sperm and eggI'm not afraid to stand up for what I think is right. Seek justice. Fight for the underdog when the underdog is deserving. And when I heard about Christa Dias, the Catholic school teacher who was fired after getting pregnant through artificial insemination, I wanted to stand up for her, too. But I'm conflicted. The contract she signed with Holy Family and St. Lawrence Catholic schools in Cincinnati, Ohio, specifically states that artificial insemination is immoral and a teacher employed by this school must abide by their clause.

But is it right for a job to deny a woman her desire to become a mother? Shouldn't pregnancy be regarded as a miracle?

 

The clause state:

CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, SECTION 2376

The gift of a child

Techniques that entail the dissociation of husband and wife, by the intrusion of a person other than the couple – donation of a sperm or ovum, surrogate uterus – are gravely immoral. These techniques – heterologous artificial insemination and fertilization – infringe the child’s right to be born of a father and mother known to him and bound to each other by marriage. They betray the spouses’ ‘right to become a father and a mother only through each other.'

Breaking the employee rules at any job could get a person fired. And Dias did that, yes. But the argument from her lawyers is that the rules are discriminatory, and the same doesn't hold true for men who donate sperm for artificial insemination. Isn't that wrong?

Isn't it also wrong how people who get IVF are demonized when they are just people who need a little help getting pregnant? For those who are against those who get IVF, what would you say to a child who was born thanks to in vitro fertilization? Do those children not deserve the life they have?

And since this is a Catholic clause for a Catholic school involving an unmarried woman who got pregnant, we have to talk about another unmarried woman who got pregnant -- Mary. Her immaculate conception happened when God planted sperm in her ovaries so she could conceive. Mary wasn't denied motherhood. Why should Christa? Christa says how she always wanted to become a mom and she even became a teacher because she loves kids so much. And that's why she got fired.

I know I can't argue against the Catholic religion. It's futile. But I can argue for my feelings. Motherhood can have so many routes -- it isn't just a man and woman have sex, woman gets pregnant and has a baby and that's what makes her a mother. Parenthood can be achieved in many ways. Many people can be a biological parent, but not everyone can be a loving mother or loving father. And that is what should matter. Denouncing artificial insemination is like saying an adoptive parent can't really be a mother or a father to the baby they love.

Shouldn't the church be celebrating the miracle of birth, a child, a mother? Shouldn't they be celebrating that a loving woman wants to bring a beautiful soul into this world? The church has their rules, yes, and what Dias did is against those rules, but those rules seem anti-mother. And none of us would be here without a mother.

I hope another school hires Dias and makes a great statement in support of motherhood. She deserves her dream -- a baby and her job.

Do you think IVF is immoral? Is it right that Dias lost her job?


Image via marioanima/Flickr