ABSTRACT
New technologies of conception bring into being beautiful babies. The wonder of these children, and of the technologies themselves, can tempt people to abbreviate ethical reflection on the moral appropriateness of initiating human life in this way. However, the moralists of the Catholic Church, along with many others, judge that human life should originate in acts of love between parents, not in productive acts of technologists. Scientific help for people desiring to generate a child out of their own being should be distinguished from scientific substitution for human acts of love in originating life. In the nineteenth century, when new technologies of artificial generation were first experimentally applied to humans, the overwhelming majority of Catholic theologians judged that it was irresponsible and immoral to use such procedures. This has been the consistent judgment of the Catholic Church in this matter. The new human life is created not from an act of human love, but in a spirit of craftsmanlike "making".
