An Argument for the Embryonic Intactness of Marriage Steven A. Long The Thomist: A Speculative Quarterly Review, Volume 70, Number 2, April 2006, pp. 267-288 (Article) Published by The Catholic University of America Press DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/tho.2006.0019 For additional information about this article https://muse.jhu.edu/article/636413/summary Access provided by Ave Maria University Library (10 Jan 2018 06:42 GMT) The Thomist 70 (2006): 267-88 AN ARGUMENT FOR THE EMBRYONIC INTACTNESS 1 OF MARRIAGE STEVEN A. LONG Ave Maria University Naples, Florida I T HAS BECOME a commonplace of the prolife movement to speak of "embryonic rescue." This is, of course, an attempt to save the lives of wrongfully discarded embryonic human beings who languish in a frozen condition. It is, in other words, on all accounts, in its intention of the end noble. However, there is in this case, as in every case of deliberate human action, also the question of the choiceworthiness of the means, of the objective goodness or otherwise of that which one's action is about relative to reason. Granted that the end one seeks is desirable, it is not impossible that the means one has before one, or that one's proposed action, still falls short of right reason. With respect to the question of a woman taking a child conceived by another man into her womb, the question thus arises whether this is not surrogacy, either as already condemned by Donum vitae 2 or as deserving such condemnation. 1 I am indebted to my wife, Anna Maria Salinas Long, who earned her M.A. in moral theology from the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family, for the genius of this term. 2 Cf. Donum vitae II.A.3: "Is 'Surrogate' Motherhood Morally Licit?" "No, for the same reasons which lead one to reject heterologous artificial fertilization: for it is contrary to the unity of marriage and to the dignity of the procreation of the human person. Surrogate motherhood represents an objective failure to meet the obligations of maternal love, of conjugal fidelity and of responsible motherhood; it offends the dignity and the right of the child to be conceived, carried in the womb, brought into the world and brought up by his own parents; it sets up, to the detriment of families, a division between the physical, psychological and moral elements which constitute those families." 267 268 STEVEN A. LONG The question I wish to pose is this: Is it illicit surrogacy for a woman to take a child not conceived with her husband into her womb, by reason of this being a material violation of marital intimacy, or else a violation of the chastity of the unmarried woman? To examine the question, I will follow, more or less, the pattern of an article from the Summa Theologiae. 3 OBJECTIONS 1. It shouldn't matter whether surrogacy is involved in the moral proposal of embryo rescue or not. Surrogacy is merely physical, and so does not reach to the definition of the moral object. The moral species of one's action is not determined simply by the physical nature of one's action. The physical nature and teleology of one's action is irrelevant to the constitution of the moral object and to suppose it to be relevant is physicalism, a reduction of the moral to the physical. Therefore, all we need for moral assessment of "embryo rescue" is to determine what the agent proposes. Since what the agent proposes is to save innocent human beings from death by sharing natural gifts, this proposal should immediately be seen as sound, and its moral object that of 3 It is not my intention in any way to derogate the extensive discussions which already have occurred (cf. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 5 [2005]), nor to deny that elements of the contemporary exchange are in my view helpful and correct. For example, in the NCBQ issue cited above, see in particular Robert F. Onder, Jr., M.D., "Practical and Moral Caveats on Heterologous Embryo Transfer," 75-94; or Catherine Althaus, "Can One "Rescue" a Human Embryo? The Moral Object of the Acting Woman," 113-41, with both of which, and especially the latter, my conclusions below tend to concur. Likewise, the arguments of Msgr. William Smith, in "Rescue the Frozen?" Homiletic and Pastoral Review 96 (Oct. 1995): 7273, and "Response to 'Adoption of a Frozen Embryo,'" Homiletic and Pastoral Review 96 (Aug.-Sept. 1996): 16-17, make points regarding the object of the act involved with which I strongly agree. Nonetheless, the teleological analysis requisite to the question, together with the apposite objections, seems to me best treated simply and in their own right. For this purpose, especially regarding a disputed question touching the teaching of the Church, the form of an article of a disputed question seems most effective. This present treatment seeks to address this question at the most foundational speculative level, and to consider objection and response in their own right, for the sake of achieving the clearest consideration of this difficult issue that is possible. The absence of reference to contemporary disputants is thus for the sake of a more focused, accurate, clear, systematic, and concise consideration of the foundational teleology that governs the solution of this issue. THE EMBRYONIC INTACTNESS OF MARRIAGE 269 saving the innocent. Further, Veritatis splendor states: "By the object of a given moral act, then, one cannot mean a process or an event of the merely physical order, to be assessed on the basis of its ability to bring about a given state of affairs in the outside world. Rather, that object is the proximate end of a deliberate decision which determines the act of willing on the part of the acting person" (VS 78). Therefore, all that matters to determining the moral object of an act is the intelligible proposal of the one acting, and it is this one must assess. 