The IVF Contradiction

Phil sent me this article to read, and it nearly broke my heart.  A couple weeks later I received this article from our dear friend, Fr. Dave, and can't stop thinking about it since. 

These two articles discuss the terrible ramifications of In Vitro Fertilization (IVF). 

Sometimes things seem so clear to me, so very black and white, yet others see shades of gray.  I know we all view the world differently depending on how we were raised and where our life finds us now.  I am lucky to have been raised by loving parents with strict Catholic beliefs.  I am lucky to have married someone who was raised the same way.  And we are lucky that we are able to conceive and bear beautiful and healthy children over and over and over ;)

So perhaps I need to walk around in someone's infertile shoes in order to feel the desperation of wanting a baby so bad that you would do anything to get it, including IVF.  I truly feel so sad for anyone struggling with infertility.  That is a HUGE cross to carry, and one I would probably crumble beneath. 

What seems so contradictory to me though, is that a woman who is willing to go through all the time and pain and expense of using IVF in order to have a baby, could then turn around and abort that same baby. 

What's that?  It's not called abortion?  It's called selective reduction.  Oh I see.  It's abortion if you completely get rid of a pregnancy, but if you just choose to kill selectively reduce some of the babies in the pregnancy, then it gets a different term.  Same evil, new words. 

Let's look at this scenario: Phil and I want to buy a house.  Only we can't afford to buy one on our own.  So we decide to enter into every single contest and lottery we can find that promises a chance to win a dream home.  After years and years of trying, we finally win a contest!  We get the home we always wanted!! 

Only there's more news...we also win another contest at the same time.  Now we have two dream homes!  What lucky people we are with two beautiful new houses of our own.  But wait...we don't need two houses.  What are we going to do with two houses?  Two houses means more expenses and headaches.  In fact, the expenses might be just too much that we would lose both houses.  So we decide even though we have been double blessed in getting what we had been trying for, we are going to just burn one of the houses down.  That should solve all our problems. 

What's that you say?  We don't need to destroy the second house just because we did not intend on winning it?  We could give the house to someone who's been waiting for their own dream home?  What a great idea!  It will be a little more work for us to figure out the financial end of things and do the required paperwork, but in order to spare the house and help another family "win" too, we decide to do it. 

How easy it is to see the craziness in the situation when it applies to an inanimate object like a house, yet throw a mother and her unborn baby(ies) into the mix and things seem to get a bit more confusing.  But should they really?  When you hope and pray and try for a baby, and then you get one or more babies, shouldn't you just count your blessings or pay it forward?

I would gladly take as many babies as I can from these "selective reductions" if it means that a couple would choose to save their lives.  I understand the difficulties that come with having many children, but I could never look at my five cherubs and wish I hadn't kept some of them.  And I would love to tell women who are contemplating IVF to please remember the power of prayer and the importance of patience, because God does always hear our pleas, but He's a little funny in how He responds sometimes. 

Sometimes He works miracles:

Yet other times He uses our earthly sufferings for our eternal salvation, and we can't pick and choose the crosses we are dealt.  But we can carry them with grace.