Not at all costs

"An attack on the dignity, on the integrity of the family and implicitly on the balance of social life" thus Msgr. Cornel Damian, auxiliary bishop of Bucharest, president of the Commission for the Family of the Romanian Bishops’ Conference, described the "Draft bill of assisted human reproduction with a donor" submitted by the government, awaiting approval by the Senate for adoption with urgent procedure. In an open letter to the prime minister of Romania Mihai-Rãzvan Ungureanu, to Vasile Blaga, president of the Senate, to Claudia Boghicevici, minister of Labour, Family and Social Solidarity, and to the Health Minister Ladislau Ritli, the Romanian Bishops’ Conference conveyed their disagreement on the "Draft Bill’, calling for its annulment. Near those couples who can’t have children. "The Church has been and remains near the married couples who want to have a child but cannot fulfil their wish of parenthood owing to infertility. The Church shares their suffering", the bishops write in their Letter. At the same time, the Church wants to recall that the priceless gift of maternity and paternity cannot be obtained at all costs. The child is and remains a human person that should never be considered the result of a test-tube process". The "Draft Bill" drawn up by the Government was submitted to Senate for adoption with urgent procedure. The Catholic bishops of Romania have closely examined the text and with the open letter addressed to the country’s political authorities they "wish to make known the position of the Catholic Church on the birth of a new life and the dignity of procreation". A change in family relations. To this regard bishop Damian recalled the establishment of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith "Donum vitae", on the respect of the birth of human life and the dignity of procreation. "The gift of human life must be actualized in marriage through the specific and exclusive acts of husband and wife, in accordance with the laws inscribed in their persons and in their union and conjugal faithfulness; the bond existing between husband and wife accords the spouses, in an objective and inalienable manner, the exclusive right to become father and mother solely through each other". In the light of this belief, according to the Catholic Church "Recourse to the gametes of a third person, in order to have sperm or ovum available, constitutes a violation of the reciprocal commitment of the spouses and a grave lack in regard to that essential property of marriage which is its unity. Heterologous artificial fertilization violates the rights of the child; it deprives him of his filial relationship with his parental origins and can hinder the maturing of his personal identity. Furthermore, it offends the common vocation of the spouses who are called to fatherhood and motherhood. It objectively deprives conjugal fruitfulness of its unity and integrity; it brings about and manifests a rupture between genetic parenthood, gestational parenthood and responsibility for upbringing. strips conjugal fertility of its unity and integrity. Such damage to personal relations inside the family has inevitable repercussions on civil society".The origins of the human person. This is why the Catholic Church in Romania believes that "the draft bill on assisted human reproduction with a third donor" is "an attack on human dignity, on family integrity and in an explicit way also social balance". He adds: "The origins of a human person are the result of an act of donation. The conceived child is product of the love of his parents. He cannot be wanted or conceived as the result of medical and biological intervention. The human person would be reduced to an object of scientific technology. Nobody can submit the coming to the world of a child to conditions of technical efficiency valued according to control and domination parameters". The letter thus closes with the request "for the common good of society and of the family, and for the dignity of all human persons" to repeal the "draft bill".