2. The surrogacy condemned by Donum vitae is, as the document indicates, that whereby one would introduce a split between the embryonic child and mother; but, this split having already been immorally introduced by another, the surrogacy whereby a mother tries to save the life of the child is of an entirely different nature. Therefore the condemnation of surrogacy in Donum vitae does not apply. 3. Many things which the spouses give to one another in marriage are given in such a way that, while they are owed first in relation to the spouses and to their own children, can also be given to another: for example, education of children, upbringing of children, breastfeeding. Other things, such as conceiving a child and the acts leading up to this, belong to the spouses alone. Because "gestation" is closer to the former category than to the latter, it is licit for a married woman to carry a child fathered by a man not her husband, and for a single woman to carry a child outside of wedlock, if the purpose is to save a life. For gestation is simply providing nourishment and shelter, and anyone can do that for someone who otherwise will perish. 4. The view that it is a material violation either of marital intimacy or the chastity of the unwed for a woman to choose to carry a child not fathered by her husband would imply that a woman who is raped should abort the child. But abortion is wrongful homicide and is a per se malum. It follows that it can be 270 STEVEN A. LONG right for a woman to choose to carry a baby not fathered by her husband. Therefore, for a married woman to undertake the rescue of an embryonic child fathered by another by taking it within her womb is not a material violation of marital intimacy. 5. The view that it is a material violation of marital intimacy for a woman to choose to carry a child not fathered by her husband assumes that carrying a child is integrally necessary to the procreative end. But carrying the child is not integrally necessary to the procreative end, for the procreative end is simply conception, and one can have this without carrying a child. 6. The view that it is a material violation of marital intimacy for a woman to choose to carry a child not fathered by her husband assumes also that that which is integrally necessary to the procreative end belongs as exclusively to the couple as couple as does conception and the acts leading up to conception. But this does not follow. Therefore, even if carrying a child is integrally necessary to the procreative end, it does not follow that it belongs to the couple as couple and to no one else. 7. The natural character of a power, act, object, and end must be taken in relation to technology. Thus, for example, it is natural that man should fly, because human beings can manufacture airplanes. Likewise, what is natural for the woman to carry in her womb must be taken in relation to technology, and thus it is natural not only that she may carry a child conceived by an entirely different couple, but also that procreation occur in any way that permits conception and the development to life of the conceived being. Thus, the view that it is wrong for a woman to take a child into her womb which she has not conceived with her husband presumes that what is not conformable to the development of human nature apart from technology should provide the norm for the use of technology, and this is an error. THE EMBRYONIC INTACTNESS OF MARRIAGE 271 8. It is surely more natural either for an embryonic child to be carried by a woman than by a machine, or for it to live than to die. But the condemnation of the implantation of an embryonic child into the womb of one who is not its mother implies either that the child may rightly be rescued only in a machine-an artificial womb-or that it should be left to die. But both of these options are less natural than being carried by a woman not its mother. Therefore the embryonic child should be carried by a woman not its mother if this is the only way in which it can be spared death. Further, it is simply natural for women to carry children-it is natural for women to "gestate." Therefore, it is simply natural for a woman to gestate another's child. 9. Many acts that are in themselves not permissible may become permissible on the supposition of some prior evil, danger, or grave situation. Hence an apostate priest who renounces the truths of the faith may not normally hear a confession and dispense absolution, for were he to do so, given his renunciation of the sacred truths of the faith, it would be sacrilege. Yet, when a soul is in extremis and on the verge of death, for such an apostate priest to hear his confession is not only permissible but may even be ethically obligatory. Likewise, although no one should seek to alienate embryonic human beings from their mothers, and although normally mothers should only carry the babies conceived by them with their husbands, yet because of the gravity of the case, and the proximity of the endangered frozen embryonic human beings to death, it is in this case by way of exception permissible for married and even unmarried women to carry such children and give birth to them. SED CONTRA Donum vitae (II.A.3) states that "Surrogate motherhood represents an objective failure to meet the obligations of maternal love, of conjugal fidelity and of responsible motherhood." But deliberately placing a child not conceived with one's husband into 272 STEVEN A. LONG one's womb is to be a surrogate mother. Further, childbirth is ordered to occur within marriage, and both the conception of the child, and the carrying of the child, exist for the integral purpose of delivering a live rather than a dead child, something which by nature only the mother of the child can perform. Therefore for a woman deliberately to seek to implant in her womb an embryonic child whom she has not conceived with her husband in a specific act of conjugal union is a violation either of marital intimacy, or of the chastity of the unwed, and constitutes illicit surrogacy. RESPONDEO It should be said that for any woman deliberately to implant an embryonic child whom she did not conceive in a specific conjugal act with her husband is clearly wrongful