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February 28, 2005
Adventures in Baby-Making
The Catholic Bishops of Croatia have succeeded in putting off government legislation on medically assisted reproduction that would have permitted donation of human ova and embryos. In a highly effective brochure, the church leaders combined arguments from faith and reason to defeat the measure.
In a Feb 4 news conference on the brochure, the bishops explained that IVF is “a serious crime against conceived human lives and their dignity”. They explained in their brochure that scientific facts reveal that there is a massive loss of life associated with the procedures since for every child born through the procedure some 10-25 embryonic children are either killed or frozen indefinitely. The bishops noted that if 15,000 children were born through the procedure in Croatia, "then we should seriously think about the fate of 285,000 brothers and sisters who died, killed or frozen.”
In Spain, approval of an embryo-adoption program
Two Italian couples from the Pope John XXIII Association will be among the next group of patients to sign up to the programme, although the Catholic church bans assisted reproduction techniques such as IVF.
Father Oreste Benzi, president of the association, is calling on his followers to join the programme in order to save the frozen embryos. "The women who have agreed to join this project are not doing so because they want their own children, but to save human beings who would otherwise be murdered," he said. "Members of our community have selflessly offered to have embryos implanted so each of them can save a life."
Posted by Amy Welborn | Permalink
Comments
Wow. Now that's putting your money where your mouth is. Very selfless.
Posted by: Colleen at Feb 28, 2005 9:42:11 AM
That's a great idea... how do we start programs like that here?
Posted by: +veritas+ at Feb 28, 2005 11:45:51 AM
Yikes! This is scary stuff- the very stuff that divides otherwise right-minded, prolife, well-intentioned Catholics everywhere. We have no business implanting embryos-- any embryos-- in the wombs of women they don't belong to. You have a right to use your reproductive organs to produce children ONLY THROUGH YOUR SPOUSE and ONLY THROUGH NATURAL INTERCOURSE.
Of course the situation is absurd- the very fact that these embryos exsit in their current state is tragic and absurd, but we will not improve the situation with further evil. It all sounds nice and kind of feels good to talk about, but for the same reasons that IVF is wrong, this so-called "embryo adoption" is wrong. The Vatican has yet to speak clearly on this particular issue, but it's a slippery slope, folks.
Posted by: Bella at Feb 28, 2005 11:56:41 AM
Well said Bella.
Posted by: Maria Ashwell at Feb 28, 2005 12:02:24 PM
Bella,
I agree with your concerns. What do we do w/all the embryos, however? Should they be preserved in perpetuity in their present state? Should they be allowed to die and then buried properly? Do we force the natural mothers to implant them all--not a realistic proposal. I don't think we should allow scientific experiments on them, believe me. But, I still don't know what we are to do. This is the moral dilemma created by "scientific 'progress' at all costs."
Posted by: Peggy at Feb 28, 2005 12:04:18 PM
Bella, I'm not sure this is a slippery slope - any more than, say, adopting born babies who were conceived in fornication constitutes some sort of slippery slope toward approval of fornication. And when you read what the Vatican has said - especially in Donum Vitae - about in vitro fertilization and surrogacy and the like, it does seem that some pretty careful distinctions are made, so as not to teach that the specific acts involved in embryo adoption are evil.
Posted by: Kevin Miller at Feb 28, 2005 2:13:26 PM
Embryo adoption is problematic not only because the embryos are formed outside the marital act, but because maintaining them in a frozen state, which obstructs their natural development, would seem itself to be an ongoing abuse.
Maybe implanting a frozen embryo in a willing surrogate is a licit option to simply letting the embryo die.
But is keeping embryos frozen in the hope that a surrogate may one day become available licit? Or is it formal cooperation with the evil of suspending the embryos' development?
Posted by: Rick at Feb 28, 2005 3:05:39 PM
Snowflakes Embryo Adoption Program started in 1997 in Fullerton.
There is also the National Embryo Adoption Center at Knoxville’s Baptist Hospital for Women.
These websites indicate that there are about 400,000 embryos in cryo-storage available for adoption.
An brief article on embryo adoptio in India mentioned that this allows Muslim and Christian couples to "adopt," which is generally illegal in India (perhaps out of concern that Hindu childen would be adopted and converted to other religions). This embryon adoption process bypass all the legal structure of adopting already born children and is instead considered legally as a medical treatment.
Posted by: Zhou De-Ming at Feb 28, 2005 8:44:15 PM
Very tricky issue. At the John Paul II Institute, pretty much a center for orthodoxy on these issues, our professors are divided. I tend to believe it is a slippery slope. Embryo adoption participates in a false way of carrying through a conception. The integrity of the act has already been violated. The environment of a mother's womb is so intimate, and shapes the child from the beginning... adoption is possible after birth partly because it is not as intimate, the child is living on its own already.
Posted by: Sara at Mar 1, 2005 10:04:11 AM
Interesting that even serious orthodox Catholic moralits ar divided on this issue. I'd like to learn more.
Unquestionably the creation of these embryonic human beings was immoral. What I don't see is, how could placing them into a nurturant and protective environment (a mother's body) to secure their survival and development, be an additional immorality?
(Assuming of course that the volunteer gestational mother has her husband's consent, and in no way approved or caused or will cause more embryos to be abusively created?)
It would seem to me to be analogous to an organ donation, i.e. the adoptive mother is donating her womb (and her whole self: as we know, pregnant women are comprehensively involved) --- to the benefit of the child, and in a way that shows real maternal virtue, does (as far as I can see) no harm to the unity of her marriage and family (since it is a kind of adoption) and is not exploitative-- again, as far as I can see.
But I'm open to other views. Comments?
Posted by: Julianne Wiley at Mar 1, 2005 4:01:45 PM
Julianne,
I think you are right, and the Church has increasingly endorsed your position.
Some moralists (eg, Msgr William Smith) have argued that the placement of a frozen embryo in the womb of an adoptive mother is itself a violation of Donum Vitae, a participation in the sundering of the marital act. But I think recent statements from the Pontifical Academy of Life indicate this view has been rejected, and embryo implantation in an adoptive mother is not an intrinsic evil.
However, it may still be imprudent to allow this, as it may very well encourage more embryos to be abusively created.
Also, keeping an embryo frozen, and thus obstructing its natural development, is also an evil, and an ongoing one.
Is it licit to tolerate this evil for a certain time, in hope of finding a willing adoptive mother?
Or does the embryo have a right to be unfrozen, to have its development unthwarted, even though in the absence of a an adoptive mother this will lead to its death?
Here is a Zenit interview with two Spanish bioethicists which addresses some of these questions.
Posted by: Rick at Mar 2, 2005 10:06:46 AM
