Ex-Chicago physician wants to open reproductive center faithful to Catholic doctrine.
The first time Dr. Anthony Caruso saw life created in a petri dish, it brought tears to his eyes. Once one of Chicago’s leading reproductive endocrinologists, he guesses that he helped more than 1,000 children come into the world.
But two years ago, he walked away from his practice and into a confessional at St. John Cantius Roman Catholic Church to repent. Reproductive technology had gone too far, he said, and he could not practice the same kind of medicine anymore.
“We see babies in our Catholic faith as children of God,” said Caruso, 48, of Lombard. “What doesn’t get thought about is the process that brought the babies to be.”
Caruso, now a doctor at Alexian Brothers Medical Center in Elk Grove Village, has proposed opening the St. Anne Center for Reproductive Health.
It would be one of a handful of clinics in the U.S. that helps couples struggling to have children within the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services. It would not offer in vitro fertilization (IVF), artificial insemination or certain medicines often prescribed as a course of treatment. It also would be the only center in the nation run by a board-certified reproductive endocrinologist.
Caruso acknowledges that the success rates of measures compatible with church teachings are lower than what advanced reproductive technology can offer. Furthermore, doctors almost always try to accommodate a patient’s religious convictions. But Caruso and other proponents of natural family planning say many fertility practices tend to treat infertility rather than treat the underlying condition of which infertility is a symptom.
