Matt C. Abbott
The frozen embryo dilemma
By Matt C. Abbott
One interesting aspect of the recently-published Vatican document Dignitas Personae deals with the situation of — tragedy is a more appropriate term, actually — frozen embryos.
I asked bioethics expert Msgr. Ignacio Barreiro Carámbula, a resident of Rome and an associate of Father Tom Euteneuer, to elaborate on this subject.
Msgr. Barreiro wrote (with minor edits):
Wrote Mrs. Brown:
One interesting aspect of the recently-published Vatican document Dignitas Personae deals with the situation of — tragedy is a more appropriate term, actually — frozen embryos.
I asked bioethics expert Msgr. Ignacio Barreiro Carámbula, a resident of Rome and an associate of Father Tom Euteneuer, to elaborate on this subject.
Msgr. Barreiro wrote (with minor edits):
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'The teachings of Instruction Dignitas Personae are very clear with regards to the situation of frozen embryos.
'The starting point is the strong condemnation of this practice. The document states: 'Cryopreservation is incompatible with the respect owed to human embryos; it presupposes their production in vitro; it exposes them to the serious risk of death or physical harm, since a high percentage does not survive the process of freezing and thawing; it deprives them at least temporarily of maternal reception and gestation; it places them in a situation in which they are susceptible to further offense and manipulation.'
'As a consequence the document pointedly asks, what can we do with those frozen embryos? And it proceeds to analyze diverse possibilities.
'1. It would be against their human dignity to use them for research. '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.'
'2. They cannot be used as treatment for infertility for the same reasons that heterologous procreation is illicit. '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; this practice would also lead to other problems of a medical, psychological and legal nature.'
'3. They cannot be adopted in the womb. '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.'
'These norms of the instruction give an answer to a long standing debate between Catholic moral theologians and bioethicists. There were Catholic authors who thought it was morally acceptable for a woman to adopt in her womb a frozen embryo. These authors were of the view that a woman, through this gesture of extreme generosity, would allow an embryo to be rescued from the status of stunted development so it would grow and mature. But there are those like me who believe it is anti-natural for a woman to receive in her womb an embryo conceived by someone else. On several occasions I insisted that it was in accordance with nature for a woman to gestate her own conceived babies — not alien babies with whom she did not have any biological relationship. In my view, it is against the natural law for a woman to receive in her womb a baby not her own.
'Also, I noted that if the Church would deem the adoption of embryos in the womb to be in accordance with the natural law, such adoptions could take place only in very limited circumstances. It would have to be a married woman. It would have to be with the permission of her husband. And it could be done only by an infertile couple, as fertile couples have the obligation of conceiving their own children. If you are bound to do a certain good, you are not entitled to do a good which would impede you from doing the primary good to which you are obliged. In other words, a married fertile couple has to conceive, and the woman to gestate, their own children. A woman could not use her womb to adopt embryos when doing as such would impede her of conceiving and gestating her own children.
'Thus, I am very glad the Magisterium has decided that it is not permissible to adopt babies in the womb.
'We are in a situation that, as the document points out, is very deplorable: '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.' We cannot defreeze them because it would cause their death, so the only solution is to wait until death arrives for them in a natural way.
'In conclusion, we have an objective situation of injustice created by the ones who have artificially conceived these embryos, but we do not have a way of solving this injustice for the embryos that are currently frozen. What we can to do is to engage ourselves in a serious campaign to stop the source of this injustice: We have to use all moral and legal means to bring to an end artificial conception.'
Wrote Mrs. Brown:
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'As you know, I have been an advocate of embryo adoption, but frankly, when I sit down and think through what this new document states, I am left agreeing with it.
'I would have to say, in all honesty, that based on the text of Donum Vitae, which is now 21-years-old, there is nothing else that the Vatican could say on this subject. First and foremost, though the world waxes cold to it, the truth is that IVF is gravely immoral and unethical. What the practice has literally created is a mentality of farming children in order to weed out the undesirables, have spares in waiting in case a cycle fails and so forth.
'This commodification of children has led, as the Holy Father said years ago, to a grave injustice. Now that this document has come out, there will be complaints about what it states regarding the fate of these embryonic children, but the real question is, why are they there? Why were they produced/manufactured? The answers to those questions support the Church teaching that IVF should never be practiced. If society had listened to the Church years ago, this question would not now be upon us.
'Each of those frozen embryos is a person; each deserves to be taken home by their own parents and each deserves to have a home, that is, if they survive the thawing process. What's wrong with their parents? These parents have indeed orphaned their own children because their self interest has been satisfied and, to my mind, they could care less about their children yet to be welcomed into the family, yet to be given a chance at life. This is not the Church's fault.
'This is the result of a cultural attitude that denigrates the worth and dignity of the being.'
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