# IVF, Surrogacy, and Natural Law Explained Clearly

An episode of [AfterMass](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1823710125), 9 May 2026, 24 min.

Audio: https://anchor.fm/s/1069762b8/podcast/play/119714850/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2026-4-9%2F423788584-44100-2-f232e3dc5fdc6.mp3

you know why videos like this get hundreds of thousands of likes? because there are so many different christian voices, no central authority and no shared framework for how moral questions are even supposed to be answered. in this video, i break down how the catholic church actually approaches issues like ivf and surrogacy through natural law, what that means and why the conclusions stay consistent even when the situation is difficult. i also share my personal experience with infertility and what it looks like to wrestle with these teachings when they’re not theoretical

## Transcript

[0:00] If abortion is against God's will, your IVF baby where your
[0:04] surrogacy baby is also against God's will.
[0:07] Maybe if God wanted you to be a mother, you would have been able
[0:10] to be a mother. The caption on this video says
[0:15] Christians and their hypocrisy. Most of the time when people use
[0:20] a word like hypocrisy in this context, what they're actually
[0:23] pointing to is this perceived inconsistency.
[0:26] Something that looks like it doesn't line up, something that
[0:28] feels like people are saying one thing and then living or acting
[0:31] in a way that doesn't match that.
[0:33] And if that's the claim being made, then a much more basic
[0:36] question is whether there is actually a consistent framework
[0:39] underneath what the Church teaches or whether this is just
[0:42] a collection of opinions change depending on the situation.
[0:46] So let's talk theology, more specifically Catholic theology.
[0:50] Because the way that the Catholic Church approaches
[0:52] questions like this or statements like this aren't, it
[0:55] doesn't start off with what feels right or what seems
[0:57] compassionate, but instead by asking what is true about the
[1:00] human person and what is built into our nature and what is the
[1:04] purpose of different aspects of our life.
[1:06] And that's where natural law comes into play.
[1:08] Because without that, none of the moral conclusions are going
[1:12] to make sense, and they're definitely not going to sound
[1:15] consistent. So when the church talks about
[1:17] natural law, it's speaking about the foundation for how morality
[1:21] is understood. Morality isn't something that's
[1:24] constructed over time, but instead something that's
[1:26] grounded in the reality of the human person and the order of
[1:30] creation itself. Natural law refers to the idea
[1:34] that there is an order built into reality, and that order
[1:37] includes human nature, which means your body, your intellect,
[1:41] your will, your relationships, and your capacities all have a
[1:45] structure and a purpose that can be known and understood, not
[1:49] invented or reassigned. This was explained clearly by
[1:52] Saint Thomas Aquinas, who taught that because God is the author
[1:56] of creation, creation reflects a real intelligibility.
[2:00] So by looking at what something is, you can begin to understand
[2:04] what it is for, and that applies in a unique way to the human
[2:08] person, because we're capable of reasoning about our own nature
[2:12] and acting in accordance with it or against it.
[2:15] And that point is so important because it means that moral
[2:18] reasoning begins with reality rather than preference, since
[2:22] the question is whether an action aligns with the nature of
[2:25] a person and contributes to their flourishing according to
[2:28] that nature, rather than simply whether it's desired or
[2:32] emotionally compelling or widely accepted.
