Not to disrespect Catholics or minimize the issue, but there's something I don't understand..
Presumably, Catholics are not against indoor plumbing.. or cough syrup.. or telephones.. Couldn't one make the argument that God's plan was for us to to get our water from the local river, to deal with our colds until they go away, and to talk to each other face to face?
I would imagine a Catholic might say "Well God designed us with the capacity to overcome distance and disease through inventing indoor plumbing, cough syrup and telephones."
Why might He not have intended us to overcome birth defects through the above-mentioned hypothetical zygote-preserving engineering?
For that matter, couldn't he have intended the invention of condoms as well?
Have you ever read Humane Vitae? I think it's safe to say that you and the Church are operating from different beginning premises, so you'd probably miss point of any simple answer to that question.
Welcoming the child God gives you is a very different situation that deciding to pick up the phone rather than yelling over the fence to your neighbor. It deals with the core of what it is to be human....
At least from the Catholic point of view (and some other religions, too).
Good question, and it strikes at the heart of my confusion. As far as I know, Catholics are not opposed to the use of pharmaceuticals, prosthetics, speech therapy, corrective surgery, or most other "artificial" means of correcting medical problems someone may inherit or develop naturally.
Nor do they oppose (to my knowledge at least) the use of cosmetics or other methods of changing one's appearance, so long as it does not lead to immodesty or excessive vanity.
The Church seems to be okay with "physical" modifications of nature, but not genetic modification. What is it that makes genetic manipulation so much worse than surgery, if both are aimed at curing a physical defect? Or for that matter, if it is fine for someone to wear colored contact lenses their whole life, why would it be wrong to change their genes to get the desired color?
Probably becasue a human life is much more than a commodity to be bought or sold or a trophy of *prefection* to wheel around in your stroller to show off to everyone so they can ooo and ahhh over your perfect little selected designer creation.
That kind of stupid reasoning would lead you to figure that if God is going to provide for our needs, that why should we work? Shouldn't we just have enough faith to lay around with open mouths to wait for God to pour the food in?
Jesus never condemned the technology of His day. There's a big difference between using the physical world to make life more comfortable and using it to cheapen the humanity of mankind.
Folks of the Judeo-Christian persuasion are familiar with:
6 "When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it."
We know the rest of the story as well.
Some things are plain old, "Off Limits". Manipulation of human genetics is one of them.
I think the difference has to do with trying to do something about & in the present, as opposed to trying to do something to change the future. You do the gene manipulation & things don't turn out as you'd hoped, then what?
An absurd question considering how He dealt with Onan.