It is also in precisely this context that we can understand the Church's rejection of in vitro fertilization techniques. In its 1987 Instruction Donum Vitae the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) condemned artificial techniques for conceiving life outside the womb, arguing:

For human procreation has specific characteristics by virtue of the personal dignity of the parents and of the children: the procreation of a new person, whereby the man and the woman collaborate with the power of the Creator, must be the fruit and the sign of the mutual selfgiving of the spouses, of their love and of their fidelity.51

In-vitro fertilization pioneer Robert Edwards, who assisted in the conception of the world's first successful "test tube baby," finds the CDF position "pernicious"52 and bigoted, because it denies to infertile couples the joy that they seek. Infertility, he argues is "a great and lasting cause of human sadness,"53 and science can now remedy it. The remedy, however, is actually a technique to harness the biological substrate of human procreation in order to produce a result. The CDF position, which John Paul II endorsed, is that procreation is not simply another event in the biological order, but rather a work in which the Creator himself is involved.

It is worth noting that Edwards's appeal to the deeply felt desire of childless couples, a desire whose frustration may often represent genuine pain, parallels the common appeal to the sexual desires of the spouses who practice contraception. In both cases, we see the application of technology according to the "greatest happiness principle,"54 to relieve subjective feelings of frustration, sorrow, or pain. Here the issue of the fitting good comes clearly to the fore. The conception of a child or the enjoyment of marital intimacy is good in itself, but both must be achieved within the context of the truth about the good of a person as such. Edwards focuses on the bonum delectabile, trying to minimize the suffering of childlessness. To evaluate the "useful good" of the IVF or contraceptive technologies, however, we must refer this utility first and above all to the "fitting good" (bonum honestum), lest in serving only the delectable good we undermine that primary good.

51 Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, instruction Donum Vitae (1987), www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith doc_19870222_respect-for-human-life_en.html. 52 Robert Edwards, Life before Birth: Reflections on the Embryo Debate (New York: Basic Books, 1989), 29-30. 53 Ibid, 31. 54 See John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism, 2nd ed. (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2001), 7.

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IIntegration and Transcendence of the Person in the (Marital) Act

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