Embryo Adoption: Open for Discussion

Today's post is written by my friend Elizabeth Henderson.  Elizabeth holds a bachelors degree in philosophy from Christendom College and a nursing degree from the University of South Alabama.  She is currently pursuing a masters in bioethics from Holy Apostles College and Seminary.  She has been working as a nurse in the ICU at George Washington University Hospital for four years.  


Thank you, Elizabeth, for sharing your thoughts on such an interesting and sensitive subject!




There is a scene in the Matrix movie where Neo awakes and finds himself in a vast human power plant. He is but one among thousands of captive persons grown in a “fetus field” and sustained in little pods for use by the ruling machines. Sadly, our own reality is much more disturbing than the sci-fi film. In vitro fertilization technology often produces more embryos than are intended for transfer to the womb. Subsequently, hundreds of thousands of embryo-age children are cryopreserved in fertility clinics throughout the world. Their fate is uncertain and ethicists are left scratching their heads. It’s a moral dilemma we were never supposed to have. Catholics are now debating whether or not couples can morally impregnate themselves with these embryonic children and adopt them in this way. Theologians loyal to the Church are divided on this rescue question. I sometimes wonder what options I might have if my [theoretical] marriage suffered from infertility, so this issue really interests me. Heck, even if a couple already had children, what if they searched their hearts and wanted save these abandoned babies?

Catholics do not allow IVF because we believe children ought to receive life through their parents’ physical expression of love, not by the 3^rd party hand of a laboratory technician. We do not allow contraception because it intentionally blocks the procreative element of sexuality. Sperm and egg donation, surrogacy, IVF, etc. is not allowed because it violates the unitive element of sexuality. The marriage bond demands that spouses have the right to become parents only through each other. Obviously, the Church has never taught that adopting children after birth violated any marriage rights. How does becoming pregnant—in and of itself and apart from conception—change the ethics of adoption, if at all?

Some ethicists argue that allowing embryo adoption could worsen the situation. Would it create a market for embryos? Would these babies be sold for a price? Perhaps those dealing in IVF might feel free to create even more “spare” embryos because “somebody else can adopt them, anyway.” Others argue that one cannot thaw a single embryo at a time. How does one choose who will get the chance to live? Then what kind of position are we in?

These are truly legitimate concerns, but do not touch the crux of the matter. Typical adoption and organ donation are fundamentally okay to do even though they are also subject to corruption in many places.  Pretend IVF became illegal tomorrow and strict regulations and precise technology were in place. Yet the leftover embryos remained in liquid nitrogen. Is becoming pregnant with another’s child immoral per se? After all, the adopting parent(s) did not will that the fertilization occur in a test tube. They did not participate in that sin which already occurred. The well-known Catholic principles guiding human reproduction seem to be aimed at the conception of life. Two weeks ago, during a bioethics conference at Christendom College, Dr. Janet E. Smith presented this scenario: Would it be wrong for a woman to gestate her sister’s child while her ill sister received chemotherapy? What if medical science allowed for the baby to be returned after treatment? How could that be immoral? Wet nurses are not outlawed. If one can breastfeed a baby in need, why can’t one offer one’s uterus as well? Paraphrasing Smith’s argument, “I have breasts! I have a womb! Give me that baby!”

“I have breasts! I have a womb! Give me that baby!”

At the same conference, Father Tadeusz Pacholczyk (“Fr. Tad”), a well-known ethicist and educator at the National Catholic Bioethics Center, defended the opposing view. He told me that becoming pregnant through embryo adoption violated the marriage bond by creating an unsymmetrical relationship between husband, wife, and child. Through pregnancy, the woman develops an intimate bond with the child that cannot be shared by the husband. The husband cannot contribute in a substantial way like he would through ordinary conception.

