stale
aspirin the pill is being disgarded as its
hidden poison surfaces. The letter
stands with all its widening beauty on
marriage unfolding. We should
celebrate. And we haven’t - but science
has.
Almost to the anniversary date, the
test tube baby appeared. Like a
well-timed bomb it rose up to renew the
attack on the letter. Again the warm
beauty of the Sacred State of marriage
was under attack. It never stops.
The onward march of science
glitters in the jeweled crown of the
twentieth century. With a marksman’s
eye it has struck down disease and with
the explorer’s appetite for adventure it
has dangled us between moon and stars.
Luxuriating in its comforting potential,
we know it abounds with solutions to
all our problems. But it is
commandingly useful only in its role as
servant.
We have seen the ravages of science
run wild. Like a Frankenstein monster,
new found atomic power unleashed in
an instant on Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
atrocities comparable to the six year
Nazi campaign against the Jews. The
warnings of the past are deathly clear.
The new found bottled babies may
not be robots - we don’t know. But they
can be intruders, foreign to the divine
calling of the marriage state - that
delicate arena of unscientific human
response producing the mystery of
procreated life.
(AN NC NEWS WEEKLY ROUND-UP)
The birth of five-pound, 12-ounce
Louise Brown, the world’s first test tube
baby, and the events that led up to it
promise to keep the medical community
and Catholic moral theologians talking
for quite a while.
Condemned by several Catholic
moral theologians, the procedure
leading to the birth involved the
implantation of a fertilized egg in the
womb of Lesley Brown, an English
woman who could not conceive
normally because of blocked fallopian
tubes. Doctors removed eggs from the
woman’s ovary, then achieved
fertilization using sperm from Mrs.
Brown’s husband Gilbert.
“It is not the conception of a child
as nature intended, and I am opposed to
it,” said Bishop Gerard McClean of
Middlesborough, England, who said it
falls among actions covered by Pope
womb,” the bishop said. “Christian
morality has insisted on the importance
of protecting the process by which
human life is transmitted. The fact that
science now has the ability to alter this
process significantly does not mean
that, morally speaking, it has the right
to do so.”
Some, like Archbishop William D.
Borders of Baltimore, questioned “the
moral schizophrenia that has a world
rejoicing at the birth of one baby in
England, while we abort hundreds of
lives daily right here in Maryland.”
People Concerned for the Unborn
Child, a non-denominational group in
Pennsylvania, said the birth “confirms
our belief that a human life amendment
is absolutely necessary to safeguard all
human life from the moment of
fertilization, whether within a mother’s
body or within a test tube.”
The group especially condemned
Editorial Comment — Page 4
GALA PREMIERE - All things are bright and
beautiful for Saint Joseph’s Hospital following its
latest fund-raising event. The hospital received all
proceeds recently from the Atlanta premiere of the
movie, “All Things Bright and Beautiful.” Before the
premiere, the staff of Saint Joseph’s hosted a reception
for Producer David Susskind and film star Lisa Harrow
(center) at the hospital. Sisters Michael (left) Finbarr,
Berchmans and Rosarii chat with the star. The
premiere generated over $2,000 in donations for the
hospital.
Pope Reaffirms ‘Humanae Vitae’
VATICAN CITY (NC) - In a letter to Archbishop John R.
Quinn of San Francisco, Pope Paul VI has reaffirmed the
teaching of his encyclical, “Humanae Vitae”. (“On Human
Life”), that the church opposes artificial means of birth control.
The letter, signed by Cardinal Jean Villot, papal secretary
of state, was sent to Archbishop Quinn on the occasion of a
symposium marking the 10th anniversary of “Humanae Vitae.”
The symposium was sponsored by the Archdiocese of San
Francisco and the Jesuit-run University of San Francisco.
The letter said that Pope Paul in the last 10 years has
reaffirmed the doctrine of “Humanae Vitae” many times, most
recently on June 23.
The pope’s “reiterated interventions,” the letter said, “are
indeed an indication of how important he considers this
teaching to be, according to God’s law. They also come as a
response to the denial as such of the teaching, and as a
clarification against certain interpretations that would deprive
the encyclical of its true meaning and in practice distort its
application.
“At the same time he has repeatedly expressed his gratitude
to all those who have assisted in scientific research, promoting
natural family planning, not as an end in itself - to avoid
conception - but as a licit means whereby a couple may
worthily exercise responsible parenthood, after a decision that
takes into account all the factors involved.”
The letter expressed the pope’s encouragement to those
striving to support and spread the teaching of “Humanae Vitae”
and to those trying to perfect natural methods of birth control.
The letter expressed also the pope’s hope that the
symposium would contribute to renewed interest “in showing
the role of the sacrament of matrimony in building up the
kingdom of God.”
Pius XII’s 1949 condemnation of
artificial insemination.
In Italian daily newspapers, two
theologians gave negative judgments on
the morality of such procedures. Father
Dionigi Tettamanzi, in the Milan-based
national Catholic daily, AVVENIRE,
said that although Pope Pius had said
means designed to facilitate natural
conception could not necessarily be
excluded, the test tube baby technique
would not fit into the category of
acceptable aids.