[2:35] Natural law is accessible to reason, which is why the Church
[2:38] holds that moral truths can be recognized even apart from
[2:42] Scripture, because human beings capable of perceiving that
[2:46] certain actions build up the person while others distort or
[2:49] weaken that structure, even if they can't always articulate why
[2:53] in precise terms. This is also why people like
[2:56] Bishop Baron speak about the Logos, the rational structure
[3:01] that underlies reality, because Christian morality flows from
[3:04] the understanding that truth isn't imposed from the outside,
[3:08] it's instead woven into creation itself, and living well requires
[3:13] recognizing that structure and then ordering your life in a way
[3:17] that corresponds to it. Once that kind of like framework
[3:21] and foundation is in place, then moral conclusions begin to
[3:25] follow in a way that's very consistent because they're
[3:27] rooted in something objective. So when the church evaluates an
[3:31] action, it's asking whether that action respects the nature of
[3:35] the human person and the purposes built into it, or
[3:39] whether it moves away from that order, regardless of how strong
[3:42] the intention or how understandable the desire may
[3:45] be. And This is why this matters,
[3:47] especially before even getting into something like IVF, because
[3:50] without that foundation, every moral teaching is going to feel
[3:54] disconnected or even selectively applied depending on the
[3:57] situation. When in reality it's flowing
[4:00] from a very specific understanding of what the human
[4:03] person is and what it means to live in accordance with that
[4:07] reality. Once you understand that natural
[4:09] law is rooted in the structure of the human person, then the
[4:12] next step is actually asking what that means when you look at
[4:16] the body itself. Because the church isn't
[4:18] treating the body as something interchangeable or like the
[4:22] standalone thing, it's treating it as something that already has
[4:25] meaning built into it. When theologians talk about
[4:28] this, they're talking about teleology, which is just a way
[4:31] of saying that things have an end or a purpose, and that
[4:34] purpose can be known by looking at what something is and how it
[4:38] functions. So you don't assign meaning to
[4:40] the body after the fact, You discover the meaning that is
[4:43] already there. And you can see this in very
[4:45] simple ways before you ever even get to any complicated structure
[4:49] or example, because every faculty of the human person has
[4:53] a direction. Your eyes are ordered toward
[4:56] seeing, your ears are ordered toward hearing, your intellect
[4:59] is ordered toward truth. And when those things are used
[5:02] in a way that contradicts their purpose, something becomes
[5:05] disordered, even if the intention behind it is still
[5:08] sincere. That same principle applies to
[5:11] the sexual faculty. And this is where the Church is
[5:14] very specific. OK, Because it teaches that the
[5:17] sexual act has a built in meaning that includes both the
[5:21] the unit of aspect, meaning the real union of a husband and
[5:24] wife, and the procreative aspect, meaning openness to the
[5:28] creation of new life. And those two are not separate
[5:31] things that can be pulled apart depending on preference.
[5:33] They belong to the same reality. So when you evaluate actions
[5:37] involving the body, you're not just asking what someone wants
[5:41] or what outcome they're hoping for.
[5:43] You're asking whether what is being done is in line with the
[5:46] way that that faculty is ordered.
[5:48] Because the body is expressing something real, not something
[5:51] symbolic like that can be reshaped at will.
[5:53] And this is a topic that Father Chad Britt Berger will actually
[5:56] be very direct about order and disorder because he emphasizes
[6:00] that when a person repeatedly acts against the order of their
[6:04] own nature, it doesn't remain isolated to that one action and
[6:08] instead begins to affect the way that they think, the way they
[6:11] choose, and the way that they perceive what's normal over
[6:14] time. And that's so huge because when
[6:17] you separate the faculty from its purpose, you lose the
[6:21] ability to evaluate it consistently, and then
[6:24] everything else starts getting reduced to intention, which is
[6:27] why these conversations become so confusing so quickly.
[6:31] So when the church looks at something involving the human
[6:33] body, it's not starting with a reaction to the situation.
[6:38] It's starting with the question of what this faculty is for and
[6:41] whether the action respects that purpose or moves away from it.
[6:45] Because that's what determines whether something is ordered or
[6:49] disordered in a moral sense. Before you can even and evaluate
[6:52] something morally, you have to understand what it actually
[6:55] involves. Because if the description is
[6:57] vague or incomplete, then the conclusion is going to feel
[7:01] unfair or disconnected from reality.
[7:03] So when we are talking about IVF in vitro fertilization, we're
[7:07] talking about a process where conception takes place outside
[7:11] of the body, typically in a lab setting, and it involves several
[7:15] steps that are important to understand clearly.