conduct because violative of marital intimacy or, in the case of the unwed, of simple chastity. This of course leaves the case wherein parents have wrongfully alienated their embryonic child from the womb, but who wish to remediate this by replacing the child in the womb, to be licit. The reason for the deprivation of marital intimacy is as follows. We determine the per se naturally normative teleological order from paradigmatic cases taken apart from what is technologically possible, for the natural order of power, act, object, and end is not determined by technology. Hence, one must begin with the realization that whatever is the natural ordering of the childbearing to the conception of the child by its mother and father, this ordering is not to be determined merely by what may adventitiously be possible as a result of techne. Now, with respect to this normative natural ordering, it must be affirmed that the carrying of the child exists for the sake of the integral purpose of procreation, whose purpose is not alone the mere conception of the child but the delivery of a live rather than a dead child. And this purpose is, according to the natural order of power, act, object, and end, achievable only by the mother, without whose carrying of the child the child will perish. The other and more THE EMBRYONIC INTACTNESS OF MARRIAGE 273 remote ends of the nourishment of the child outside the womb, its breastfeeding and housing and clothing and education, all may in the paradigmatic natural case yet be performed by others should the parents perish. But in the paradigmatic natural case, only the mother can bear her child so that the integral end of procreation-a live baby rather than a dead one-is achieved. Of course this indicates that the carrying of the conceived child is at the heart of the procreative purpose of marriage. Since the whole raison d'etre of childbearing is to serve the integral procreative purpose of marriage, to which it is naturally necessary, it necessarily follows that childbearing falls within the scope of that which belongs to the spouses as spouses, and which is not rightfully transferable to others even if this may technically be possible. That is, just as the acts leading up to and including conception are rightfully those of the spouses as spouses, so the bearing of the child, which is integrally necessary to the procreative purpose, belongs rightfully only to the spouses as spouses and to no one else. The bearing of the child in the womb by the mother is naturally and normatively necessary to the end of a live child, and so that which generically pertains to the procreative good belongs to it insofar as it is integrally necessary to the procreative good. To repeat, the other further ends to which parents are also ordered may, naturally speaking, be fulfilled by others; but naturally and normatively the maternity of the mother in her bearing of the child in her womb is necessary to the procreative purpose of the delivery of a live child. Integrally procreative faculties, then, extend beyond the mere geometric point of conception, for the normative natural purpose of procreation is the delivery of a live rather than of a dead child. Granted that in the narrow sense we speak of procreation as merely conception, the procreative act taken as a whole is not merely the act whereby the child is conceived, but the extension and perfection of this conception by the childbearing of the mother. The fact that technology may treat childbearing as a detachable module and deprive it of its intact procreativity does not make such detachment the natural order. On the contrary, it 274 STEVEN A. LONG is an error to reduce what is teleologically one densely intelligible narrative to a series of modules whose teleology will then be bestowed anew through human rearrangement. For a married woman to implant in her womb an embryonic human being who is not conceived in a specific conjugal act with her husband is for her to take that which belongs to the spousal couple as spousal couple and give it to another. But all that which integrally and essentially is naturally necessary to the procreative end is included in the spousal donation as belonging to the couple alone. It follows that a married woman who implants an embryonic human being in her womb who is not conceived in a specific conjugal act with her husband violates marital intimacy, which is a per se malum. Just as one may not share venereal activity with one who is not one's spouse, because these venereal acts exist for the sake of, and are necessary to, the generation and transmission of new life (i.e., the integral procreative end, which is not generation alone) in marriage, so one may not rightfully choose to share childbearing with anyone save one's spouse, as it exists for the sake of the transmission of the life conceived with one's spouse (i.e., because childbearing naturally exists for the sake of, and is necessary to, the integral procreative purpose of the generation and transmission of life). Likewise, for an unmarried woman to choose to implant in her womb an embryonic human being is a violation of chastity. For childbearing exists for the sake of the integral procreative purpose of marriage, and belongs to spouses in marriage and to no one else. For a religious woman to choose to implant in her womb an embryonic human being is a violation of her profession of perpetual chastity, by which she turns away from the fecundity of the flesh in the blessings of marriage for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven. THE EMBRYONIC INTACTNESS OF MARRIAGE 275 REPLY TO OBJECTIONS 1. When Veritatis splendor states that "By the object of a given moral act, then, one cannot mean a process or an event of the merely physical order, to be assessed on the basis of its ability to bring about a given state of affairs in the outside world" (VS 78), it does not deny that the physical character of an act may be one causal element in defining the moral species of an act. By "event of the merely