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Question Title Posted By Question Date
Adopting Embryos Camile Sunday, February 1, 2009

Question:

My Friends couldn't concieve a child naturally so they started to look at adoption options. Through their search they discovered a process where people had gone through invitro and ended up with "spare" embryos and nolonger wanted them. These embryos were now adoptable. So my friends adopted two of these unwanted embryos, she carried them to birth and now they have two beautiful children.

I know that invitro is not according to the churches teachings. How does the church look upon the adoption of these unwanted embryos. Though they came to be in a way that is not right, it is not good thing for a woman to "adopt" these embryos and give them a chance at life rather than them being destroyed?

Just wondering?



Question Answered by Bro. Ignatius Mary, OLSM

Dear Camile:

Well I praise God for these two children, but artificial insemination is a grave sin. There can be no moral justification for it. In addition to the fact that the procedures involve killing babies to facilitate a live birth the very idea of it is morally unacceptable as outlined by the Church in the following quote from the Catechism:

2376 Techniques that entail the dissociation of husband and wife, by the intrusion of a person other than the couple (donation of sperm or ovum, surrogate uterus), are gravely immoral. These techniques (heterologous artificial insemination and fertilization) infringe the child's right to be born of a father and mother known to him and bound to each other by marriage. They betray the spouses' "right to become a father and a mother only through each other."

2377 Techniques involving only the married couple (homologous artificial insemination and fertilization) are perhaps less reprehensible, yet remain morally unacceptable. They dissociate the sexual act from the procreative act. The act which brings the child into existence is no longer an act by which two persons give themselves to one another, but one that "entrusts the life and identity of the embryo into the power of doctors and biologists and establishes the domination of technology over the origin and destiny of the human person. Such a relationship of domination is in itself contrary to the dignity and equality that must be common to parents and children." "Under the moral aspect procreation is deprived of its proper perfection when it is not willed as the fruit of the conjugal act, that is to say, of the specific act of the spouses' union . . . . Only respect for the link between the meanings of the conjugal act and respect for the unity of the human being make possible procreation in conformity with the dignity of the person."

2378 A child is not something owed to one, but is a gift. The "supreme gift of marriage" is a human person. A child may not be considered a piece of property, an idea to which an alleged "right to a child" would lead. In this area, only the child possesses genuine rights: the right "to be the fruit of the specific act of the conjugal love of his parents," and "the right to be respected as a person from the moment of his conception."

2379 The Gospel shows that physical sterility is not an absolute evil. Spouses who still suffer from infertility after exhausting legitimate medical procedures should unite themselves with the Lord's Cross, the source of all spiritual fecundity. They can give expression to their generosity by adopting abandoned children or performing demanding services for others.

The bottonline, therefore, is that the "adopt an embryo" is not morally acceptable and in fact further encourages couples to undergo the invitro fertilization thinking that the "extra" babies will be adopted out. Babies are not commodities and even with such an "adoption" program babies are still killed in the process of artificial insemination.

God Bless,
Bro. Ignatius Mary

 


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