Pope Benedict XVI faces backlash after his rant about IVF

THE Pope has been attacked as archaic and out of touch after urging infertile couples to shun IVF and insisting sex between a husband and wife was the only acceptable way of conceiving.
Melinda Roberts, mother of Thomas, 3, and Matthew, 7 months, said Pope Benedict XVI's words angered her. "Both of my children were conceived through IVF, and every day my husband and I are eternally grateful for the assistance," the Glen Waverley mum said.

Is the Pope right to speak out against IVF? Join the debate below Monash IVF director Professor Gab Kovacs said the Pope was out of touch, and "most ... in his congregation take no notice of him".

Many Catholic couples sought fertility treatment, allowing themselves to be dictated by their consciences and what was right, rather than the church, Prof Kovacs said.

He said the Catholic Church had not changed its stance since the beginning of reproductive medicine in the 1970s. Speaking at a conference on infertility in Rome, the Pope said artificial methods of getting pregnant were arrogance, insisting that sex between a husband and wife was the only acceptable way of conceiving.

Matrimony was the "only place worthy of the call to existence of a new human being", he told scientists and fertility experts. "The human and Christian dignity of procreation, in fact, doesn't consist in a "product", but in its link to the conjugal act, an expression of the love of the spouses of their union, not only biological but also spiritual," he said.

Melbourne's City Fertility Centre medical director Dr David Wilkinson said most of his patients had already been trying to conceive through conjugal relations, but it had not worked.

The Pope was also critised for his recent comments stating that 'Gay marriage is one of several threats to the traditional family unit that undermines 'the future of humanity itself'.

The Vatican and Catholic officials around the world have protested against moves to legalise gay marriage in Europe and other developed parts of the world.

Fotunately many people including Roman Catholics do not agree with some of the moral teachings of this Pope, or his charismatic predecessor, Pope John Paul II, on matters such as birth control, fertility treatment, women priests or homosexuality.

Article extracts: 26th February 2012 www.heraldsun.com.au