physical order" it refers to purely physical accident outside of choice as such (e.g., accidental physical infecundity does not make an act contraceptive). It does not refer either to deliberately chosen means or to the normative natural teleological grammar of the moral act itself. The reason of this is twofold, pertaining to the nature of the object and the role of teleology in determining moral species. As to the first point: the integral nature of the act is always included in the moral object. The moral object is what an act is about relative to reason. But what an act is about relative to reason always materially includes and presupposes the act itself. Although the moral object is formal with respect to the act, this does not preclude its containing a material aspect, just as the formal character of nature abstracted as a whole-the abstractio totius-does not prevent nature so abstracted from including what is known as the common matter of the definition (as "bodiliness in general" is included in human nature abstracted as a whole, as opposed to "this particular body with these particular accidents"). Likewise, the moral object is formal with respect to the act, while always materially including the integral nature of the act itself. One sees this when Humanae vitae states that Consequently, unless we are willing that the responsibility of procreating life should be left to the arbitrary decision of men, we must accept that there are certain limits, beyond which it is wrong to go, to the power of man over his own body and its natural functions-limits, let it be said, which no one, whether as a private individual or as a public authority, can lawfully exceed. These limits are expressly imposed because of the reverence due to the whole human organism and its natural functions, in the light of the principles We stated earlier, and in 276 STEVEN A. LONG accordance with a correct understanding of the "principle of totality' enunciated by Our predecessor Pope Pius XII. (HV 17) Clearly, "the reverence due to the whole human organism and its natural functions" is not "physicalism." Nor is it physicalism to realize that the physical character of an act performed may be one causal element in the determination of the moral species of an act. For that it may be one element does not preclude the relation to reason. Rather, it is angelism to say that the physical character of the act performed has no role in the determination of moral species. For example, when one who commits active euthanasia states that the end sought is merely "relief from pain" this may in truth be the end sought by the agent. However, inspection of the means in such a case will indicate that it is not merely from pain that the euthanized person is being relieved, but from life, for the nature of the act performed is homicidal. Given that the person being killed is innocent, and that the act is neither an act of justice nor one of defense, this act is correctly identified as wrongful homicide, owing to the very nature of the act committed, even though what the agent seeks as an end and by way of "proposal" may be merely relief from pain. A noble end does not justify the performance of an intrinsically evil deed. And so, it does matter whether an act is of itself ordered to a wrongful violation of marital intimacy, or not, irrespective of the nobility of the end sought. The second point pertains to teleology. As St. Thomas Aquinas instructs us, when the moral object is per se ordered to the end, the species of the moral object is contained within the more defining, containing, and formal species that derives from the end. 4 And so, without knowing the teleological order of object to end, we will not even be able to determine the most formal species of the act (for we need to know whether the object is per 4 Cf. STh I-II, q. 18, a. 7: "From all this it follows that the specific difference that is derived from the end is more general; and that the difference that is derived from an object which is per se ordered to that end is a specific difference in relation to the former" ("Et ex istis sequitur quod differentia specifica quae est ex fine, est magis generalis; et differentia quae est ex obiecto per se ad talem finem ordinato, est specficia respectu eius"). THE EMBRYONIC INTACTNESS OF MARRIAGE 277 se ordered toward the end or not). Indeed, we will not be able to distinguish simple from complex acts, for the difference only arises consequent on the distinction between acts where the object is naturally ordered to the end and acts in which the object is only per accidens ordered to the end. It follows that teleology is not excluded from, but rather is essential to, the constitution of the moral object. Indeed, the teleological grammar for the constitution of the moral object is described most painstakingly by St. Thomas Aquinas. Further, if any proposal to save from death by sharing natural gifts is permissible, then fornication and adultery would be permissible if in the mind of some agent these could be ordered to the end of sparing life (e.g., by placating a despot). But one may not do evil that good may come, as we alike are reminded in Veritatis splendor 78. It follows that we need to know more than merely how the agent describes the proposed act in order to judge of the moral object. It is true that we need to know this description which (at least) pertains to the relation of the act to reason. But we also and essentially need to know the nature of the act itself. This is not physicalism, but the realization that for ratio to be recta it must first conform to and be measured by the ordering of nature, so that it may then serve as the measure for our action. Thus it is in no way irrelevant to the morality of what is called "embryo rescue" whether it involves surrogate motherhood, for "embryo rescue" is not choiceworthy if it requires violation of the integrity of marriage as has been argued above. 