moral question

[Catholicforlife]

I participate on a lovely board for Catholic women. Someone posed the question “if someone has created embryos to be used in IVF (before they realized the church speaks against that) what is to be done in the eyes of the church with the remaining embryos.” We assume that there is a valid reason why the biological couple can’t implant them. Does the church teach that it is then ok to “adopt” these babies and let another woman carry them so they can live? Does she teach that we should not use extraordinary means to keep them alive and let them die in peace? Or does she say we let them stay frozen as they are. We have gone round and round on this one but we all want to know if the church specifically says what is to be done. We are all faithful Catholic moms and want to hear from our church what the morally correct, Catholic thing to do is.
God bless you
D

 

[Michelle_Arnold]

The Church hasn’t yet decided what can be licitly done in these circumstances. Some moral theologians argue that frozen embryos may be saved by allowing them to be “adopted”; other moral theologians argue that such a course is not licit. Until the Church decides one way or the other, the most we can know are the respective arguments. Here is an overview:

Can Frozen Embryos Be Saved? by Grace MacKinnon

A valuable resource for medical bioethics questions is the National Catholic Bioethics Center.