Is Embryo Adoption Consistent with Catholic Teaching?

The Catholic Church unequivocally affirms that all human beings, from conception to natural death, are made in God’s image, and possess profound, equal, and intrinsic dignity. Biology makes it clear that a new and complete (though immature) human being, distinct from either parent, comes into existence at fertilization, when sperm and egg fuse. Yet there are currently millions of human beings frozen in cryopreservation tanks, the vast majority of whom are likely to languish there indefinitely and eventually die.

These human beings are the “spare” embryos created through in vitro fertilization (IVF), which, at least in the United States, typically attempts to produce as many embryos as possible in each cycle to maximize the chances of success. One couple, for instance, ended up with 29 spare embryos from their IVF cycle—far more than the mother could ever hope to be able to gestate and raise. For those who take seriously the dignity of human life even in its earliest stages, the existence of these millions of frozen orphans, consigned to an uncertain fate, should be recognized as one of the greatest humanitarian crises of our time.

What is to be done for these frozen orphans, whose number increases daily? We should, of course, address the problem at its source, promoting laws—such as those that already exist in Germany and Italy—that forbid creating more embryos per IVF cycle than the woman can safely seek to gestate, thus preventing the creation of additional “spare” embryos.[1] But, even if we could overcome the political obstacles to such legislation in the U.S., that still leaves us with the problem of what to do with the embryos that already exist, particularly those whose parents are unable or unwilling to gestate and raise them.

Some have proposed embryo adoption as the best way to respond to the plight of these frozen orphans. In embryo adoption, a couple adopts an embryo or set of embryos who were placed for adoption by the parents who created them, and the adoptive parents then have the embryos transferred (one or two at a time) to the woman’s uterus for gestation—which, given the embryos’ needs, is the first step in raising them. Committed pro-life Christians have typically been strong advocates of embryo adoption—indeed, it was a devout Christian couple whose vision led to the creation of the nation’s first embryo adoption program, the Snowflakes Program run by Nightlight Christian Adoptions. Yet Catholics are divided on the issue, with some arguing that, like postnatal adoption, it is praiseworthy if done in the right way and with the right intentions, while others claim that embryo adoption is inherently immoral because, like IVF, it involves an attempt to procreate apart from marital union.

Clarifying the Magisterium’s Statements on Embryo Adoption

Before considering the substance of the arguments, it is important to clarify what the Church has (and has not) said about the topic. Some (but not all) Catholic critics of embryo adoption believe the magisterium has already clearly condemned the practice. They point, in particular, to section 19 of Dignitas Personae (DP), a 2008 Instruction by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) that touches upon this issue. On this topic, DP considers two proposals:

1. To give frozen embryos to infertile couples “as a treatment for infertility” (all emphases original). This proposal is deemed “not ethically acceptable.”

2. To gestate an orphaned embryo “solely in order to allow human beings to be born who are otherwise condemned to destruction,” which is referred to as “a form of ‘prenatal adoption.’” DP calls this proposal “praiseworthy with regard to the intention of respecting and defending life,” but notes that it “presents however various problems not dissimilar to those mentioned above.” It is unclear which exact “problems” are being alluded to here, but perhaps the document is referring to the “problems of a medical, psychological, and legal nature” that it mentions regarding the first proposal.

Finally, section 19’s concluding paragraph comments that these “abandoned embryos represent a situation of injustice which in fact cannot be resolved,” and that “there seems to be no morally licit solution” to this problem.

What are we to make of these statements? DP clearly expresses serious reservations about the proposals it considers. But it is noteworthy that the only clear condemnation—an explicit judgment that the proposal is “not ethically acceptable”—regards the use of abandoned frozen embryos as a treatment for infertility. It is unclear exactly what the authors had in mind here, but what they describe is certainly not embryo adoption. It is true that embryo adoption, like postnatal adoption, is most often pursued by infertile couples. But also like postnatal adoption, it is not a treatment for infertility—it does not enable infertile couples to procreate—and should not be viewed as such (as emphasized in typical pre-adoption education for both postnatal adoption and embryo adoption).