2. It is true that in the section wherein Donum vitae condemns surrogacy, it is not expressly contemplating the issue of what has come to be called "embryo rescue." This does not mean that its condemnation cannot include this case. Indeed since its condemnation is general, and since the meaning of "surrogate" is dearly to stand in for another and this is what those who propose "embryo rescue" have in mind with respect to childbearing, it should be admitted that the prima facie sense of this condemnation must be taken to include every instance of such "standing 278 STEVEN A. LONG in" pending any action of the Church expressly permitting such acts. Hence, by reason of its general formulation, there is no reason to limit the condemnation of surrogacy only to the particular cases expressly considered in Donum vitae, any more than there is reason to suppose that certain categories of adultery are not intended to be proscribed within the general proscription of adultery. Further, however, the understanding in accord with which surrogacy is condemned by Don um vitae is also manifested in other places in that document. Thus, Donum vitae condemns homologous artificial fertilization (II.B.4) because "Homologous artificial fertilization, in seeking a procreation which is not the fruit of a specific act of conjugal union, objectively effects an analogous separation between the goods and the meanings of marriage." This method of artificial fertilization collects the procreative matter from the male over time so as to multiply the odds of conception to overcome any deficiency in healthy procreative matter. Though such a child would at least be the biological child of the couple, yet the Church condemns such an approach as illicit because it seeks a procreation which is "not the fruit of a specific act of conjugal union." Surely it would be ironic to condemn a couple for attempting to conceive its own child in a way that stems from no specific conjugal union of the spouses, but then to permit a wife to carry a child that stems from no specific conjugal union of the spouses and which is not even a child of that couple but was conceived by others. If it is said that such "adoption" is not procreative, because procreation is only "conception," this has been answered above: under natural law the integral purpose of procreation is the delivery of a live rather than a dead child. Hence childbearing is integrally necessary to procreation, and belongs, as does all that is essential to the natural procreative end, to the couple as couple and to none other. 3. Granted that "gestation" is a term that applies to all mammals, and hence also to human beings, one should in ethical discourse prefer the more precise designation that pertains to the mode in which humans possess a power. Hence one might think THE EMBRYONIC INTACTNESS OF MARRIAGE 279 that "childbearing" or "pregnancy" is the language we might prefer, granted that all mammals have some similar capacity: for the meaning of this capacity differs in humans, and we should so far as possible wish to acknowledge this. But, further and to the point, whether we call it "gestation" or "childbearing" or "pregnancy" it is not the case that it is closer to wetnursing, or educating, or housing, or any number of other activities outside the womb, than it is to conception. This is clear in three ways. First, it is integrally necessary to the procreative end, which is the generation and transmission of human life which is achieved in the delivery of a live rather than a dead child. As has been argued above, all the other activities outside the womb to which parents are further directed may, in the natural order of things, be undertaken by others, whereas, in the natural order of things-which is not defined by the per accidens possibilities offered by supervening technology-the carrying of the child is always or for the most part integrally necessary to the procreative end of birthing a live rather than a dead child. Hence clearly, as it is integrally necessary to the procreative end, it is in the broad rather than narrow sense procreative, and as it may alone naturally speaking be achieved by the mother and not by others it is clearly dissimilar to wetnursing, housing, educating, etc. Second, it is closer to conception in that it follows proximately, naturally, and per se from conception, as conception is clearly naturally and further ordered to childbearing. But wetnursing does not follow proximately and naturally from conception; nor does housing, education, and so on. That is to say, the teleological narrative does not read: "after conception, the fertilized ovum is implanted at Harvard Law School." For others may send the child to Harvard Law School, but only the mother, in the paradigmatic natural instance, enables the integrally procreative end of delivering to the world a life rather than a dead child to be achieved. Third, no Catholic scholar, prior to the advent of the technology to dissever childbearing from conception, ever supposed that childbearing was not an integrally procreative faculty, or that 280 STEVEN A. LONG its use as such was not generically included together with all things essentially necessary for the integrally procreative end within the spousal donation of the body and of what belongs uniquely and solely to the couple as couple. That is to say, no one would have supposed that the integrally procreative end was achieved merely through conception and that the wife did not owe to the husband as part of the unique spousal donation the use of the integrally procreative capacity of childbearing so that the couple might enjoy the gift of the birth of a live rather than a dead child. But that which is integrally necessary to procreation is, as has been argued above, contained within the generic gift of procreativity that belongs solely to the couple as couple, and hence belongs to no one else. 4. The two cases are not on a par. The woman who is raped is clearly not choosing to perform a venereal act, and so is not choosing to conceive, nor to carry the child, simple speaking. Rather, on the hypothesis of a prior