Adopt frozen embryos? Arguments pro and con

In vitro fertilization, or IVF — the joining of human eggs and sperm in the laboratory to create embryos that are frozen for future implantation into the uterus — is used increasingly in some otherwise infertile women. Many of these frozen embryos are never implanted. There is no registry of abandoned embryos, but it is believed they number in the hundreds of thousands or millions.

The Church, recognizing the inherent dignity of the life possessed by the embryo and the goodness of marriage as “the one blessing not forfeited by original sin nor washed away by the flood,” has struggled to form a response to the needs of these abandoned human beings. 

The Church has always seen IVF as opposed to the dignity of the human person because it makes the potential child a product of technology instead of the fruit of an act of love. It points to the freezing of embryos as another indignity to which IVF submits the human person. “The thousands of abandoned embryos represent a situation of injustice which in fact cannot be resolved,” states Dignitas Personae, a 2008 instruction on certain bioethical questions by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. 

Some faithful Catholic theologians argue that there is currently no ethical solution except to preserve the embryos in their frozen state; others argue in favor of some form of adoption of the embryos.

Those opposed to embryo adoption argue that Dignitas Personae has stated authoritatively that the problem “cannot be resolved.” They say seeking pregnancy outside of sexual relations within marriage is intrinsically evil and violates the marital bond.

Those favoring embryo adoption argue that Dignitas Personae did not rule out embryo adoption but rather was responding to the problem’s then-current status. Presuming that the question is still open, they approach it from the perspective of the abandoned child: the grave evil of IVF is not primarily against the dignity of marriage but against the dignity and rights of the child, who has been abandoned and removed from his or her family and society by the very technological act that brought him or her into existence. The solution, they go on, is simple: the embryo can be adopted. 

Adoption establishes a real relationship of child to parent, the argument continues. An adopted child has a natural right to be sheltered and nourished by his or her parents. In the case of an embryo, this can take place only in the mother’s womb. The Church teaches that marriage is directed to the procreation and raising of children. Implanting the embryo is a fulfillment of the parents’ obligation to raise the child and is neither an attempt to procreate illicitly nor to violate the marriage bond.

The Holy See has shown no indication of giving an authoritative teaching on this issue anytime soon. Catholics are free to follow their own (well-formed) consciences.