DP’s judgment about the second proposal is much more ambiguous—the Church knows how to clearly condemn something when it wants to, and it does not do so here. Further, despite referring to the second proposal as “prenatal adoption,” what the document describes is actually not adoption. Adoption involves (in principle) a permanent commitment to incorporate a child into your family and to raise that child as your own, but the document speaks of gestating an embryo “solely” to allow him or her to be born, without any commitment to raising that child after birth (the phrasing could even be read to preclude such a commitment). Thus, neither of the proposals considered in DP is actually a description of the act of embryo adoption. (Note that, as emphasized by St. John Paul II in Veritatis Splendor §78, a human act cannot be reduced to a physical behavior, but is specified for the purposes of moral evaluation by what the agent is choosing to do. For example, the physical behavior of giving money to someone on a street corner could be an act of bribery, an act of buying drugs, an act of almsgiving, etc., each of which has a distinct moral status.) So the specific act of embryo adoption was not even discussed in DP, and therefore could not have been condemned by it, as Christopher Tollefsen has argued.

Regarding the section’s concluding claim that “there seems to be no morally licit solution” to the problem of frozen embryos, the word “seems” is crucial, because it indicates uncertainty—again, the Church knows how to state clearly that something is immoral, as DP does unambiguously when speaking about IVF, cloning, the use of embryos for research, etc. Finally, the statement that “abandoned embryos represent a situation of injustice which in fact cannot be resolved” could be equally applied to the situation of many abandoned children, such as those conceived through extra-marital sex. For what justice requires is that children be conceived within marriage, through the marital embrace by which a couple expresses and actualizes their marital union. The injustice of having been conceived in a way that does not respect the child’s dignity—whether that be through IVF or extra-marital sex—cannot be resolved through embryo adoption or post-natal adoption. Nor (as adoption education resources makes clear) can any form of adoption erase the wound caused by separation from one’s biological family. But obviously none of this implies that we should not provide abandoned children with a loving home.

Further evidence that DP does not condemn embryo adoption can be found in statements by authoritative interpreters. At a press conference for the release of the document, Archbishop Rino Finischella, then-President of the Pontifical Academy for Life, said that “the discussion is still open” with regard to embryo adoption. Similarly, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has written that while “the document raises cautions or problems” with embryo adoption proposals, it “does not formally make a definitive judgment against them.” The USCCB was likely able to say this with confidence because, as a reliable source informed me, soon after DP was published a U.S. priest working for the USCCB asked Archbishop Levada, who was head of the CDF at the time, whether DP intended to condemn embryo adoption as impermissible. The archbishop responded that because there was disagreement on the issue within the CDF, they deliberately left the question open, and that faithful Catholics could form and act on their own judgments about the matter without contradicting Catholic teaching.

Assessing the Substantive Arguments

Having clarified that the Church has left the question of embryo adoption’s permissibility open for debate, I would now like to explain why I think embryo adoption is in line with Church teaching, and why critics of the practice are mistaken. To do so, it will be helpful first to review why IVF is contrary to Catholic moral principles (which are also principles of the natural moral law), and then show, by contrast, why embryo adoption does not violate these principles.

The Moral Problems with Assisted Reproductive Technologies

According to the CDF Instruction Donum Vitae (DV), the “fundamental values” at stake in moral judgments regarding reproductive technologies are “the life of the human being called into existence and the special nature of the transmission of human life in marriage” (Introduction). IVF violates both of these values.

First, IVF is contrary to the dignity of the child. As already noted, for the sake of efficiency, IVF typically seeks to create more embryos than a woman can gestate, allowing for the grading and eugenic selection (often involving pre-implantation genetic testing) of the “best” embryo(s) for transfer to the woman’s uterus. Some clinics will even refuse to transfer “low quality” or genetically imperfect embryos, regardless of the parents’ wishes, despite the fact that such embryos sometimes mature into perfectly healthy babies if given the chance. The “spare” embryos are then usually frozen (in case the parents want to attempt to gestate them later), discarded, or donated for research use (which also results in their destruction). Of the embryos that are frozen, most remain indefinitely in cryostorage. As a result, only a tiny fraction of the human beings created through IVF ever make it to birth. As DV laments, IVF exposes vulnerable human beings to a “dynamic of violence and domination,” by which “life and death are subjected to the decision of man, who thus sets himself up as the giver life and death by decree” (II.B.4).