evil, the woman who is raped heroically refuses to slay the child, who is innocent, having full confidence that since she did not intend the venereal act, nor all that follows, she is not culpable of seeking it out and choosing it and so not culpable of performing what falls under negative precept. By contrast, in the case of the woman who chooses to implant a child not her own (by reason of a specific act of conjugal union with her husband) into her womb, she deliberately chooses that which is violative either of marital intimacy or of the chastity of the unwed, or of the perpetual chastity of the religious state. And so there is no moral parity between the very different acts of the woman who, having been raped, does not commit wrongful homicide but bears the child and the woman who freely chooses to violate marital intimacy, the chastity of the unwed, or perpetual chastity by bearing a child of whom she is not the mother, and her husband not the father-that is, one whose conception does not derive from a specific act of conjugal union with her husband. Of course, this does not pertain to miracle: no one would be so bold as to claim that the Mother of God violated THE EMBRYONIC INTACTNESS OF MARRIAGE 281 chastity by assenting to the Incarnation, for here the ends of procreation are achieved in manner essentially higher than the natural manner, in a supernaturally miraculous fashion. 5. This objection has been dealt with above. Nonetheless, it may briefly be stated that the integral procreative end is the birthing of a live rather than a dead child, and this is indeed why the Church speaks of the generation and transmission of life rather than merely of generation or conception alone. As every married couple that has received the grace of children knows, it is not merely the point of conception but the fulfillment of their integral procreative capacities-established by identifying that which is always or for the most part necessary to the birth of living children-that constitutes the procreative good in its natural fullness. It is at the birth of a live child, and not merely consequent on conception, that the couple rejoices in the achievement of the integral procreative purpose of marriage. Accordingly, this is what constitutes the integral procreative good. And this good is not fully achieved by conceiving and then aborting or miscarrying, which latter are tragic deprivations not alone with respect to the life of the conceived human being but with respect to the natural ordering of the parents as parents and to the integral procreative good. 6. When it is said that "even if carrying a child is integrally necessary to the procreative end, it does not follow that it belongs to the couple as couple and to no one else," this could be true only if not all that is per se naturally ordered to the generation and transmission of human life were for the sake of the integral procreative good of the married couple as couple. But this is not the case. If it were true of childbearing, then this would vitiate the marital good as such, because it would treat an essential element of the integral procreative good of the couple as a detachable module not exclusively given to the spouse, but potentially to others. Now it is beyond any cavil that, naturally and per se, childbearing is necessary to the integral procreative good-for, 282 STEVEN A. LONG naturally and per se, there is no birthing of a live child without it. It is also true that either all that is necessary to the integral procreative good is bestowed uniquely by the spouses upon one another, or not. If not, then marriage does not involve the unique gift of integral procreativity, and it necessarily follows that marriage is not essentially but only accidentally ordered to procreation. But this latter the Church has always denied. Indeed, even celibate marriages are naturally ordered to procreativity, but in these rare cases the spouses as spouses receive a calling to an essentially higher or spiritual fecundity such that they, as a couple, renounce the use of the body. It would further follow by necessary logic that no wife would ever act contrary to the nature of marriage by choosing only to carry the children of others, for she never gave her integral procreative capacity uniquely and solely to her spouse, any more than she uniquely and intransferably gave her capacity to play checkers only to the spouse. Nor will it do to claim that choosing to bear the children of others is just like wetnursing the children of others, for in the paradigmatic per se natural instance, wetnursing may be done by others, whereas naturally speaking carrying the child of one's husband to live birth may be achieved only by the wife and mother and is part of the integral procreative good whereby one seeks the delivery of a live rather than a dead child. 7. The proposition that "The natural character of a power, act, object, and end, must be taken in relation to technology" is both false and dangerous, for it implies that there is no distinction between that which may be caused by technology and that which is natural. Now, we may admit that that which technology may cause always exists in relation to the natural order. But technology does not constitute this order, nor should what is technically possible supplant that which is required by natural teleology. Rather, the purpose of technology is to assist in the realization of natural teleology, or to remove that which is contrary to natural teleology. But in the definition of this teleology as such, we make THE EMBRYONIC INTACTNESS OF MARRIAGE 283 no reference to what is introduced solely through technical means. For example, we know what health is prior to knowing what disease is, and we employ technical means either to aid the body to recuperate according to its natural tendency, or to remove something that is incompatible with the natural health of the body (as, for example, antibiotics remove the presence of bacteria harmful to one's health). When we ask about what is integrally