embryo adoption
Question from Lisa Morris on 7/5/2008:
Dear Judie, What is the Church teaching on frozen embryos. I have been told that it is church teaching that they can't be adopted by others. What does the church say to do with the embryos that are already in exsistence, but not wanted by the couple.
Answer by Judie Brown on 7/6/2008:
Dear Lisa
the Church teaches that each and every human embryo is a human being. On the specific question of care and adoption of frozen embryos who are no longer wanted by their parents, there is an excellent article written by Vatican theologian Maurizio P. Faggioni, O.F.M. which states, in part:
"If the mother of an embryo cannot be located or should she refuse the transfer, certain authors, among whom are some Catholics, have considered the possibility of transferring the embryos into another woman. This would be a case of "prenatal adoption" to be distinguished from surrogate motherhood and heterologous fertilization with a donor oocyte. In this case there would be no offense to matrimonial unity, nor to the equilibrium of familial relationships, because the embryo would have, from the genetic standpoint, the same relationship to both adoptive parents. The stronger and more profound bonding which would occur between a child adopted before birth and his adoptive parents ought to lessen the psychological difficulties which at times are seen in traditional adoptions. Moreover, such a solution would highlight the significance of adoption as an expression of the fecundity of marital love and as fruit of a generous openness to life which leads spouses to welcome into their family children whose parents have died or who have been abandoned (, nn. 14, 41; , n. 93), above all in those cases where it is a question of children abandoned because of disabilities or illnesses (, n. 63).
"This solution, suggested as an to save embryos abandoned to certain death, has the merit of taking seriously the value of the embryo's life, found in such jeopardy, and of courageously accepting the challenge of cryopreservation. It seeks to check the evil effects of a disordered situation; however, the disordered situation itself within which ethical reason must enter to function in this case profoundly colours the attempts at a solution. In fact, there are serious questions which cannot be concealed: in the first place, the fear that such a singular adoption might not be able to avoid the dehumanizing criteria of efficiency which govern the technology of artificial reproduction. Is it possible to exclude all forms of selection? Is it possible to avoid the situation in which embryos are produced in order to be adopted? Is it possible to foresee a transparent relationship between those centres which illicitly produce embryos and those in which they are licitly transferred into adoptive mothers? Do we not run the risk of legitimizing and even promoting, unwittingly and paradoxically, a new form of objectification and manipulation of human embryos, and more generally, of the human person?
"In the case of frozen embryos we have a powerful example of the inextricable labyrinths into which scientific knowledge imprisons itself when it is placed at the service of individual interests rather than the authentic good of humanity, at the service of desire only and not reason. Faced with the gravity of these questions, questions of life and death, Christians sense more than ever the mission entrusted to them by the Lord to proclaim the , and so they are-committed, together with all persons of good will, to respond with solutions to the emerging problems which, if necessary, will be daring, but which will always respect the value of the human person and his inherent rights, above all when it is a question of the rights of the weakest and the least."
(http://www.ewtn.com/library/PROLIFE/FROZEMBR.TXT)
Lisa, the obvious answer is to outlaw IVF. The CHurch condemns it, and while we should do all we can to save the babies already created in this process, the only way to stave off the "brave new world" before us is to outlaw it once and for all.
Judie Brown
Question from Lisa Morris on 7/5/2008:
Dear Judie, What is the Church teaching on frozen embryos. I have been told that it is church teaching that they can't be adopted by others. What does the church say to do with the embryos that are already in exsistence, but not wanted by the couple.
Answer by Judie Brown on 7/6/2008:
Dear Lisa
the Church teaches that each and every human embryo is a human being. On the specific question of care and adoption of frozen embryos who are no longer wanted by their parents, there is an excellent article written by Vatican theologian Maurizio P. Faggioni, O.F.M. which states, in part:
"If the mother of an embryo cannot be located or should she refuse the transfer, certain authors, among whom are some Catholics, have considered the possibility of transferring the embryos into another woman. This would be a case of "prenatal adoption" to be distinguished from surrogate motherhood and heterologous fertilization with a donor oocyte. In this case there would be no offense to matrimonial unity, nor to the equilibrium of familial relationships, because the embryo would have, from the genetic standpoint, the same relationship to both adoptive parents. The stronger and more profound bonding which would occur between a child adopted before birth and his adoptive parents ought to lessen the psychological difficulties which at times are seen in traditional adoptions. Moreover, such a solution would highlight the significance of adoption as an expression of the fecundity of marital love and as fruit of a generous openness to life which leads spouses to welcome into their family children whose parents have died or who have been abandoned (, nn. 14, 41; , n. 93), above all in those cases where it is a question of children abandoned because of disabilities or illnesses (, n. 63).
"This solution, suggested as an to save embryos abandoned to certain death, has the merit of taking seriously the value of the embryo's life, found in such jeopardy, and of courageously accepting the challenge of cryopreservation. It seeks to check the evil effects of a disordered situation; however, the disordered situation itself within which ethical reason must enter to function in this case profoundly colours the attempts at a solution. In fact, there are serious questions which cannot be concealed: in the first place, the fear that such a singular adoption might not be able to avoid the dehumanizing criteria of efficiency which govern the technology of artificial reproduction. Is it possible to exclude all forms of selection? Is it possible to avoid the situation in which embryos are produced in order to be adopted? Is it possible to foresee a transparent relationship between those centres which illicitly produce embryos and those in which they are licitly transferred into adoptive mothers? Do we not run the risk of legitimizing and even promoting, unwittingly and paradoxically, a new form of objectification and manipulation of human embryos, and more generally, of the human person?
"In the case of frozen embryos we have a powerful example of the inextricable labyrinths into which scientific knowledge imprisons itself when it is placed at the service of individual interests rather than the authentic good of humanity, at the service of desire only and not reason. Faced with the gravity of these questions, questions of life and death, Christians sense more than ever the mission entrusted to them by the Lord to proclaim the , and so they are-committed, together with all persons of good will, to respond with solutions to the emerging problems which, if necessary, will be daring, but which will always respect the value of the human person and his inherent rights, above all when it is a question of the rights of the weakest and the least."
(http://www.ewtn.com/library/PROLIFE/FROZEMBR.TXT)
Lisa, the obvious answer is to outlaw IVF. The CHurch condemns it, and while we should do all we can to save the babies already created in this process, the only way to stave off the "brave new world" before us is to outlaw it once and for all.
Judie Brown
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