Embryo Adoption

  • Thread starter Thread starter tm30
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
T

tm30

Guest
What is the Church’s position on embryo adoption since it involves IVF? It’s a heartbreaking dilemma to know that a child can be saved, but one cannot use “evil” to achieve a “good”.

Is there a possibility that dispensations could be given under such circumstances?
 
I would be afraid to go there.:hmmm: Although I would love to save all the babies sitting in tubes. If we start that someone will start an “adoption business” with men and women “selling” there sperm and eggs and we would end up having the first human baby factory customized babies to order(sounds weird but so did cloning!):bigyikes:
 
I believe the church forbids ‘adoption’ of surplus embryos. I can think of a few reasons:
  1. This would implicitly condon the production of in-vitro fertilization embryos
  2. This would involve implantation into the womb by a doctor rather than the fostering of life via marriage.
It’s like what the allies did at the end of WWII when they discovered the research results from the atrocities carried out against the Jews. In order to NOT condon in any way what had happened, the research was burned. It could have saved many people, but the method (EVIL) cannot be used to produce an eventual GOOD.
 
Maybe if we compared this to conventional adoption some light may show.

First, in the vast majority of cases, adoption candidates are the result of sinful behavior or situations that are dysfunctional. While the parents can have various levels of culpability in the behavior and or dysfunction, the child is always innocent… The same is true for in-vitro.

Second, I am certain that adoptive parents do not approve of the behaviors that caused the adoption to be necessary. Adoptive parents are saviors of children in desperate straits. The same is true for in-vitro.

So, with in-vitro, we are faced with the same scenario; sinful behavior and children in bad straits.

If life begins at conception (and as such, parenthood), why does it matter on what side of the cervix the adoption takes place?

The choice is either allow the frozen children to die or give them a shot at life with loving parents. Almost like conventional adoption.

The Church has not definitively decided this particular point, (in-vitro adoption) although she has decided surrogate motherhood. Good intentioned and holy people can disagree here and be in full communion.

Should this situation exist at all? NO.

In-vitro fertilization is intrinsically evil and wrong. In-vitro adoption is not so clear.

It is not an evil means to achieve a good. The evil means is independent of the good act since each party is independent and has no knowledge of the other. The children are here and alive. In the here and now. The act that produced them was objectively sinful but the result (the child) is not. The act of the third party (adoptive parents) is independent of the act of the in-vitro parents and is an extraordinary rescue from a desperate situation.

It is a good act (in-vitro adoption) that no more approves IVF than conventional adoption approves pre-martial sex.
 
good question and responses, I was wondering about this too!
 
Here’s information from the EWTN web site regarding this matter:

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).

Here’s the whole document:
www.ewtn.com/library/PROLIFE/FROZEMBR.txt
 
I would have to agree with the previous post, recieving the embryo to have a child should be alright, otherwise, what would become of the embroy.
 
I see nothing wrong in adopting an embryo since an embryo is a human being just like everyone else.
it’s not the adopting parent’s desire to create an embryo without sex so it’s not condoning heterologous fertilization.

nothing evil in achieving good here
 
Didi said:
Here’s information from the EWTN web site regarding this matter:

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).

Here’s the whole document:
www.ewtn.com/library/PROLIFE/FROZEMBR.txt
Click to expand...
I’ve never seen this document before. It is very thought provoking.
 
Even though I agree with the Church about in vitro fertilization and artificial insemination, I can’t see what could possibly be wrong with adopting an embryo that is already created. Of course, the woman’s husband would have to be in total agreement that this is the right thing to do.

This would be an adopted child. They would simply be getting the child at a lot earlier stage than they normally would. Since the woman would actually be carrying the child in her body, she would probably feel closer to it than an adoptive parent would normally feel.

You just can’t have it both ways. It may have been wrong to create these embryos, but once they are created, the Church considers them real human beings! Why would you want to suck them down a sink (borrowing a statement from Dr. Laura) rather than find a woman who is willing to provide her uterus to let them live? Since these are already human beings, this would not be like receiving another man’s sperm.