[7:17] The process usually begins with stimulating the ovaries to
[7:20] produce multiple eggs at once, which are then retrieved and
[7:23] sperm is collected separately. Those are brought together then
[7:27] in a controlled environment so that fertilization can occur
[7:30] outside the body. Once fertilization happens,
[7:33] multiple embryos are created, not just one, and those embryos
[7:37] are then observed and evaluated based on development, and from
[7:41] there, one or more may be selected for transfer into the
[7:45] uterus with the hope of achieving a successful
[7:47] pregnancy. The remaining embryos are often
[7:50] frozen, stored indefinitely, or in some cases discarded,
[7:54] depending on what's determined in that process.
[7:57] And that detail isn't secondary here.
[7:59] It's central to understanding why the Church evaluates this
[8:03] the way that it does, and this is where it's important to be
[8:06] very specific, again, because the church doesn't look at this
[8:09] and ignore the desire behind it. The church recognizes the real
[8:12] and often very painful desire for a child, especially in
[8:16] situations of infertility, which can be a deeply heavy cross for
[8:21] a couple to carry. But the moral evaluation isn't
[8:24] based on from the intensity of the desire or the sincerity of
[8:28] that intention. It's based on what is actually
[8:30] being done in the process itself.
[8:32] Because every step of that process includes real human life
[8:36] at its earliest stage and involves actions that need to be
[8:39] evaluated according to that framework that we just laid out
[8:42] before. So before even getting into
[8:44] whether it's moral or immoral, this is what IVF is in concrete
[8:49] terms. And we didn't even talk about
[8:50] the grading that they do with their embryos, where they grade
[8:54] them according to the strongest, where people do gender selection
[8:57] and they want a girl. So all the boy embryos are then
[9:01] discarded. That is an abortion.
[9:03] There's this eugenics going on in the IVF industry that I'm not
[9:07] touching with a 10 foot pole because I'll get real upset
[9:10] about it. But once you understand the
[9:13] reality of what's happening that we just kind of went over, then
[9:16] the moral reasoning that follows isn't based on assumption.
[9:19] It's based on the actual structure of the ACT itself and
[9:22] what it involves. So, and once we understand what
[9:25] natural law is and now we've understood what IVF actually is,
[9:29] then the Church's reasoning starts to follow in a way that
[9:32] is very consistent with everything that's already been
[9:35] laid out, because the evaluation is based on whether the ACT
[9:39] itself aligns with the nature of the human person and the
[9:42] purposes built into it. The first issue is that IVF
[9:46] separates procreation from the marital act.
[9:48] And that's important because the Church teaches that the coming
[9:51] into existence of a new human person is meant to take place
[9:55] through the bodily union of husband and wife, where the
[9:58] unitive and procreative meetings are joined in the same act.
[10:02] So when conception is relocated to a laboratory process, that
[10:06] connection is broken at the level of the ACT itself.
[10:10] And that same principle carries into surrogacy, because even
[10:13] when a child is conceived, the role of the mother becomes
[10:16] divided. Where one woman provides the
[10:18] egg, another carries the child. The child is then entrusted to
[10:21] someone else after birth, which introduces this fragmentation
[10:25] into motherhood itself, separating what is naturally
[10:28] meant to be unified within one relationship.
[10:32] And also, this isn't just a biological distinction.
[10:35] It affects the relational structure that the child is
[10:37] brought into because the child's origin is no longer rooted in
[10:40] the exclusive personal union of husband and wife, but in a
[10:43] series of coordinated roles that are carried out by different
[10:47] individuals. Now, the second issue is the
[10:50] treatment of embryos, because IVF typically involves the
[10:53] creation of multiple human embryos, each of which,
[10:57] according to Catholic teaching, is a human life from the moment
[11:00] of conception. And once those embryos exist,
[11:03] they are subject to selection, freezing, and sometimes
[11:06] destruction, depending on how the process unfolds.
[11:09] And once you introduce surrogacy into that process, those same
[11:12] embryos then can be transferred into a third party, which
[11:15] further distances the beginning of that human life from the
[11:18] marital relationship that natural law identifies as its
[11:21] proper context. So the third issue flows from
[11:24] both of these 1st 2 points, which is that the process begins
[11:28] to treat human life in a way that resembles production rather
[11:32] than generation, even if that's not the intention of the couple.
