What would people think? That’s the question that kept running through my mind in the days following the party. What would people think of a party celebrating the Catholic Church’s teachings on contraception?
On a gorgeous Midwestern summer evening celebrating the anniversary of the 1968 papal encyclical Humanae Vitae, a few dozen couples, many with babes in arms or babies on the way, gathered together to make merry.
The guests were greeted at the front door with a picture of Pope Paul VI inviting us to make our way around to the back garden. There, everyone enjoyed tasty bites and themed cocktails. We listened (and laughed) as friends took it in turns to deliver “Eight Great Moments in Contraception History.” Pivotal moments, that is. All great, not all good. The invention of oral contraceptives and the sexual revolution, in contrast to the publication of Humanae Vitae and the occasion of that night’s celebration, all made the cut.
Other guests toasted Dr. Thomas Hilgers and NaPro technology, as well as our gracious hosts, and the simple joys of marriage and parenthood. The tributes flowed—alongside the cocktails—from parents of many children and from those who carry the cross of infertility, myself included—all grateful for the Church’s teachings.
Not only was that day the anniversary of the papal encyclical, but it was also World IVF Day, as well as the birthday of the first “test-tube baby,” Louise Joy Brown.
I had imagined passersby wondering what kind of event had brought so many minivans and three-rowed SUVs to their neighborhood. Or maybe a nosy neighbor peering over the fence to see just what was so funny, only to hear something about the Protestant Reformation, and the invention of the birth control pill.
And then, the news broke that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had made public her decision to freeze her eggs at the age of 36 while she mulls a potential presidential bid.
I wondered what the New York Democrat would think of our soirée?
Egg freezing might be seen as the first step toward future IVF attempts. By freezing her eggs, a woman has essentially chosen to circumvent her own biological limits to achieve pregnancy through technological interventions—for Catholics, illicit interventions—rather than conceive naturally.
While Humanae Vitae came 10 years before the birth of Louise Brown and did not directly address IVF, the Church’s teaching on contraception goes hand in hand with what is laid out for us about its applications in Donum Vitae’s later guidance. That is, when it comes to human sexuality and procreation of children, the procreative and unitive cannot be separated. And separating them is exactly what both contraception and IVF do.
Then came the news from England that several women were choosing to freeze their eggs not for their future selves but for others. “I’m donating my eggs,” British journalist Ellen Scott, married, aged 33, and child-free by choice, writes in The Times of London, “—someone else may as well use them.”
Her intentions, at first, seem straightforward and altruistic, if misguided. But after pointing out her reasons for not wanting a child herself and for wanting to help those who do but cannot, she goes on the defensive. In a response to those who might dare to call her selfish for choosing the childfree life, she says, “I’ve gained so much from egg donation,” including, “the validation that I don’t have to be a parent to help make a family.”
While the Humanae Vitae party would seem, well, super weird to today’s secular culture—and maybe even to the neighbors who overheard it—the alien and hidebound nature of it in fact makes much better sense of the gift of marriage, babies, and family than modern alternatives. And who could disagree with the evidence that our mid-summer evening party provided so abundantly? Smiling faces, boisterous laughter, parents of early-rising small children awake and partying way past their bedtimes. No hand-wringing, no angst, no validation-seeking, no cryo-anything. Just plain fun. Here we all were celebrating the wonders of humanity, the gift of life and all of God’s creation while “out there” only seems to get, well, more and more out there.
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