What, in the church's position, should be done with snowflake babies?

[lady_arwen]

I was listening to Catholic Answers last night, and Father Thad was on the show discussing embryonic stem cell research, human cloning, snowflake babies, etc. Father Thad said that he believes, in the case of the snowflake babies, or frozen embryos left over from fertility clinics adopted and implanted into another woman’s womb, that such in vitro fertilization is always wrong, but that the church hasn’t made a definitive decision about the case of the snowflake babies. I know that how they got here is wrong, and in vitro fertilization is wrong because it interferes with God’s natural design, but still they are human beings and it’s also wrong to discard them and I was just wondering, exactly what does the Catholic Church feel should be done with these embryos?

 

[Newbie2]

The answer is…there is no answer for this problem yet.

The only definitive thing we know is that it’s morally wrong to toss them out. As to the morality of implanting them into a recipient; methinks that’s likely to be the only morally acceptable option for these embryos.

 

[SuscipeMeDomine]

The latest document on this topic is “Instruction Dignitas Personae on Certain Bioethical Questions.” Source]

It says, in part:

1. With regard to the large number of frozen embryos already in existence the question becomes: what to do with them? Some of those who pose this question do not grasp its ethical nature, motivated as they are by laws in some countries that require cryopreservation centers to empty their storage tanks periodically. Others, however, are aware that a grave injustice has been perpetrated and wonder how best to respond to the duty of resolving it.

Proposals to use these embryos for research or for the treatment of disease are obviously unacceptable because they treat the embryos as mere “biological material” and result in their destruction. The proposal to thaw such embryos without reactivating them and use them for research, as if they were normal cadavers, is also unacceptable.[37]

The proposal that these embryos could be put at the disposal of infertile couples as a treatment for infertility is not ethically acceptable for the same reasons which make artificial heterologous procreation illicit as well as any form of surrogate motherhood;[38] this practice would also lead to other problems of a medical, psychological and legal nature.

**It has also been proposed, solely in order to allow human beings to be born who are otherwise condemned to destruction, that there could be a form of “prenatal adoption”. This proposal, praiseworthy with regard to the intention of respecting and defending human life, presents however various problems not dissimilar to those mentioned above.

All things considered, it needs to be recognized that the thousands of abandoned embryos represent a situation of injustice which in fact cannot be resolved. Therefore John Paul II made an “appeal to the conscience of the world’s scientific authorities and in particular to doctors, that the production of human embryos be halted, taking into account that there seems to be no morally licit solution regarding the human destiny of the thousands and thousands of ‘frozen’ embryos which are and remain the subjects of essential rights and should therefore be protected by law as human persons”.**[39]

 

[Ron_Conte]

These frozen embryos are human persons deserving of life. Life begins at conception and these frozen embryos are conceived, so they have souls. Killing them is gravely immoral.

Keeping these embryos frozen results in their eventual death, since they have a limited ability to remain viable while frozen. So if we do nothing, they die.

The only way to save their lives is through surrogate mothering (implanting them in the womb). This type of surrogate mothering is not the type described and rightly condemned by the Holy See (where someone is hired for money, where the child is not then raised by the womb who bore the child, where in vitro fertilization is used in formal cooperation with the surrogate mothering). This type of surrogate mothering of abandoned frozen embryos is not intrinsically evil. And the above cited document states that the intention is good. And so as long as the good done in the consequences (saving lives), outweighs any harm done, the act is moral.

And since doing nothing results in their deaths, we are morally obligated to act; to do nothing would be a sin of omission.

 

[Newbie2]

And so as long as the good done in the consequences (saving lives), outweighs any harm done, the act is moral.

.

Careful, Ron. While I understand what you’re saying, others might misinterpret your explanation as relativistic.

 

[BobCatholic]

One thing that is a concern: IVF is immoral.

Is IVF intrinsically evil? If yes, then it can never be done, period.

One cannot do evil so that good can be done of it.