In the old days, when a woman couldn’t nurse her baby, she had to find a “wet nurse” who could breast feed the baby so the baby wouldn’t die. Are there people here who think this was so weird that the baby should have died instead? I think that we have a similar situation when it comes to embryos destined to be dead or forever frozen unless someone adopts them.

Anyway, I was listening to Catholic Radio one day, and my understanding is that the Church doesn’t have an “official” position on this question. I personally think that common sense should prevail.
 
Listener said:
Anyway, I was listening to Catholic Radio one day, and my understanding is that the Church doesn’t have an “official” position on this question. I personally think that common sense should prevail.
Click to expand...
“Two wrongs don’t make it right” - my problem is that in participating in IVF or artificial insemination we would be complicit in an inherently evil action in the effort to do good, which as far as I know, the Church says is morally impossible.
I await the Church’s opinion…:confused:
 
tm30 said:
What is the Church’s position on embryo adoption since it involves IVF? It’s a heartbreaking dilemma to know that a child can be saved, but one cannot use “evil” to achieve a “good”.

Is there a possibility that dispensations could be given under such circumstances?
Click to expand...
Just a few months ago I heard a talk at my university by a priest who works in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (so cool–he worked for 10 years under former Cardinal Ratzinger, has travelled with him all over–the pope knows him by name!), and he was asked what life-related issues they are currently dealing with. Embryo adoption was one of them, and he was *very *ambivalent, saying that it was one of those things the Church had to take a long, hard look at before pronouncing any official judgment. Perhaps in the next 5-10 years or so there will be some kind of document released?

The circumstances in which the embryos were created were evil, but the children who resulted are undeniably good. They themselves are suffering the evil of ‘suspended animation’…trapped at only a few days old with no prospects for living the lives God has intended for them in the near future. It’s a sad (and very scary) situation, and a very tricky one to deal with from the Church’s perspective.

One would have to be very sure that they were ‘rescuing’ the embryos and not cooperating in the evil of IVF, and it could begin a slippery slope kind of thing. But perhaps dispensations, where circumstances were judged on a case-by-case basis, would be a good option? Embryo adoption is already very rare, and this would prevent the floodgates from opening on the IVF issue, I would think.
 
Yep, I heard on Relevant Radio recently, within the last month, that the Church has NOT “officially” gone one way or the other regarding embryo adoptions. It’s something that is being discussed by Church theologians. There are some that are for embryo adoptions and some that are against embryo adoptions. They both have very good points to back up their position.

According to what I heard on the radio couples are free to decide if adopting an embryo is something that is “right” for them. Of course the couple is encourage to pray about it, learn about it, seek counsel about it, and really discern if this is what God wants from them before they make the decision.

I tried going to relevantradio.com too see if I could find an audio archive for the show I heard it on. But I couldn’t find it. I know that I heard it while being in the car. Since I was in the car I know that it was either on “Morning Air” or on “The Drew Mariani Show”.
 
IVF is morally illicit because is violates the rights of the child to be the product of the loving procreation between parents, not the outcome of a laboratory process. It is inherently beneath the dignity of humanity and subtly devalues life. Furthermore, the process as a result of its artificial nature results in a high percentage of immediate failure to implant. Since this failure is foreseeable and probable, it is not permissible. Finally, the process typically involves attempts to implant multiples for this reason and then abortion for any ‘surplus’ children that successfully implant.

None of the above problems result from adoption of an existing embryo when done from a desire to save said child from certain ‘disposal’ (i.e. death). A couple who opted to adopt a child slated for killing would bear no responsibility for that child’s creation, could not be accused of encouraging the creation for their willingness to adopt (unless you accuse ‘normal’ adoptive parents of encouraging fornication!), they’d be innocent of the death of any that failed to implant since they are attempting a rescue and aren’t the cause of the child being in the predicament in the first place, and finally they would only be morally able to implant as many as she is willing to bear. This addresses all of the normal objections to IVF.

However, there is another wrinkle. Our sexuality is rather complex, as you may have noticed! The pregnancy of a woman with a child not her own might have a destructive effect on the relationship of man and wife that cannot entirely be waved away with rationality and reason. The smart and holy guys are still pondering.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top