[11:36] Because the structure of the ACT involves creating and
[11:39] transferring life through a technical process that can be
[11:42] managed, selected and arranged. And this is where the
[11:45] distinction between intention and action becomes very
[11:49] important, because a couple can have sincere and a good desire
[11:52] for a child, and that desire is something that the church fully
[11:55] acknowledges is good, but the goodness of that desire doesn't
[11:58] change the moral structure of the ACT used to fulfill it.
[12:02] So when the Church says IVF and surrogacy are morally wrong, the
[12:06] church isn't making this judgment about the worth of the
[12:09] child who is born through those processes.
[12:11] And it's not dismissing the sufferings of infertility.
[12:15] And instead it's evaluating the acts themselves and recognizing
[12:18] that they move away from the order that is built into the
[12:21] human person, both in terms of how life begins and how that
[12:25] life is treated once it exists. And once you understand those
[12:28] two points, the conclusion isn't being applied selectively.
[12:31] It's following directly from the same principles that are used to
[12:35] evaluate any other action involving the human body and the
[12:39] human life. So at this point, everything
[12:41] that we've kind of talked about and said can sound very
[12:44] structured and very principle based, But none of these things
[12:47] exist in a vacuum. Because behind conversations
[12:50] about IVF and surrogacy are real people who are carrying
[12:53] something very heavy. And infertility is one of those
[12:56] crosses that cuts deeply into a person's life in a way that's
[13:00] not always visible from the outside.
[13:01] The desire for a child isn't something trivial.
[13:04] It's rooted in something real and good.
[13:06] And because it reflects the natural orientation toward
[13:09] family, toward love that gives itself and wants to receive, and
[13:13] the church recognizes that as something very meaningful, not
[13:17] something to dismiss or minimize.
[13:19] And that's exactly why this conversation has to be handled
[13:22] carefully, because of the presence of a good desire
[13:25] doesn't remove the need to evaluate the means used to
[13:28] fulfill it. And that's where a lot of people
[13:30] struggle. Because when the desire is
[13:32] strong enough and the suffering is real enough, it can feel like
[13:36] any path that leads to the fulfillment of that desire
[13:40] should be considered acceptable. But moral theology doesn't
[13:43] change based on the intensity of the situation, because if it
[13:46] did, then there would be no stable way to evaluate anything
[13:51] consistently, and every difficult circumstance would
[13:53] begin to redefine what is considered right and wrong.
[13:56] So what the Church does here is hold both realities at the same
[13:59] time. It acknowledges the weight of
[14:02] the suffering and the legitimacy of the desire, while still
[14:05] maintaining that not every means of fulfilling that desire aligns
[14:09] with the truth about the human person.
[14:12] And that can be very difficult to hear because it asks
[14:15] something very real of people. It asks them to live within the
[14:19] limits that they didn't choose and to carry a cross that
[14:22] doesn't have an easy resolution. And that's where this moves out
[14:26] of theory and into something that requires trust.
[14:29] Because it's not simply about understanding a principle, it's
[14:33] about living in accordance with it, even when it costs you
[14:35] something. And this is where the Christian
[14:38] understanding of suffering becomes relevant, because
[14:41] suffering isn't treated as something meaningless or as
[14:43] something that must be eliminated at all costs.
[14:46] It's something that can be united to Christ, something that
[14:49] can be lived through in a way that is still ordered toward
[14:53] love, even when it doesn't resolve in a way that a person
[14:56] hopes. So when the Church teaches that
[14:59] IVF and surrogacy are morally wrong, it's not overlooking the
[15:03] suffering involved. It's speaking into that
[15:05] suffering with a framework that holds on to both truth and the
[15:09] dignity of the person, even when the situation itself is
[15:13] difficult and unresolved. So now back to the video.
[15:16] When someone puts a caption like Christians and their hypocrisy
[15:20] over a video like that, that what they're usually reacting to
[15:23] is this perceived contradiction where it looks like Christians
[15:26] claim to care about life and dignity or moral consistency and
[15:30] then support or participate in something that seems to conflict
[15:34] with that. And that reaction makes sense if
[15:37] you're just looking by and you keep it moving.
