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Comment by basisword | Hacker News Reader

I think it's higher than that. The Catholic Church is against IVF. Although not all its followers will stick to all its teachings a significant number will.

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It's not dogma, it's just advice. And I think the vast majority of people would just ignore it.

Frankly, advice on having children from celibate men doesn't need special consideration from women.

I say this as someone who was at least raised Catholic and still has an affection for the faith.

It is in fact dogma that IVF is forbidden to Catholics (see Humanae Vitae #12 and the Catechism #2376)

https://www.vatican.va/content/paul-vi/en/encyclicals/docume...

https://www.vatican.va/content/catechism/en/part_three/secti...

Neither of those are dogma.

Strictly speaking no, dogma has a very specific definition and refers to things of a theological nature like the dogma of the Immaculate Conception which 90% of American Catholics wouldn't get right (most would answer that it refers to the virgin conception of Jesus).

That doesn't mean the Church's teaching isn't final and binding.

It absolutely means that. If you are a Catholic and believe that a church teaching is wrong, you have a duty to speak up and dispute it.

Teachings can be reversed and they are absolutely not binding. These disputes are supposed to be done in humility with the assumption that the church is probably right, but that's pretty much the same as arguing with Linux kernel devs...

Given the discarding of some embryos it would seem pretty clearly against Catholic teaching no?

I think it discards eggs, not embryos, but I'm not an expert. At any rate it still is guidance not dogma.

You are absolutely correct! (Apologies, should have double checked before posting). It is in fact doctrine, not dogma:

https://www.catholic.com/qa/what-is-the-difference-between-d...

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