In the Rome daily, IL TEMPO,
Father Virgil Rotondi also condemned
the procedure, saying, “Although the
intention of having a child is
praiseworthy, the means used to achieve
it wander fearfully from
illicitness ... To sum up: The end does
not justify the means.”
Bishop Thomas C. Kelly, general
secretary of the U.S. Catholic
Conference, said the test tube
conception of children stems from the
same mentality as that which gave the
world atomic weapons and carcinogenic
pesticides. He called the procedure
“ingenious” but said it raises important
moral issues.
“One moral issue raised in this case
concerns conception outside the
And Paul’s letter said it all, 10 years
ago.
THE CATHOLIC
The Computer
BY MICHAEL MOTES
When she arrived to work at the
Catholic Center it was the dawning
of a new era for the Archdiocese of
Atlanta. Her credentials were flawless
and she was greeted the first day on
the job with admiring glances and
great awe at her secretarial and
mathematical prowess.
But she is rather picky about her
working conditions, an example
being that she demands constant
temperature control and also that the
carpeting be kept completely free
from “static electricity.”
These are minor demands,
however, as she does not object to
working evenings and weekends and
does not expect extra pay for these
extra hours she puts in on her job.
Her name is Martha and she is a
DEC (Digital Equipment
Corporation) 310 computer.
She was “adopted” by the
Archdiocesan Comptroller, Joe
Estafen, on July 1 and originally
named Edgar. Joe comments
however that he was out-voted in the
naming process by the women in the
Chancery Office.
“They said that anyone who
works that hard MUST be a woman
and chose the name Martha after the
biblical figure who wiped the feet of
Christ,” Estafen said.
He commented that the
Archdiocese of Atlanta is one of
very few small dioceses in the county
to have a computer at work. In the
Southeast, only Pensacola and
Birmingham have similar equipment.
He hopes that Martha will become a
model for other dioceses in the
Province.
The best way to find out about
Martha and what she does is to let
her speak for herself. So we
interviewed her and here’s what she
had to say:
GB: Good morning, Martha.
Have you ever been interviewed
before?
MARTHA: No, but I’ve spit out
a lot of numbers lately. I’ve had no
direct personal interviews outside
those with my friends Joe, who
selected me, and Evelyn Grentzer
who operates me most of the time.
GB: Let’s start with some basic
information, such as what kind of
computer are you?
MARTHA: Well, actually I’m a
mini-computer with a 16,000
character core memory. That means
that I can utilize 16,000 letters,
digits or symbols all at one time. The
nice thing about it is that I can be
expanded to use 64,000 characters at
one time. So you can see, I am rather
flexible!
GB: Do you mean that you can
expand yourself by four times?
MARTHA: That’s right. Besides
that, my dual floppy disc capacity
allows me to use data from
changeable discs as well.
GB: A floppy disc sounds
(Continued on page 7)
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MARTHA THE COMPUTER has taken over bookkeeping for the
Archdiocese of Atlanta.
the fact that in the test tube process,
several eggs are fertilized and all but one
later destroyed. “Such thoughtless
destruction of preborn human life is
appalling and chilling in its far-reaching
implication,” the group said.
Before the birth, Dr. Andre
Hellegers of Georgetown University’s
Kennedy Institute for the Study of
Human Reproduction and Bioethics said
Catholic Church opposition to artificial
insemination would mean it would also
oppose the development of a test tube
baby since both procedures “divorce
intercourse from procreation.”
Others saw fewer moral problems in
the birth of Louise Brown. “Offhand, I
don’t see anything wrong with childless
couples using the test tube method if
there is no other possible way for them
to have babies,” said Bishop Cornelius
Lucey of Cork, Ireland.
Auxiliary Bishop Augustine Harris
of Liverpool, England, said he would
tell couples seeking moral guidance on
the issue to ask themselves three
questions - whether it was within the
context of marriage; whether it was
because they loved each other and
would love this child; and whether the
science involved dominated and
fascinated them or whether it was
supporting them in a natural act.
“These are important questions,”
Bishop Harris said. He said he would tell
the hypothetical couple, “If you say yes
to them, then I would say: ‘Go ahead. ”
A third group, however, seemed to
agree with Redemptorist Father Bernard
Haring’s view that the church is “still in
a state of search” for answers to the
ethical questions raised by the birth.
“This is quite different from
artificial insemination with the sperm of
a donor. This is completely with the
biological parents, and all the
expressions of love in this case were
directed toward the desire for children,”
said Father Haring, author of “Medical
Ethics and Manipulation.”
“The fact is that Pope Pius spoke
against artificial insemination. However,
that is a long way back,” he added.
“The church takes time to come to
positions on these matters.”
Bishop Mark Hurley of Santa Rosa,
Calif., chairman of the U.S. bishops’
Human Values Committee, discussed
the new technology in a pastoral letter
read at all Masses July 30, and
concluded: “The church, then, must
seek moral judgments on these complex
and precarious applications of
technology. They cannot be solved
simply by appealing to the good
intentions of either scientists or doctors
or the people involved.”
The birth also brought a flurry of
warnings from Catholics in the United
States and abroad. Jesuit Father
Richard McCormick of the Kennedy
Institute for the Study of Human
Reproduction and Bioethics cautioned
that the development of the test tube
procedure “may seem like a small step,
but we seem to be taking it without
(Continued on page 8)
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