Abstract

In this paper, I will argue that heterologous embryo transfer (HET) is malum in se because it involves a disordered use of a woman’s gestative faculty. Against most HET opponents, I will argue for and defend the distinction between the generative faculty or procreation and the gestative faculty or gestation, grounded in St. Thomas Aquinas’s explanation for how faculties are distinguished. Against the advocates of HET, I will argue that a thorough analysis of the gestative faculty and its natural object will help us to demonstrate why HET constitutes a disordered (and therefore illicit) use of a woman’s gestative faculty.