necessary to the procreative good, we consider this not in relation to technical means, but in itself. And taken just so, in itself, it is clear that naturally the carrying of the child by the wife and mother is integrally necessary to the procreative good of the birthing of a live rather than a dead child. Hence this childbearing is at the heart of the spousal donation, which embraces integral procreative capacity and not the point of conception alone-for conception alone is not sufficient of itself for the birthing of a live rather than a dead child. Rather, conception requires the further gift-which by nature and per se is alone provided by the wife and mother-of the woman's bearing in her womb the conceived life. The teaching that natural power, act, object, and end, are constituted only in relation to technology is also indeed incoherent: technology cannot be defined save by what it does, and what it does is knowable only in relation to the teleology of nature (how does one act upon or influence X with respect to Y, or define the same, if one has literally no idea of how X is naturally ordered with respect to Y?). Hence, technology presupposes natural teleology, whereas teleology does not presuppose technology but is the condition for it. Of course, this is clearly the case also inasmuch as efficient causality implies teleology, for efficiency can only be defined by that toward which it is ordered, and in which the efficiency terminates as in an end. Accordingly, to seek to define natural teleology as essentially constituted by technology is simply to give up thought about that to which nature in general, and human nature in particular, is ordered. But the abandonment of coherent thought about natural teleology is not itself an argument for nescience, but merely an illustration of 284 STEVEN A. LONG the same. It follows that those who seek understanding of the human condition, and of the world generally, proceed differently. 8. It is surely true that it is more natural for an embryonic child to be carried by a woman in her womb than by a machine such as an artificial womb, and also that it is more natural for the embryonic child to develop and live rather than to die. But the conclusions drawn from this are erroneous. For while it is generically speaking more natural for the child to be carried in a woman's womb than in a machine or artificial womb, the accruing of an additional form may make such carrying of the child to be unnatural. Similarly, it is generically better not to kill human beings than to kill them, but subsequent upon a certain form of justice, it may be better to kill-say, in just war, in defense, or in the case of the death penalty. Likewise, generically it is more natural for the embryonic child to be carried in the womb of a woman. But when one considers the added formality that the woman in question is not the mother of the child, so that such carrying constitutes either a sin against marital intimacy, against the chastity of the unwed, or against the vow of religious chastity, it is clear that by this form it is contrary to natural order for such a woman to carry the child of other parents. Indeed, it is the sin of surrogacy which the Church has proscribed. It is clear that it is then more natural for the child to be saved in an artificial womb than that anyone contrary to moral precept materially violate marital intimacy, or unwed chastity, or religious chastity. With respect to it being more natural for the child to live than to die, this is generically true; but, consequent upon the form that for the child to live someone must do moral evil, one sees that in this case, even were death the only remaining likelihood for the child, it would be better that no morally evil act be done. For one may not do evil that good may come. With respect to the claim that it is simply natural for women to carry children (to gestate) and therefore it is natural for a woman to gestate another's child, one must say: this is overly generic, too general. Generically speaking, yes, it is natural for THE EMBRYONIC INTACTNESS OF MARRIAGE 285 women to carry children, to gestate; and generically speaking, one might also say it is natural to human beings to gestate; or indeed, one might say it is natural for human beings to engage in sexual activity, or for human beings to marry. But what is generically true requires specification. It is natural to the mother to carry the child she conceives, but not for the woman to go to a clinic and carry a child she never conceived. It is natural to man and wife within the bounds of matrimony to procreate children, but it assuredly is not a perfection of normative natural teleology for all human persons of whatsoever age and sex, and apart from matrimony, to engage in sexual activity. It is natural to those fit for and desiring marriage to marry, but it is not natural to one who is called by God to religious life or the priesthood to deny the divine call, or alternatively and by way of defect for one who cannot engage in the procreative act to marry. It is natural for the prison guard to hold prisoners in jail, but it is not natural for the prison guard to hold someone in jail who is known by all to be innocent or if such holding is dearly contrary to law, justice, and charity. From such a generic proposition as "it is natural for women to carry children" one does not sufficiently fathom normative natural teleology, for the children carried do not naturally fall out of the air, but are conceived by man and wife. It is natural for a wife to conceive a child and then to carry the child in her womb, but the normative teleology is not for a woman to have an embryonic child whom she never conceived implanted in her womb by a clinic. It remains true that one may not do evil that good may come-one may not violate marital intimacy, the chastity of the unwed, or religious chastity, for the end of saving the lives of embryonic children wrongfully alienated from their mothers' wombs and in danger of death. Yet there is in fact hope