Even when done with no selection and without creating any “spare” embryos, IVF nonetheless fails to respect the equal dignity of the child by “reducing him to an object of scientific technology” (II.B.4). Indeed, DV claims that the only way to procreate that fully respects the child’s dignity is by accepting the child as a gift that supervenes on “his parents’ act of union and love”—that is, “the conjugal act wherein the spouses cooperate as servants not as masters in the work of the Creator who is Love” (II.B.4). In [2]

This brings us to the second fundamental value at stake in judging reproductive technologies: “the special nature of the transmission of human life in marriage” (DV, Introduction). DV goes on to explain (quoting Humanae Vitae) that there is an “inseparable connection . . . between the two meanings of the conjugal act: the unitive meaning and the procreative meaning” (II.B.4). This principle of the inseparability of the unitive and procreative goods of marriage—or inseparability principle, for short—is foundational to Catholic teaching on sex, marriage, and procreation. IVF—even when done using the sperm and eggs of a married couple—violates this principle by separating procreation from the conjugal act by which spouses actualize and express their marital union. As the quotes in the previous paragraph suggest, and as I have argued at length elsewhere, it seems that the primary rationale for the Church’s teaching that procreation should only be pursued as the fruit of spouses’ marital sexual union is to protect the dignity of the child.[3]

Reproductive technologies violate the good of marriage and the rights of the child in additional ways when third parties provide the sperm or eggs, or when a gestational surrogate is used. DV explains that third-party assisted reproduction violates marital fidelity, because marital fidelity requires not only sexual exclusivity but also procreative exclusivity—that is, “the exclusive right to become father and mother solely through each other” (II.A.2). It also “violates the rights of the child; it deprives him of his filial relationship with his parental origins and can hinder the maturing of his personal identity” (II.A.2). Gestational surrogacy (in which, in the context of assisted reproduction, a woman gestates a child who has no genetic relationship to her “with a pledge to surrender the baby once born to the party who commissioned or made the agreement for the pregnancy”) is likewise a violation of “the right of the child to be conceived, carried in the womb, brought into the world and brought up by his own [genetic] parents” (II.A.3). It is also a violation of the good of marriage insofar as it involves formal cooperation with IVF. In addition, surrogacy directly violates marital fidelity when the surrogate is also the child’s genetic mother—i.e. when she is also the egg donor in IVF or is inseminated with the intended father’s sperm—which is currently much less common than gestational surrogacy. (DV’s definition of surrogacy includes both types of cases.)

I should note here that the above analysis is meant to be an objective account of the moral problems with reproductive technologies, not a condemnation of infertile couples who have had recourse to these technologies. In many cases such couples are simply following medical advice, and are often unaware of these moral problems, or of alternatives (such as restorative reproductive medicine) that may enable them to discover and remedy the underlying causes of infertility—rather than leaving the cause untreated and often diagnosed, as IVF and other reproductive technologies do. (I discuss the contrast between restorative reproductive medicine and IVF at greater length here.) And lest there be any confusion, it is worth emphasizing that children conceived through reproductive technologies have the same dignity as any other human being; these technologies violate the inherent dignity of children created by them, but in no way lessen that dignity.

Does Embryo Adoption Have the Same Problems?

Critics of embryo adoption often claim that it is inherently wrong for the same reasons as IVF—that is, because it violates the inseparability of the unitive and procreative aspects of marriage, and in doing so also violates the child’s right “to be conceived, carried in the womb, brought into the world and brought up by his own [genetic] parents” (DV II.A.3). Some argue specifically that, like third-party IVF, it is contrary to marital fidelity, because in embryo adoption a woman seeks to become pregnant through someone other than her husband.

