I tend to avoid break room chatter when I’m at work. It almost always is a near occasion of sin as the conversation inevitably devolves into complaints about leadership and subsequently gossip regarding those in said roles.
Recently, though, I did eat my lunch in the break room and the conversation took a very different turn.
Nearly everyone and I mean everyone in the room has either used IVF or has family & friends that are. And many of these coworkers are Catholic. I was shocked at the comments I was hearing. And one person who is engaged to be married IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH is openly using IVF right now, with her wedding still nearly a year away. I confronted her about this as gently as I could, trying to be sympathetic to the fact that 1. infertility is a very heavy cross and 2. catechesis regarding this topic has been severely lacking for decades. As an act of charity, I tried to steer her in the direction of more pro-life fertility management but she immediate put her hand in my face and said “I already paid for IVF and have drained my savings”. She further told me she’s aware of the Church’s teachings and was “uncomfortable” during her pre-Cana classes, but she just doesn’t care. Alrighty then.
I continue to be stunned at the number of people using IVF to create the family of their dreams (usually one, no more than two children). I don’t want to sound judge-y but something are just plain evil and need to be called out.
I’ve you’ve ever read Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” you can certainly appreciate the prophetic nature of the book. Published in 1932, it’s a dystopian novel that depicts a world where citizens are doped up on happy pills called “soma”, all sexual intercourse is purely recreational- devoid of all procreation, the elderly, sick, and disabled are systematically euthanized, and babies are created and raised in state-run laboratories.
If it sounds familiar, that’s because we are living it. Just look around. It’s not the future: it’s now. We are there, folks.