that these children may rescued through the development of an artificial environment that can medicinally provide some minimal degree of what the mother should have provided her child in her womb. 286 STEVEN A. LONG 9. It is true that many acts that are not otherwise permissible may become permissible on the supposition of some prior evil, danger, or grave situation. Nonetheless no such act is permissible if it involves the objective transgression of negative precept, that is, if its moral species is one of wrongdoing. One may not do evil that good may come. Hence the reason why the apostate priest may not habitually dispense the sacrament is that his state of unbelief would render this sacrilegious given his public unbelief, and that he lacks the habitual grace minimally proportionate to such habitual sacaramental action, and that this might even in the external forum be an occasion for the ridiculing of the sacrament. But just as in the case of a penitent in extremis there is an extreme need, so the apostate priest may in such a state, mindful of that dignity to which he had been called, receive from God the graced motion of will whereby he wills in this extreme case to provide the sacrament. One notes that the giving of the sacrament is an end that is good in itself. Likewise, for the child's mother to bear her child is good in itself; but for one who is not the mother to carry the child is not good in itself because contrary, as has been said above, either to marital intimacy, the chastity of the unwed, or religious chastity. And so there is no moral parity here between an apostate priest hearing confession of a penitent in extremis and the case of the woman who chooses to carry a child she has not conceived with her husband in a specific act of conjugal unity: for the former is (or at least may be) good, while the latter is, simply speaking, not good, because it is surrogacy. Yet the gravity of the case of the embryonic human persons needs to be addressed. How shall it be addressed? It has been seen above that whereas it is generically better for a woman to carry the child, consequent upon a certain form it is seen that to carry a child not her own is wrongful because materially violative of marital intimacy, the chastity of the unwed, or religious chastity. Likewise, as already seen it is generically inferior for an embryonic human being to be placed in a machine rather than in the womb of a woman. But given the realization that this child cannot be placed in the maternal womb as ought to be the case, THE EMBRYONIC INTACTNESS OF MARRIAGE 287 and that this child can be placed in the womb only of a woman for whom this act will be violative of marital intimacy, unwed chastity, or religious chastity, clearly it is better for the child not to be placed in such a woman's womb, and to be placed in an artificial womb. For this offers both to supply medicinally at least some minimal degree of that of which the child has been deprived by its mother, and also it does this without any violation of the moral law. It is, accordingly, the only moral option for attempted rescue of frozen embryonic human beings. But if there is no such artificial womb that is workable, or if any attempt at thawing in the current state of technology should prove to be lethal, may these embryonic children be kept in their unnatural and frozen state in the hope that a technical means may be found to enable at least some of them to survive and live normal human lives? Although this is not formally part of the question at hand, it seems fitting to conclude by noting that this is indeed one of the circumstances in which, supposing the prior evil, and supposing that there is real hope of normal life for these beings, we may do what elsewise we would not, namely, retain them in their frozen state. Although this is unnatural, and it was wrong initially for them to be alienated from their mothers, yet to unfreeze them is lethal and arguably thus to do them even worse injury; and by unfreezing them it seems that we deliberately choose to take responsibility for their deaths. Hence insofar as there is a realistic prospect of providing a means for at least some of these children to live, it seems not unreasonable to retain them in this unnatural condition in the hope, finally, of freeing them not merely from this affliction by thawing them unto their deaths, but of freeing them from this unnatural state for the sake of living a normal human existence. In the absence of any such realistic prospect, however-if it is correctly judged that this is now, and for the foreseeable future will remain, impossible-then to unfreeze them, baptize them, and permit them to perish free of their unnatural and unnaturally imposed state, is permissible under the principle of double effect, inasmuch as the circumstances pertinent to their unnatural 288 STEVEN A. LONG condition rather than the effort to free them therefrom exerts the decisively baneful influence. For to keep innocent human persons trapped in unnatural rigidity indefinitely, in quasiperpetuity and with no practical plan to free them, is unjust. Further, in such circumstances the caretaker's principal responsibility is to baptize them-which means also letting them thaw and die, since there is more probability that they will be alive to be baptized earlier rather than later. To insist upon keeping them in their frozen state without any practical hope of normal life is to perpetuate the wrongful act of those who initially separated them from their mothers and froze them. Only a reasonably practical hope of enabling normal life for these embryonic persons could justify failing to baptize them and keeping them for some slight increment longer in their present unnatural frozen state. 5 5 I am greatly indebted to Janet Smith for the benefit of her searching criticisms of the position articulated in this paper. While she strongly disagrees with its analysis, whatever strengths it may possess derive significantly from our extensive discussion of this question.