[15:41] Because if you're looking at different Christians saying
[15:43] different things or living in different ways, it can appear
[15:45] inconsistent and without a clear framework.
[15:48] And it's easy to assume that the standard itself is shifting
[15:52] depending on the situation. But the key issue here is that
[15:56] the word hypocrisy assumes that the same standard is being
[15:59] applied and then violated, when in reality what you're often
[16:03] seeing is a difference in moral frameworks or a difference
[16:06] between what is taught and what is practiced by individuals.
[16:11] Within Christianity, broadly speaking, there isn't a single
[16:15] unified authority that defines moral teaching across every
[16:18] denomination. So on issues like IVF or
[16:21] surrogacy, you're going to see a range of positions.
[16:24] But within Catholic theology, the standard remains consistent
[16:28] because it's rooted in natural law and the nature of the human
[16:31] person. So the same principles that are
[16:33] used to defend the dignity of life are the ones being applied
[16:37] when evaluating how that life comes to existence and how it's
[16:40] treated at its earliest stages. That doesn't mean every
[16:43] individual Catholic lives that out perfectly.
[16:46] I know that there are practicing Catholics who do not.
[16:50] And it also doesn't mean that there aren't situations where
[16:53] people act in ways that are inconsistent with what the
[16:56] Church teaches. But inconsistency at the level
[16:59] of personal action is different from inconsistency at the level
[17:02] of the teaching itself. So when this is understood
[17:05] clearly, the claim of hypocrisy it doesn't doesn't hold because
[17:10] what's being presented as a contradiction is often the
[17:13] result of comparing different standards or observing people
[17:17] who are not fully aligned with the principles that there meant
[17:20] to follow. One of the reasons this
[17:21] conversation becomes confusing quickly is because people often
[17:25] speak about Christians as if they are a single unified moral
[17:29] authority that defines what every Christian believes and
[17:32] practices. And that is not how Christianity
[17:34] is structured outside of the Catholic Church.
[17:37] So within Protestantism there's a wide range of approaches to
[17:41] moral theology because there's no central teaching authority
[17:44] equivalent to the Magisterium of the Catholic Church.
[17:47] So questions like IVF, surrogacy, reproductive
[17:50] technologies, those things are often evaluated at the level of
[17:53] the individual or even, you know, local communities or even
[17:57] personal conviction. And because of that, many
[17:59] Protestant perspectives will focus more heavily on intention,
[18:02] asking whether a couple desires a child in a loving and sincere
[18:05] way and whether the outcome leads to something that is
[18:08] perceived as good, which can lead to the conclusion that IVF
[18:11] is morally acceptable under certain circumstances.
[18:15] And that approach is understandable within that
[18:17] framework, because if moral reasoning is centered more on
[18:21] intention and outcome, than the evaluation is going to follow
[18:25] those categories rather than the structure of the ACT itself.
[18:29] Now, within Catholic theology, the process is different because
[18:33] moral teaching isn't determined at the level of individual
[18:37] interpretation. It's developed and clarified
[18:40] through the Church's teaching authority, drawing from
[18:42] scripture, drawing from tradition and philosophical
[18:45] reasoning, including natural law.
[18:48] So when the Catholic Church evaluates something like IVF or
[18:52] surrogacy, it's doing so within this consistent line of
[18:56] teaching, within this consistent understanding that looks at the
[19:01] nature of the human person, looks at the meaning of the body
[19:04] and the structure of the ACT, rather than beginning with the
[19:08] desired outcome and then working backward from there.
[19:11] And that's why you see this divergent in conclusions.
[19:14] It's not because one group is ignoring moral questions and the
[19:17] other is addressing them, but because they're starting from
[19:20] different principles and then using different methods of
[19:23] evaluation. So when people look at these
[19:26] differences and label them as hypocrisy, what they're often
[19:29] seeing is the result of multiple frameworks that are being used
[19:34] and placed side by side, but then treated as if they're
[19:38] supposed to produce the same conclusion, when in reality,
[19:41] they're operating from different starting points altogether.
