man a person, is created immediately by God at the very moment when life begins (CCC 366). The exceedingly serious responsibility of transmitting human life makes spouses “free and conscious collaborators of God the Creator” (Humanae vitae). There is no natural human act through which human beings so directly, mysteriously, and authentically cooperate in the creative work of God than the act of transmitting life. As Pope John Paul II says: “At the beginning of every human person there stands a creative