ABSTRACT
Responses to Catholic teaching on the new reproductive technologies have been varied. By contrast, many liberal Catholics accept church teaching on forms of assisted reproduction that involve the use of donor gametes or surrogates but reject church teaching that forbids artificial insemination with the husband's sperm or in vitro fertilization (IVF) using a married couple's gametes. The instruction is highly critical of assisted reproduction, explicitly condemning artificial insemination with either husband or donor sperm, IVF of all sorts, surrogate motherhood, and almost all manipulations of human embryos. The church's stated point of view is that because a person is a "unified totality" of body and soul, it is wrong to treat a person in a way that reduces him or her to either mere body or mere spirit. According to the church, human procreation is irreconcilably different from the transmission of other forms of life; it is intentional and purposive and therefore governed by laws.
