The recent birth of the Southern California octuplets conceived through In Vitro Fertilization has focused some much needed attention on the ethical and moral problems inherent with IVF and the unregulated multi-billion dollar infertility industry in the U.S., says a Catholic expert in bioethics.

Father Tadeusz (Tad) Pacholczyk, director of education for the National Catholic Bioethics Center, told The Tidings in a phone interview from his office in Philadelphia that he hopes discussions triggered by the birth of octuplets to a single mother who already had six children conceived through IVF may be a catalyst for change.

"This could be a teachable moment where Americans will reassess the decision made 25 years ago to launch full bore into the project of creating human life in the laboratory," said Father Pacholczyk, who will address IVF in one of two workshops he is presenting at the upcoming Religious Education Congress in Anaheim.

"The business model is not enough [for the infertility industry], we need some ethics," continued Father Pacholczyk, a priest of the Diocese of Fall River, Massachusetts, who has given international lectures and made numerous television media appearances speaking on contemporary bioethics. While noting that the Catholic Church "has been the lone voice standing against IVF from the beginning," the bioethicist acknowledges that most people, Catholics among them, are confused about why a procedure which can result in a baby is immoral.

"IVF incidentalizes and adulterates sex, reducing it to another arena for manipulation according to our own desires," noted Father Pacholczyk. "When we take this immoral step, others quickly follow, including the freezing or even the discarding of our own children, as if they were a form of medical waste.

"By making test tube babies, we first violate the sacred human act by which we hand on life. It is then but a short step to go further and violate the very life itself that we produce in the laboratory."

According to the priest-bioethicist, "most people hesitate to challenge the now-widespread practice of IVF, but what may occur is that society will begin to realize it's time to regulate the practice."

He says the U.S. should follow the regulatory lead taken by Germany in the mid-1990s and later followed with similar laws in Italy, which specify that only a maximum of three embryos can be produced via artificial reproductive methods and all must be implanted in the mother. Also, the legislation prohibits embryo freezing or destruction.

"This type of law is an attempt to minimize collateral damage. It's a very good step for countries to take," said Father Pacholczyk. Nearly 500,000 human embryos are currently stored in liquid nitrogen tanks in fertility clinics in the United States, a number comparable to the population of a mid-sized city like Cleveland or Tucson, he noted.

Catholics, Father Pacholczyk stated, are generally uninformed about infertility treatment alternatives, such as surgery for endometriosis. Instead of pursuing IVF after only a few months of infertility, he suggests couples find a doctor who will take the time to figure out what is wrong.

He points out infertile couples may benefit from a breakthrough diagnostic process called NaProTECHNOLOGY, which uses the Creighton Model FertilityCare™ System biomarkers to monitor the occurrence of various hormonal events during a woman's menstrual cycle.

According to information at www.NaProTechnology.com, when procreative and gynecologic systems function abnormally, NaProTECHNOLOGY identifies the problems and cooperates with the menstrual and fertility cycles that correct the condition, maintain the human ecology, and sustain the procreative potential, "As Catholics, we need to be encouraging people much more in this direction," said Father Pacholczyk.

As far as public perception about infertility treatment, he commented, "We can only hope that the octuplets case will result in laws finally being enacted to monitor and supervise the 'Wild West of Infertility' in our country."

Father Pacholczyk will be speaking at the Religious Education Congress at the Anaheim Convention Center on the following topics: "In Vitro Fertilization and Assisted Reproductive Technologies" (Feb. 27, 10 a.m.) and "The Science and Ethics of Stem Cell Research and Cloning" (Feb. 27, 3 p.m.).