President of the Polish Episcopal Conference Archbishop Stanisław Gądecki asks the president of the Republic of Poland to refuse to sign amendments to the Act on the provision of public-funded healthcare. The Act establishes public financing of the in vitro procedure.
KEP points out that the Act passed on 29 November provides that ‘the wellness minister shall develop, implement, implement and finance a fertility wellness policy programme including procedures for medically assisted procreation, including in vitro fertilisation carried out at the medically assisted procreation centre’, i.e. public backing of artificial in vitro fertilisation. The president of the Episcopal sent a letter to Andrzej Duda asking him to refuse to sign the document. Archbishop Gądecki stressed that "Episcopate has repeatedly spoken on the issue of infertility, which is not a method for treating infertility".
In addition, he pointed out that the Church in her teaching refers to both legal-natural and spiritual arguments. Human life is simply a fundamental value and an inalienable good. It so demands absolute protection, regardless of the period and quality of human life. Method in vitro Meanwhile, it is an experimentation on man, his own production, which is simply a form of human life. Archbishop Gądecki noted that ‘infertility is simply a severe test’. Therefore, “it is essential to make a national programme for the real treatment of infertility. Modern medicine clearly indicates that the removal of medical or intellectual causes of infertility gives a much better chance of having a healthy kid than the procedures of artificially assisted reproduction."
At the same time, the president stressed that each of the children conceived by the method in vitro “is created in the image and likeness of God and endowed with natural human dignity. Everyone should be accepted with love and respect, which they deserve as much as children conceived naturally."
I ask kindly to refuse to sign the Act of 29 November 2023," wrote the president #KEP@Abp_Gadecki in a letter to the president of Poland @AndrzejDuda.
Letter: https://t.co/BwGzKRVqpbpic.twitter.com/FZsWu1BrD4
— EpiskopatNews (@EpiskopatNews) December 15, 2023
Below is the full text of the letter to Andrzej Duda:
Warsaw, December 13, 2023
Very dear Mr. President.
the Republic of Poland,
I would like to ask you kindly to refuse to sign the Act of 29 November 2023 on the amendment of the Public-funded wellness Care Act and to mention it to the Constitutional Court for re-examination by the Sejm.
- This law provides that:
‘16a. The Minister liable for wellness shall develop, implement, implement and finance a programme of wellness policy for the treatment of infertility, including procedures for medically assisted procreation, including in vitro fertilisation conducted at a medically assisted procreation centre within the meaning of point 18 of Article 2(1) of the Act of 25 June 2015 on the treatment of infertility. ...
16c. The Minister liable for wellness shall spend no little than PLN 500 million annually from the state budget for the implementation of the wellness policy programme referred to in paragraph 16a.”
- The episcopate repeatedly spoke on the subject of infertility, which, let us stress, is not a method of treating infertility. Pope Pius XII spoke long ago about in vitro trials. In a speech to the participants of the Second planet legislature of Fertility and Infertility, on 19 May 1956 he stressed that these attempts were "to be rejected as immoral and absolutely not permitted". It is immoral to produce human embryos intended as available “biomaterial”. Many letters were addressed straight to the President, including a letter dated 17 July 2015 containing a akin request. The Church in her teaching refers to both legal-natural and spiritual arguments.
Firstly, it stresses that these technologies violate the right to life. Human life is simply a fundamental value and an inalienable good. It so demands absolute protection, regardless of the period and quality of human life. Meanwhile, the in vitro method is experimenting on a human being, its circumstantial ‘production’ which is simply a ‘form of human life’. usually not all embryos produced are transferred to women's reproductive organs. Some, referred to as ‘excess’, are destroyed or frozen. any embryos transferred to female reproductive organs (Donum Vitae, II) are besides destroyed on the basis of the Eugen selection criteria. So as part of the methods that seem to service life, we are dealing with an intentional selective abortion. "It is striking that neither common professional deontology nor wellness authorities would agree in any another field of medicine to apply a method that gives specified a advanced global percent of negative and fatal outcomes. In fact, in vitro fertilization methods are accepted due to the fact that it is assumed that the embryo does not deserve full respect due to the fact that it becomes a rival to the desire to be met" (Dignitatis personae, 15). It should be recalled that the Act on household Planning, Protection of Human Fetals and Conditions of Acceptability of Abortion of Pregnancy of 7 January 1993, in its first version, proclaimed – like the American Convention on Human Rights (Article 4.1) – that "1.1. all human being has a natural right of life since conception. 1.2. The life and wellness of the kid since its conception remains under the protection of the law."
The second of our arguments refers to the right of the kid to be called up as a consequence of the matrimony act of his parents, not as a consequence of a method procedure through 3rd parties, whose operation ensures the success of the procedure. In the 1995 encyclical Evangelium vitae, Pope John Paul II pointed out that artificial reproduction techniques are “unacceptable from a moral point of view due to the fact that they separate procreation from the truly human context of the matrimony act.” The Pope so explains that the conception of a kid cannot be replaced by a method procedure, since in specified optics the kid becomes a "product" created in the laboratory.
The 3rd argument reminds us that a kid is not something that individual would be entitled to have. A kid is always a gift, and spouses do not have the right to have children, but only “the right to adopt natural acts that are themselves assigned to the passing of life” (Donum vitae, II.8). The desire of a kid cannot justify its ‘production’, nor can the dislike of the kid already conceived justify its abandonment or demolition (Dignitas personae, 16).
- At the same time, I must stress that the negative ethical assessment of the in vitro procedure does not propose that children conceived by this method are "worst children". Each of them is created in the "image and likeness" of God and endowed with natural human dignity. Everyone should be accepted with love and respect, which they deserve as much as children conceived naturally. However, this does not mean that the ethical assessment of the act resulting in the conception of the kid must not be considered. In vitro is not the only way to conceive a kid who raises serious moral doubts. After all, we all think that something is incorrect when, for example, a kid is conceived as a consequence of violence. But we are besides convinced that the man thus conceived must be accepted in the human community with love.
Perhaps it is hard for people little ethically developed to full realize the second argument. However, the first and 3rd of these are apparent to any man who uses reason correctly and who has any life experience. Infertility is simply a hard test. However, in vitro is not a treatment for infertility. The resources allocated to this method would be better spent on investigation to effectively destruct or cure various causes of infertility. Above all, it is essential to make a national program for the treatment of infertility. Modern medicine clearly indicates that the removal of medical or intellectual causes of infertility gives a much better chance of having a healthy kid than the procedures of artificially assisted reproduction. The pain of a couple who cannot have children is understandable and rightly compassionate. In many cases, childlessness remains a mystery that may only be understood on the another side of life. However, it is always worth to know whether God does not appoint spouses to peculiar work for children already born, e.g. through adoption or fostering.
I realize that sometimes even the specified supposition that individual could negatively measure the in vitro method can origin – as in the case of Prof. Wojciech Roszkowski – an attack by politicians and ostracism in any technological environments.
The divisions in this case do not run along the line of organization divisions. I besides remember that, due to the constitutional rule of autonomy and common independency of the Church and the State, and due to the fact that the act I ask for requires courage, I cannot exert any formal force on the President. Nevertheless, I am allowed to appeal to your conscience, which conscience makes a difference between average politics and a statesman.
With respect, I am sending a pastoral blessing,
✠ Stanisław Gądecki
Archbishop of Poznań Metropolitan
Chairman of the Polish Episcopal Conference
nationalists.net/== sync, corrected by elderman ==
