Where's your Daddy?

The media coverage of the recent birth of the California octuplets has brought several thoughts to my mind. Over the past weeks, reporters have dished out many intriguing facts about the family--an unemployed single mother, already has 6 children, and underwent in vitro fertilization.

I am glad that as a result of this event, the moral implications of in vitro are being discussed-- specifically the availability of the treatment. Although it is beautiful that this mother decided against "fetal reduction" (and carried all 8 babies), there is more than one issue involved. The Catholic Church teaches us that in vitro fertilization is a gravely immoral act, due to the fact that is separates the marriage act and the conception of a human life. During in vitro, the man has to masturbate in order to give his sperm, and the woman is given hormones to stimulate her ovaries. From there, the embryo is conceived, life is originated in a petri dish, and later implanted into a woman's uterus. In some cases, embryos will even live in the petri dish for several days, in order for the doctors to "weed out" the weaker persons. Because the Church clearly teaches that life begins at conception, this becomes a very serious subject.

More significantly, however, I have noticed that despite the constant attacks towards the octuplet's mother, I have heard very little reaction to the fact that these 14 children have been brought into the world to be raised without a father. In a way, this woman's decision to bear children is the flip side of the pro-choice mentality: It's my body and I can do what I want with it. In her case, she felt that she deserved a "right" to motherhood. But the question still prevails... What about daddy?

Fatherhood IS a part of creation established in the order of nature, and it should never be separated from it. God Himself, in His greatness, even reveals himself as a Father to us. I do not think that we can even wrap our minds around the dignity that this brings to all earthly fathers! I have never heard of any research that does not support a child's need for both a mother AND a father. In his encyclical titled Familiaris Consortio, John Paul the Great tells us that "when they become parents, spouses receive from God the gift of a new responsibility. Their parental love is called to become to children the visible sign of the very love of God 'from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named' (Ephesians 3:14-15). Unfortunately, our culture already tends to greatly undervalue fatherhood. Most examples of dads in the media are flat-out idiots (just turn on the Simpsons, Family Guy, and almost any sitcom).

I could go on, but my true purpose for this post is to simply announce that the issue that disturbs me the MOST about the octuplet's situation (other than the fact that in vitro is morally wrong), is the fact that there is no father is present. Let's pray for this family, that the octuplets and their siblings come to find strong men in their lives to lead them. Let's pray for all the men who embrace their vocation to fatherhood that they continue to be examples of our Heavenly Father in heaven. Let's also pray for the sanctity of marriage and life.