Life – its Theological Vision

God by creating human person in his image and likeness bestowed on him a grandeur that cannot be contested or overlooked. Human life is considered great because of the creative intervention of God right from its beginning. If God is the master of life and its source, then no one else can claim absolute authority over life.

As a gift of God, life is to be considered sacred and be protected. This is the basis of the commandment “you shall not kill.” This commandment does not simply means ‘not to kill’ in a literal sense, but more than that, it demands safeguarding and protecting human life in all circumstances. Since human person has a value that goes far beyond his talents and qualities, his worth should not be determined on the basis of his qualities or his usefulness. Therefore, even when a person is a foetus or is handicapped or is in old age or has incurable diseases, he has an inestimable worth. Therefore there is no justification whatsoever to consider such lives worthless and to disregard or destroy it in any circumstance. Pope John Paul II in his encyclical “Gospel of Life (Evangelium vitae) specially draws our attention to our great responsibility to respect and protect each and every life in the light of the great challenges human life has to face today.

A human person should never try to be the Lord and Master of life, even though God has entrusted him with the responsibility of transmitting life responsibly and to preserve and protect it. The absolute authority of God over life is the powerful theological reason for our responsibility to protect life without in any way destroying it. Because human life has a unique value and God is its master, the issues of life and death raise very fundamental moral questions.

Responsible Parenthood

There are three essential duties which the partners in married life have to fulfil. They are: 1. Constant growth in conjugal love, 2. Generous and responsible motherhood and fatherhood, and 3. Proper upbringing of children. There may be occasions when one cannot fulfil all these responsibilities at the same time. In such situations, due to the necessity of safeguarding conjugal love or due to the great difficulties in bringing up children, one may have to set limits to the goal of procreation. The couples should have the intention and willingness to give birth to only so many children as their particular circumstances of life would permit their proper upbringing. This serious responsibility of the couples is called responsible motherhood and fatherhood.

Therefore, the first and foremost responsibility of the couples is making before God and fellow brethren a mutually agreed decision on how many children they should have, considering their particular circumstances in life and in accordance with their conscience. In making such a decision, the couples should take into consideration every aspect of their conjugal life and the family life in general. At the same time, the couples have also a grave responsibility to respond generously and prudently to the call of God of becoming parents. The selfishness in this sphere is absolutely immoral. Therefore the most fundamental moral issue of responsible motherhood and fatherhood is whether there is sufficient reason to decide not to have a child for the time being or not to have any more children at all. If the attitude of the couples in this regard is sincere, they should, at a later stage, be prepared to re-examine their decision before God.

In order to live responsible motherhood and fatherhood, sometimes the couples may have to control procreation either temporarily or permanently. The Church teaches that the couples should not, as many do today, employ any means to achieve this goal without any discretion. Even though there is some justification for birth control, the Church holds the view that direct abortion, sterilization of either husband or wife and the use of contraceptives that would prevent the natural outcome of sexual intercourse, are not acceptable. The Church insists on the unacceptability of the use of contraceptives because the uncontrolled use of such means could jeopardise the conjugal fidelity and destroy respect towards women and endanger the moral standards in society.

What, then, is the means the Church approves for responsible motherhood and fatherhood? The nature itself has set up a rhythm for the process of conception in women. Only a few days in a month a woman is fertile and can conceive. These are the days when ovum is produced. If one can detect these fertile days and avoid intercourse on such days, one can regulate conception. It is by making use of this nature-given possibility that the couples should regulate the birth of children. This method is called the natural family planning method or the rhythm method. This is the only method that the Church proposes for couples for birth control.

Treatment for Sterility

There are different means developed by medical sciences for helping couples suffering from sterility. They are also available in many hospitals today. Many couples suffering from sterility subject themselves to such treatments without sufficiently reflecting about the moral issues involved in such treatments.

Artificial insemination and test tube method (I.V.F.) are the two important treatments for sterilisation. In such methods there may be occasions of accepting semen or ovum from donors other than the husband or the wife. There are also occasions when the help of a surrogate mother is employed to give birth to a child for a woman who herself does not have the capacity for bearing her own child in her own womb and give birth. Neither those who give such treatments nor those who subject themselves to such treatments reflect seriously about the many moral issues involved in such artificial methods of reproduction. They are concerned only about the success of the treatment, the expenses involved and the qualities of the child obtained through such methods.