Yet embryo adoption could not possibly violate the inseparability of the unitive and procreative aspects of marriage, for the simple reason that in embryo adoption procreation has already occurred. Unless one claims—contrary to biology and to the Church’s commitment to the dignity of human life beginning at conception—that the embryo is not a complete and distinct human organism until some unspecified later stage of development—implantation, viability, birth—then gestation is not an aspect of procreation. Rather, gestation is the first step in nurturing an already-existing human being in the early stages of life.[4]

What about the objection that in embryo adoption a woman seeks pregnancy or becomes pregnant through someone other than her husband? This objection is flawed because it trades on ambiguity about the meaning of “pregnancy.” In everyday speech, “getting pregnant” is often synonymous with procreating/conceiving a child. This makes sense, because ordinarily a woman does not discover she has conceived until the child has successfully implanted in her womb. Obviously, if pregnancy were truly synonymous with conception, seeking to become pregnant apart from marital sexual intercourse would violate the inseparability principle. But when an embryo is transferred to a woman’s uterus in the context of embryo adoption, conception has already occurred (often many years in the past) through the independent actions of others. What she (and her husband) are seeking is to allow the embryo to implant and be gestated in her womb. So unless we think of implantation and gestation as inherently a part of procreation itself (which problematically implies that a new human being does not truly exist until implantation and/or gestation have occurred), then the embryo transfer process does not violate the inseparability principle.

The processes of implantation and gestation are always, from a biological perspective, radically distinct from conception. Procreation itself—the bringing into being of a new human life—is complete once conception has occurred (i.e. once the sperm has fertilized the egg). At that point, a radically new biological process starts—the process of that new human being’s growth and development. And one of the early steps in that process is for the embryo to implant himself or herself into the uterine lining. (Note that if we deny that at conception a radically new biological process begins—the process of the new human being’s maturation—this also implies a denial of the claim that a new life genuinely begins at conception.) Once we disambiguate the meaning of phrases like “seeking to get pregnant” by distinguishing procreation from implantation and gestation, we can see that the transfer of an adopted embryo into a woman’s uterus does not violate the inseparability principle, for this principle forbids procreation apart from marital sexual intercourse, not implantation or gestation per se.[5]

Further, in embryo adoption the husband is not excluded from the process, for the husband and wife jointly adopt the embryo, recognizing that the first stage in caring for their adopted child is to transfer that child to the woman’s uterus, allowing the child to implant and so to receive the nurture and protection appropriate to his or her stage of life. The preparations the woman undergoes to be able to nurture the child in her womb are analogous to the preparations a woman adopting an infant might undergo if she chooses to induce lactation so that she can breastfeed the child. In neither case is the woman becoming a mother in isolation from her husband, despite the special role that she plays due to her unique biological capacities for nurturing children in the earliest stages of life. Nor does embryo adoption involve a problematic lack of parity between husband and wife with respect to the child, for neither spouse is genetically related to the child, and the lack of parity with regard to gestation is equally present in cases when a child implants after being conceived naturally.[6]

Finally, what about the child’s right “to be conceived, carried in the womb, brought into the world and brought up by his own [genetic] parents” (DV II.A.3)? On this point, I should first clarify that embryo adoption is not a form of surrogacy, for surrogacy as Donum Vitae defines it involves formal cooperation with IVF (or, much less commonly today, participation in artificial insemination), as well as an arrangement with the child’s intended parent(s) to surrender the child to them after birth. Thus, the primary objection to surrogacy is once again the violation of the inseparability principle. Embryo adoption has none of these defining characteristics of surrogacy. While it is true that in embryo adoption, the child is gestated and raised by adoptive rather than genetic parents, those who violate the child’s right in this case are not the adoptive parents, but the parents who used IVF to conceive the child—which is itself an injustice to the child for the reasons articulated above—and who then failed to gestate and raise the child—a further objective injustice that is often the unintended consequence of having produced more embryos than they were able or willing to properly care for.

