In order for an act to be ethical, it is not enough for the agent to have good motives. Good motives are a necessary but not sufficient condition for an act to be ethical. Therefore, good intentions of parents are not sufficient to make IVF ethical. So, what else (besides good motives) is necessary for an act to be ethical? Two things: the act has to be a good kind of act, and the right circumstances for the act must be present. The problem with IVF is that it is not a good kind of act. By its very nature it is deficient in the three ways that I mentioned in #147. If in act is not a good kind of act, then there are no motives or circumstances that can make it a good act.
Regarding whether it is ethical for elderly married couples or infertile married couples to have sex, the answer is yes. To be ethically justified, the conjugal act requires spiritual union and biological union. The latter occurs in a unifying reproductive act in which the two become one, for biologically, they are engaged in one biological function, i.e. the act of reproduction (which is a two-person act). Any *particular* conjugal act does not need to lead to conception in order to be a justified act. It has to be an act of the *type* that leads to conception (i.e. sexual intercourse). Hence, one need not be fertile in order to engage in the conjugal act ethically. However, it is unethical to separate purposely the conjugal act from the possibility of procreation (say, by self-sterilization) for the purpose of separating sex from the possibility of procreation. On the other hand, if a woman has ovarian cancer, and has a hysterectomy, she has sterilized herself, but not for the purpose of separating sex and procreation. Here, the principle of double effect applies. She sought to preserve her life, with the foreseen but unintended consequence of losing her fertility. Her conjugal acts are ethically justified because they are (1) spiritually unitive AND (2) biologically unitive in type, without intentional thwarting of the biological function.
-A8
Thank you very much for your kind words -- I appreciate them very much. Thanks also for taking the time to explain.
I think it's possible that even what we're undergoing now (fertility meds) cause a separation between the act of (attempted) procreation and the spirit of the conjugal act. As I describe in post 164 (and without getting into too much personal detail), I don't know that it constitutes the true, joyful spirit of conjugal relations when everything's directed by doctors and timed very carefully. It seems no less clinical than IVF -- the only difference is, we're wearing the lab coats ourselves. Maybe that's a critical difference...but it doesn't feel like one from this angle.
On CBS's 60 Minutes they are doing a piece on couples who do IVF for gender selection. The California Dr says that in the last 2 years about 70 percent of his IVF patients are there for gender selection only not infertility.
Shooting someone dead is clearly not a "good act", but it's trivially easy to describe circumstances (self-defense) under which it is ethically appropriate to do so.