Speech Analysis

The ethical issue I will be considering is IVF, in relative to the Christian beliefs church member and Anglican. IVF is used in situations of infertility -where the woman's fallopian tubes are absent or blocked, the men's sperm count is reduced, or the couple's infertility is unexplained. It is an aided reproductive expertise in which one or more eggs are fertilized outside a female's body. To do this, eggs are assembled from the ovaries and put in a bowl with a large number of sperm for approx. 18 hours. The eggs are then placed in a exceptional development medium which permits fertilization to occur. Afterwards the embryo is either moved back into the woman's uterus or frozen and stored for subsequent use.

IVF has been a source of lesson, ethical and religious argument since its development. Although constituents of all devout assemblies can be found on both edges of the topic, the foremost opposition has come from the Roman Catholic Church. In 1987, the church issued a doctrinal statement opposing IVF on 3 grounds; the destruction of human embryos not used for implantation, the possibility of IVF by a sperm donor other than the husband-thus removing reproduction form the marital context, and finally the severing of an essential connection between the nuptial act and procreation. The use of IVF is said to violate the delicate innocence of those created, as God, their creator has not given them the gift of life, and therefore the fundamental value of life has been lost.

The Catholic religion believe that these embryos are not potential life-instead they are life with vast potential. The church bases its views on the belief that human life begins at contraception, not implantation. They believe that there is a continuum from beginning to the death of a individual, and that both personal and spiritual development happens at all phases of life. This belief emphasizes the sanctity of conception as the initial stage of development, which in turn, makes the process of IVF immoral.

Catholics also believe that IVF contradicts the sacred unity of marriage and the child's right to be conceived and brought into the world in and from marriage. Therefore, IVF with sperm from a man or woman other than the husband, or an ovum not from the wife, in the Catholics view, is morally illicit. Anglicans, on the other hand, allow contraception and therefore don't believe in the sacredness of the inseparable acts of union and procreation. In the case of IVF, procreation is also separated from the act of intercourse. So, in theory Anglicans approve of the use of IVF within married couples.

However, since the discovery that the IVF procedure is bound up with embryo research and the disposal of unused embryos, Anglicans stance on IVF has changed. Morally, in the process of IVF, you are breaking the 6th commandment “thou shall not kill”. So, in a document published in 1985, Anglicans have condemned the use of IVF, on the grounds that it is an ...