[19:44] And understanding that is so important because it can allow
[19:47] you to evaluate the Catholic position on its own terms rather
[19:51] than through assumptions that come from a different approach
[19:54] to morality altogether. So that's pretty much what I
[19:58] have, but I wanted to end this video, you know, a little bit
[20:01] differently because for me, this is not just a theological
[20:04] conversation that exists. At a distance, I have
[20:08] experienced and I continue to experience infertility.
[20:12] And that is not something that you can fully explain unless
[20:16] you've lived it because it touches something that's very,
[20:19] very deep. And it's not just a desire that
[20:22] goes unmet, it's a kind of grief that shows up in moments that
[20:26] you don't expect or in conversations that you don't
[20:29] plan for. And in a world where it feels
[20:31] like there is always a solution being offered that you are being
[20:36] told you should take, You know, we live in a time when IVF is
[20:40] presented as the next obvious step.
[20:42] I've been told I will only be able to have more children via
[20:45] IVF and it's just this will duh either do IVF or stop
[20:50] complaining type thing. And IVF is something that is
[20:53] widely promoted. It's easily accessible.
[20:56] My job pays for $40,000 to be able to do IVF and it's like
[21:00] what? IVF is often spoken about in
[21:03] this way that makes it seem like choosing not to pursue it is
[21:08] confusing to people or even irresponsible.
[21:11] And it's like it. I'm not allowed to complain if I
[21:16] choose not to do IVF. So I'm not speaking from a place
[21:20] of distance or indifference when I'm talking about all these
[21:22] things. I'm speaking as someone who's
[21:24] had to actually sit with this teaching and decide whether I
[21:28] believe it is true, even when it asks me to ignore every desire
[21:32] that I have. And I've also been on the
[21:35] receiving end of that tension. When people hear me say that IVF
[21:38] goes against Catholic teaching and then respond by questioning
[21:42] my compassion or my sincerity or even my faith, as if holding to
[21:45] that teaching, it means that I don't understand the weight of
[21:48] what I'm talking about. But the reality is that this is
[21:50] exactly where the teaching becomes real.
[21:53] Because it's one thing to agree with something when it has
[21:55] nothing to do with you. It's another thing entirely to
[21:58] hold to it when it intersects directly with your life in a way
[22:02] that's difficult, emotional, and unresolved.
[22:05] So for me, this isn't about drawing lines for other people
[22:09] or trying to win an argument or, you know, anything like that.
[22:13] It's about living in alignment with what I believe to be true
[22:15] about the human person, even when it means carrying something
[22:19] that I promise you I would not have chosen for myself.
[22:22] And that doesn't make this easy and it doesn't make the
[22:26] questions go away, but it does make it consistent because the
[22:29] same principles that I'm explaining here are the ones
[22:32] that I've had to apply in my own life, not selectively, but
[22:36] honestly. And I wish that I didn't have
[22:38] to. If there was one teaching that I
[22:40] wish could just go away, it would be this one.
[22:43] So when people hear something like this and then label it as
[22:47] hypocrisy, I can understand where that reaction comes from,
[22:51] but I also know where the misunderstanding comes from.
[22:54] And that's a direct reflection of a broken Christian world that
[22:58] we live in with a million different denominations, with a
[23:00] million different leaders, with a million different moral
[23:04] teachings and doctrines and whatever.
[23:07] You know, this is what inconsistency from the outside
[23:11] can sometimes look like as a result of this framework that
[23:15] hasn't been fully understood or maybe a cross that hasn't been
[23:19] are fully seen. And at the end of the day, this
[23:21] isn't about removing the difficulty from the situation,
[23:24] but instead it's about holding truth inside of it, in the
[23:27] middle of it, and trusting that even when something is hard, it
[23:30] is still ordered towards something real and something
[23:34] good. That is all I have for today.
[23:36] Thank you guys so much for listening and I will see you
[23:38] guys next time. Bye.

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