In a strongly worded letter to the United States Senate, The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops is calling on senators to reject the Access to Family Building Act (S. 3612).
The Feb. 28 letter, signed by four bishops, including Bishop Michael. F. Burbidge of the Diocese of Arlington, chairman of the USCCB Committee on Pro-Life Activities, recognizes the “often painful experience of infertility,” but states that “the solution can never be a medical process that involves the creation of countless preborn children and results in most of them being frozen or discarded and destroyed. For this and other deeply troubling problems with the bill, we strongly oppose the Access to Family Building Act.”
Other signers to the letter include Bishop Robert E. Barron of Winona-Rochester, Mn., Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades, Bishop of Fort Wayne-South Bend, In., and Archbishop Borys Gudziak of the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia.
The letter also addressed the grave implications of the Access to Family Building Act violating religious freedom: “Faith-based non-profit charities, schools and church organizations that serve your communities and, out of principle, cannot cover in vitro fertilization (IVF) in their employee health plans could face impossible, potentially existential choices. Faith-based health care facilities and providers of faith could likewise be forced to facilitate procedures that violate their beliefs or to exit the field. Such consequences would hurt not just organizations but, more importantly, those whom they serve.”
The bishops express concern that the legislation could open the door to “engaging in the buying and selling of human embryos, commercial gestational surrogacy and more. Human cloning and commercial surrogacy are otherwise prohibited in some states. Further, with no limits on age or who is liable, even parents could be sued by the government or a provider if they try to prevent their underage child from using ART (assisted reproductive technology). And, like any of these results, a new nationwide right to commercial surrogacy would also be deeply problematic. As Pope Francis recently observed, the practice exploits vulnerable women and commodifies both them and their children. It also violates children’s right to a mother and father, and tears them away from the mother in whom they grew and whose voice is the first and only one they had ever known.”
Calling the Access to Family Building Act a threat to the most vulnerable of human beings, the letter states, “Contrary to what some have claimed, a position that supports legal enshrinement of IVF, however well-intended, is neither pro-life nor pro-child. Approaches such as investing in life-affirming research on infertility, or strengthening support for couples who desire to adopt, would be better to explore.”
While understanding “the deep yearning and even suffering of families struggling with infertility,” the letter concludes by calling on senators “in the strongest possible terms to oppose S. 3612 and any similar legislation that comes before you.”
