“The unitive and procreative nature of marriage is destroyed. IVF does violence to the marital union. Just as contraception, which constitutes sex without babies, does violence to the conjugal union, engendering babies without sex destroys the self-giving that is the very nature of married love.
When IVF is used, children are produced that are "not the natural outcome of a self-giving act of love of their parents,” Hilliard explained.
“Children who have survived the pre-implantation selection process are left asking, ‘Would my parents have destroyed me if… ? Would they still love me if… ?’”
Hilliard disputed Hughes’ contention that selection for physical traits is a fringe practice, saying that a September 2006 study from Johns Hopkins University indicates that nine percent of pre-implantation diagnosis is for sex selection.
“When a study indicates that one out of every eleven babies selected for implantation are selected for their gender, this is significant,” she told CNA. “It is especially significant in that those not selected are often slated for destruction either for research purposes or just abandoned and destroyed because of their gender.
“Gender is one characteristic among many that persons who have commodified human life want to be able to select.”
She also challenged the idea that PGD allows parents to avoid passing on deadly disorders to their children.
“What is occurring is just the opposite. Embryos are engendered. They are conceived human beings then relegated for ‘lethal’ destruction if they have undesirable traits. In fact, the practice is to engender more than are ‘desired’ and then abandon the ‘undesirable’ to a lethal end. Many more human beings are destroyed by this mechanism than are benefitted.”
She explained that “cosmetic medicine” is moral if it does not mutilate or destroy human life, but restores what has been damaged by accident, disease, environment, or other destructive influences.
Businesses, doctors and technicians involved in these procedures are more than cooperating with the evil of abortion, Hilliard told CNA:
“Those directly engaged in these activities are the principal agents of abortion.”
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She encouraged Catholics to educate themselves about what is happening in PGD procedures.
“Life is being engendered to be destroyed, with only those deemed eugenically fit allowed to live. The implications are incredible for all of us.
“This is especially true for our aging population for whom it can be determined that they are unfit to contribute to society,” she said, referring to Washington voters’ passage of an assisted suicide measure.
Hilliard noted that more than 80 percent of those who request assisted suicide in Oregon fear “loss of dignity.”
“No one loses their dignity,” she told CNA. “Human dignity is innate; but fear of rejection by others can lead to a fear of loss of dignity.
“The ultimate rejection by others is the rejection by one's own parents who have determined that a baby will not have characteristics that the parents desire in a child they ‘produce’.”