Rev. Fr. Dr. Jacob Koipally, Vice- President of Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Pastoral Studies on Marriage and Family Studies, while presenting his research paper on “Ethical issues of Assisted Reproductive Technologies” under the session of “Procreative Technologies”, conveyed that God as the creator of life is the ultimate authority over life. Rev. Fr. Dr. Jacob Koipally was addressing the galaxy of intellectuals present at the Animation Renewal Centre (ARC), Panvel, for “EVA- Global Symposium on Life”. He explained that the church teaches that there are two essential aspects of a conjugal act and these two aspects, procreation and union are called the meanings of the act. He highlighted that there is an unbreakable connection between these two meanings and this is a connection willed by God.
Rev. Fr. Dr. Jacob remarked that “A human being is always to be accepted as a gift and a blessing of God and that happens as the fruit of a marriage. A procreation has got certain elements: it upholds the dignity of parents as well as of child; it is a collaboration with the creator; it should be the fruit and sign of the mutual self-giving, love and fidelity of spouses; through exchange of their love the married couple respect reciprocally their right to become a father and a mother.” Further, he said, “The mutual love of the couples makes the womb of the mother as the sanctuary of life but unfortunately today the technologies would like to be the authors of life. And they compete with each other to produce life at the cheapest rate.”
Rev. Fr. Dr. Jacob explained the challenges faced by the couples when they encounter the problems of sterility and highlighted various good and bad technologies used for them in today’s world. He concluded his presentation by emphasizing that “To produce a child at any cost forgetting all the moral values cannot be justified; while it is an act against the creator, it is an act against the God-given nature of the conjugal act, it applies serious moral psychological issues for the persons involved in it, it overlooks the true context of love which is the basic right for every birth.” He reminded that the womb of the mother called as the sanctuary of life cannot be substituted by a vitro.