 The conference organizers were quickly whisking Father Tad away, so he didn’t have time to clarify that point to me.  But I did come up with a few problems with it on the drive home. First of all, I suppose then that typical adoption is okay because at least both spouses are equally unrelated to the child? Plus, men and boys get women pregnant all the time. Many of them hardly deserve to be called fathers, and conception may be the only thing they ever contribute to. The real dads (biological or not) are the men bringing home the bacon each day, defending the home, and rocking the colicky baby at 3am. Are those things not substantial offerings? Moreover, is “equal contributions” a concrete principle by which to judge parenthood? How do you define that? Must we keep a dirty diaper tally lest we fall into mortal sin by not contributing equally?

For moral deliberation, pregnancy ought to be considered separate from the conjugal act. These are hard to tear apart in our minds because they are so connected in nature. Yet we are faced with an unnatural dilemma and have to make this evaluation, i.e. the relationship of pregnancy itself to the marital bond, aside from conception.  Father Tad’s camp argues that pregnancy bears a necessary connection to the marital act, and hence all the rules of marital exclusivity applying to sex apply also to pregnancy. I find this presumption unfounded, and it involves blurring the very important distinction between the generation/transmission of human life vs. the nurturing of that life already in existence. We already know that sometimes women can share their specifically feminine gifts with unrelated children (i.e. breastfeeding). Whether those actions involve interior or exterior body parts seems inconsequential. In fact, consider organ donation: If your health or functional integrity will not be endangered, you may give away one of your kidneys. I don’t see a morally significant difference between the sharing of interior and exterior body parts.

Now for the nitty-gritty. In support of embryo adoption, William E. May (another really solid Catholic bioethicist) points out that pregnancy in and of itself is a good kind of thing, even from immoral origins. A fornicating or adulterous woman is not supposed to use contraception. You can morally consider her pregnancy under a different light than her fornication or adultery. This is a side point, but I think it fleshes out the reality that pregnancy and sex can have separate moral evaluations. There’s a book outlining the controversy called Human Embryo Adoption: Biotechnology, Marriage, and the Right to Life that I must read. Father Tad contributed an article, as well as May.

Those opposed to embryo adoption often point to the negative tone of the Church’s document Dignitatis Personae on the matter in 2008. Here, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith makes a distinction and clearly forbids embryo adoption as a treatment for infertility. Obviously, a human being can never be “used” as a means to any end. But what about adopting the embryo for the child’s own sake? This possibility for adoption is addressed separately from fertility treatment and is not completely ruled out. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the President of the Pontifical Academy for Life have both said that embryo adoption remains an open question. I’m pretty sure that the Vatican would have publically corrected them had it wanted us to take a definitive “no” from Dignitatis Personae.  Now, what about Donum Vitae’s condemnation of surrogate pregnancy? This Church document is referring to pregnancy as part of a commercial arrangement, not in terms of true adoption.

Furthermore, even while Dignitatis Personae refers to the cryopreservation of embryos as “a situation of injustice which cannot be resolved” and Blessed John Paul II is quoted saying “there seems to be no morally licit solution,” one could interpret those statements differently. Even if embryo adoption was given the okay and many couples stepped forward, it is unimaginable that every single embryo could be rescued before being killed by freezer burn or discarded. So it’s still true:  we can never fully repair the injury or injustice to this unborn population.  As Father Tad says, our real efforts are needed to stop IVF and prevent the magnification of this very real human tragedy.

Both sides want to protect innocent human life 

AND the sacrosanct intimacy of marriage.

It is hard not to split hairs in this debate. (And yes, the question is still fair game; the Church has not taught definitively one way or another.) Both sides want to protect innocent human life AND the sacrosanct intimacy of marriage. However, with embryo adoption, I see no real opposition between these values. Since the state of pregnancy is distinct from the event of conception, embryo adoption is essentially an adoption like any other. When you read Donum Vitae, Evangelium Vitae, and Dignitatis Personae, the bottom line is always defend life. And that’s what embryo adoption is really all about.

Additional Resources

National Catholic Bioethics Center

Dignitas Personae and the Question of "Embryo Adoption"

National Catholic Bioethics Center

William E. May, “Catholic Bioethics and the Gift of Human Life,” 2^nd ed. Our Sunday Visitor Press.