Diocese Pays for IVF, Does $2 Million Penance

Last updated on: December 27, 2014 at 11:39 am by Jennifer Fitz

Diocese Pays for IVF, Does $2 Million Penance 2014-12-27T11:39:40-05:00 Jennifer Fitz

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In my comments yesterday, I neglected to fully rake the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend over the coals. Let’s look at one more detail, as reported in The National Catholic Register:

According to court documents, Herx informed the school’s principal, Sandra Guffey, in March 2010 during the first round of treatment — part of which was paid for by the diocese’s health plan — and her contract was renewed.

Yes. A Catholic diocese’s health insurance plan covered IVF, a procedure that is immoral under any circumstance, and is usually carried out in a way that involves the direct killing of unwanted or leftover embryos. (“Embryo” meaning “teeny tiny innocent human beings.” The kind of people that Catholics absolutely don’t go about killing. Except if the diocese foots the bill, apparently.)

This was 2010. This was not some bureaucratic misfiling from the early days of IVF, when there might have been confusion over what the moral status of the procedure was, or whether it was covered by this or that provision of a health insurance contract.

Keep in mind that if you are a Catholic organization contracting for health insurance, checking that no immoral procedures or products are part of the coverage should have been routine for the last 40 years. You know, a checklist. This is not complicated, and it is not new.

Sackcloth and ashes, guys. This is no persecution against religious liberty. This is us paying for what we’ve begotten.

Image: Michelangelo Buonarroti – Frescoes above the altar wall, Sistine Chapel, via Wikimedia [Public Domain]

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