Fertility Method Seems to Pass Vatican Muster

While test-tube fertilization and other forms of artificial reproduction were condemned by the Vatican this week, a fertility technique pioneered by an Orange County physician apparently has the Pope’s approval.

Dr. Ricardo H. Asch, director of the UCI-AMI Center for Reproductive Health in Garden Grove, developed the GIFT technique by which the woman’s eggs and man’s sperm are injected into the Fallopian tubes, where conception and fertilization naturally occurs.

Outlaws Some Techniques

The Vatican document issued Monday outlaws artificial insemination, embryo and sperm banks, surrogate parenthood and the technology that produces “test-tube babies.” It condemns fertilization that occurs outside the body--such as in vitro, or test tube, fertilization--or outside a marriage, such as surrogate motherhood or artificial insemination using sperm of a man who is not the husband. The document itself did not list specific techniques acceptable to the Vatican.

However, when pressed, Father Bartholomew Kiely, who teaches moral theology at Gregorian University, told United Press International that the GIFT technique, developed in 1984, was permissible.

GIFT is an acronym for Gamete Intra-Fallopian Transfer. Kiely said it was acceptable because the technical means of fertilization is not a substitute for the conjugal act.

Asch said Wednesday that couples who wish to respect the Catholic Church’s doctrine are allowed to collect sperm for the GIFT procedure during intercourse. The husband wears a perforated condom-like device that retains seminal fluid for use in the GIFT technique, he said.

The sperm is placed in a catheter next to eggs taken from the wife’s ovaries. But the sperm is separated from the eggs by an air bubble so there is no opportunity for the two to combine outside the body, Asch explained. The eggs and sperm then are injected into the Fallopian tubes, where conception naturally would occur, he said.

“We keep the column of air between the gametes, female and male. There is no way they touch before. The origin of life always takes place inside the human body,” he said.

The entire procedure takes about 40 to 45 minutes, with the eggs and sperm outside the body for about 10 minutes, he said.

The procedure is different from in vitro fertilization, in which several eggs are united with sperm in a laboratory dish and the healthy, fetilized eggs are implanted days later in the woman’s womb.

According to the Vatican’s document, the technology of in vitro fertilization violates moral standards.

Vatican Objections

“Fertilization achieved outside the bodies of the couple remains by this very fact deprived of the meanings and the values which are expressed in the language of the body and in the union of human persons,” the document states.

But the document describes only what is not allowed, not was is permissible.

“We wanted to leave open a category of possible methods and new developments that assist the conjugal act,” Kiely said. “There is so much happening so fast. I can’t be a crystal ball.”

Asch said he could not speak for the Vatican but believes his technique meets the church’s approval for several reasons.

“Conception takes place in vivo, in the body,” Asch said of his procedure. In addition, he said, because there are no embryos outside the body, there is no opportunity for “genetic or embryonic manipulation” to which the church objects. In vitro fertilization can also result in discarded or aborted embryos, but GIFT does not, he pointed out.

Discussed at Vatican

Asch and his associate, Dr. Jose Balmaceda, traveled to the Vatican last November to discuss the GIFT technique. While in Rome, Asch consulted with Dr. Nicolas Garcea, professor of gynecology and obstetrics at a Catholic university, and helped the Gemelli Hospital at the Vatican start a GIFT program. As far as he knows, he said, “they are performing it (the technique) successfully.”

The GIFT technique has been used by more than 2,000 couples worldwide, with conception occurring in about 35% of the cases, he said. He is studying use of the GIFT technique in about 20 countries but believes many other countries also are using it.

The Vatican’s apparent stamp of approval has not immediately brought him acclaim, except among reporters who bombarded his office with telephone calls Wednesday, Asch said. He already has a nine-month waiting list for the GIFT procedure.

Asch pioneered the technique while at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio. He moved to Orange County last year and is on the faculty of the UC Irvine medical school.

Asch has also employed the GIFT technique using donated eggs to impregnate women who have been unable to produce eggs of their own because of premature menopause. The donated egg technique, Asch said Monday, does not have the Vatican’s approval.