Love and Irresponsibility

There is an intimate bond between love and reproduction. John Paul II shows that marital intercourse is the most perfect expression of Trinitarian love when it is open to the gift of a child. Human sexuality is God's gift which allows us to cooperate in His plan for creation. This realization gives Christians a great regard for love, procreation and human sexuality. These days the connection between love and reproduction is often severed in the minds of many Americans. One major reason for this is that we have lost sight of the responsibilities associated with the most intimate expression of married love because so many no longer have to deal with its physical consequences. Artificial contraception, especially "the pill," has done a lot of damage here because it allows sex without the concern for reproduction. Tragically, contraception's all too common use, even among many married Catholics, often separates the expression of intimacy from the begetting of children. We are left with a dis-integrated view of love, sex, and reproduction. Love is reduced to feelings, sex to pleasure, and reproduction to personal fulfillment. This widespread thinking brings with it many negative repercussions including, a climbing divorce rate, the dissolution of the nuclear family, the increase in trafficking of children and women for the sex trade, a booming pornography industry, and within the medical community, a "commoditization" of human sexuality and reproduction. A dis-integrated view of reproduction, all too common among medical researchers, has led to treating human sexuality as a commodity to be manipulated with the only limits being set by scientific capabilities. Many scientist are going beyond the creation of babies in Petri dishes for invitro fertilization (IVF) to now experimenting with the creation of human-animal hybrid embryos and human cloning, experimenting with stem cells harvested by destroying human embryos, and even embryo harvesting where embryos are allowed to grow to various levels of maturity, destroyed, and their cells harvested for a variety of applications. Currently, many states have no statutes limiting any of these practices. This should cause us great concern. The Second Vatican Council reminded all Catholics that we, clergy and laity alike, have an obligation to spread the gospel message throughout the culture. John Paul II indicated that this includes resisting practices which are at odds with this gospel of life.