Even though sterility is a deplorable state in family life, the Church considers the use of artificial methods of reproduction to overcome it as immoral. In artificial insemination, a child is born as a result of a technology. But a child is to be born out of the conjugal love of the couples. Procreation of children is to be attained through the conjugal act of love of the couples. Because of this, the Church considers artificial insemination immoral.

There are much more serious moral issues involved in the test tube baby method. In this method besides the fact that the child is born due to the employment of a scientific technology, there is also the fact that the fertilization takes place not in the womb of the mother, but in a laboratory. Human embryos are produced at will in the laboratory and implanted in the womb of the mother as required and the remaining embryos are destroyed mercilessly. The Church cannot approve of this as she considers an embryo a person from the very moment of fertilization. It is more correct to say in this method that ‘a child is produced’ rather than saying ‘a child is born’.

Besides, in order to cure a certain type of sterility, even the direct help of the sperm donor or ovum donor or the surrogate mother is employed in certain methods of treatment mentioned above. In an effort to give birth to a child with the help of technology, if there is a third person besides the couple involved as sperm donor or ovum donor or surrogate mother, this goes against the unity of marriage itself. Only the husband and the wife have the right for conjugal union and procreation. Seeking the help of a third party for procreation would be an act destroying the fundamental unity of marriage. This is absolutely immoral. It can by no means be permitted. Besides, the child born in this manner will not have any genetic relationship to one of the spouses. This is a grave injustice done to that child.

Since there are such moral issues involved in artificial insemination methods, the Church does not approve of adopting such methods for the treatment of sterility. The Church acknowledges that sterility in conjugal life is indeed a painful thing, but she does not look at it as an evil to be eradicated by employing even immoral means. The Church encourages such couples to accept the state of sterility as one of the unexpected painful situations we often face in life and to realise their call to parenthood by adopting orphans and giving them a life.

Sins against Life

Instead of adopting an attitude favouring human life by loving, respecting and protecting life, there is today a wide-spread attitude in people of considering life as a burden and an enemy. An uncontrollable contraceptive mentality is gaining strength among the couples. Limiting the number of children to the minimum has become very common. The motivating force behind this is one’s pleasure seeking and selfishness.

Besides, today it has become very common to procure an abortion even for very flimsy reasons. There are even instances where abortion is presented as a simple method of birth control. Today there are many who would easily go for an abortion when the foetus is not grown sufficiently or when it is not of the sex the parents wanted. Since the Government of India has declared abortion legal subject to certain norms, ordinary people mistakenly think that there is nothing wrong in procuring abortion. The fact that something is legally not punishable does not mean that the same is morally right. The Church teaches that a human foetus right from the moment of conception is to be respected as a human person and wilfully destroying it is to be considered equal to homicide.

Producing human embryos at will in the laboratories and using them for artificial insemination and for experiments and destroying them when not needed can never be justified even when this is motivated by very good intentions. If an embryo is a human life right from the moment of fertilization, destroying it during any phase of its growth is an abortion and ought to be absolutely condemned.

Kerala is one of the States having most number of suicides. On average 27 persons commit suicide per day. An attitude considering suicide as a solution for anything and everything is on the increase here. Those who are called to protect life which God has given us in his mercy, themselves attempt to destroy it. This tendency has to be resisted by all means. Effective help has to be given to persons who live in circumstances that may lead to suicide. The innumerable murders committed almost daily in our State and the very many deaths caused by road accidents indicate an outright negative attitude towards life. Those who are bound to respect and protect life themselves become the cause for its destruction.

Life encounters many challenges even at its final stages. We can see two types of responses to those who are in imminent death and those who are suffering from incurable diseases – 1. Attempting to prolong their lives by procuring the most expensive but unnecessary treatments, 2. Helping such persons die as quickly as possible or ignoring them totally. Both these two responses are not correct. Until natural death takes place, the relatives of those who are in imminent death have the duty and responsibility to provide them with sufficient care to preserve their lives. If the person dies in the absence of such care, it is equal to mercy killing or euthanasia. The relatives concerned are to be considered culpable of this crime. On the other hand, there is no meaning in postponing indefinitely the death of a person in imminent death with the help of the most advanced technologies. Natural death is to be allowed to take its own course.

Mar Sebastian Adayanthrath