This kid belongs to somebody at The Pillar.
Hey everybody,
Today the White House urged U.S. employers to create new fertility benefit plans covering in vitro fertilization, as it announced a deal to lower the price for some IVF-specific drug regimens.
It should be no surprise that at The Pillar we’re not going to offer IVF benefits to our employees — and we never will — because in vitro fertilization is contrary to human dignity and gravely immoral, and the Church teaches exactly that.
But the White House announcement did prompt a conversation between Ed and me.
At The Pillar, we already offer indefinite paid maternity leave. When the subject has come up — and it has come up more than once — our policy is just to keep the paychecks going out, and let paid maternity leave end whenever a new mom is ready to get back to work.
But the subject of infertility, which the White House aimed to address today, is a familiar one to both Ed and me. Both of us spent years praying alongside our wives for children, well before they actually came. Both our marriages have been blessed by children, but only in God’s time.
And so today we talked about the desire behind the White House announcement about IVF — a desire, however disordered, to support couples experiencing infertility.
Here’s the truth: Catholic apostolates, Catholic institutions, and Catholic employers should lead the way on that kind of support. And we should show that it can be done the right way.
The purpose of an economy is to support human flourishing, not maximal profit, and that means supporting family life.
So today Ed and I made something of a moral commitment — our very small part for the Gospel of Life.
However big The Pillar’s newsroom gets, and however many employees we have, we committed today to paying 75% of all employee family adoption costs, and of the costs for all fertility treatment undertaken in accord with the doctrine of the Church.
But we’re not writing to say how awesome we are.
We’re writing because if you’re a diocesan bishop, a pastor, an apostolate leader, or a Catholic leading a business, we want to encourage you, strongly, to do the same thing. To make the same pledge. To be in on the Gospel of Life.
This is just an email for that: Let’s make a pledge to the Gospel of Life.
It’s not enough for us to say “no” to things like IVF. Let’s help families say “yes” to life.
And if you’re an employee at a Catholic workplace, we want to support you in asking your boss/bishop/pastor to make the same commitment. We think it’s the least they can do.
That is all. Thanks for reading.
In Christ,
JD and Ed