Similar things could be said about many cases of postnatal adoption, such as when the child is conceived through extra-marital sexual intercourse—which, as Aquinas argues, is itself an injustice to the child—and in which the parents are then unable or unwilling to raise the child—a further objective injustice that is often the unintended consequence of having conceived a child irresponsibly. (To clarify, this is an objective injustice but may not be a subjective injustice insofar as placing the child for adoption may be the most loving and morally responsible choice the child’s biological parents can make in the circumstances.) In all cases where children need to be adopted, the ideal scenario articulated by DV is disrupted—through injustice, tragedy, or a combination of both. The adoptive parents are not the cause of the child’s rights being violated, but rather seek to welcome the child as a full member of their family, to provide for the child’s needs as well as possible in these non-ideal circumstances. If anything, embryo adoption is actually better from the child’s perspective than infant adoption, because while all adopted children are objectively harmed by the separation from their genetic parents (even if the adoption is in the children’s best interests overall), in embryo adoption children are preserved from the “primal wound” of separation from their gestational mother, to whom they have already begun to form an attachment.

In sum, embryo adoption has none of the moral problems that are inherent in IVF and other reproductive technologies that separate procreation from marital union. Embryo adoption neither violates the rights of the child nor fails to respect “the special nature of the transmission of human life within marriage” (DV, Introduction)—fundamentally because embryo adoption, like postnatal adoption, occurs after new human life has already been brought into existence by others, without the cooperation, approval, or (usually) even knowledge of the adoptive parents.

Other Objections to Embryo Adoption: Cooperation with Evil

Some worry that embryo adoption—even if not inherently wrong—is morally problematic insofar as it involves material cooperation with IVF by creating a demand for embryos that will encourage and incentivize the creation of even more spare embryos. This seems implausible, however, given that the number of frozen embryos already in existence (anywhere from one to ten million and counting in the United States alone) already outstrips any foreseeable “demand” or willingness to adopt them.[7] (Experts estimate that there are currently about one to two million couples seeking to adopt in the U.S., but it is likely that only a fraction of these couples would be willing and able to adopt an embryo.)

Further, IVF clinics and those pursuing IVF choose to create as many embryos as possible per cycle for reasons that have nothing to do with the possibility of those children being adopted by others. It is unlikely that the prospect of couples willing to adopt one’s embryos would offer any further incentive or even solace in the face of difficult decisions about what to do with spare embryos. Indeed, research and anecdotal evidence indicate that the vast majority of couples with frozen embryos prefer to keep them indefinitely frozen or donate them to research, rather than allowing another couple to gestate and raise them, because they are deeply uncomfortable with having others raise their children. Interestingly, studies indicate that this same logic often leads women with unwanted pregnancies to choose abortion rather than adoption.

One might also be concerned that embryo adoption involves material cooperation with IVF because couples adopting embryos must work with fertility clinics for the embryo transfer process. Yet if (as already argued) the embryo transfer process itself is not inherently immoral, then paying the clinic for this morally legitimate service seems similar to, for instance, going for obstetric care to a non-Catholic hospital that also provides abortions, sterilizations, hormonal contraception prescriptions, and other services contrary to Catholic moral teaching. Kent Lasnoski has also proposed that the material cooperation with evil that takes place in embryo adoption is analogous to the Church’s historical practice of paying ransom to pirates to rescue enslaved Christians. In all these cases, the material cooperation seems justified, because there are proportionate moral reasons to accept the indirect and unintended contribution to immoral practices.[8]

To be clear: Catholics are not utilitarians; we must never do something evil even for the sake of good ends. But doing or willing evil is fundamentally different from doing something morally good while accepting that, as a foreseen but unintended side-effect, some evil may indirectly be facilitated or promoted. In such cases, we must consider whether the good we are seeking is a morally proportionate reason to accept the evil to which we are incidentally and unintentionally contributing. Providing a vulnerable, abandoned child with a home and a chance to grow and develop to maturity—a child who would otherwise most likely remain for years in the limbo of cryostorage and eventually die—clearly seems to be a morally proportionate reason to engage in material cooperation with the fertility industry.

Conclusion

Jesus has told us that whatever we do for the least of his brethren, we do for him (Matt 25:40). Frozen embryos are among the most vulnerable members of our society, whose dignity as human beings made in God’s image is broadly denied both legally and culturally. There are, of course, countless ways to serve Jesus in the needy and marginalized, and relatively few will be called to do so through embryo adoption. But those who think they may have this call should not be deterred by the well-intentioned but mistaken claims that this practice is immoral or violates Church teaching. While I believe that—given the gravity of what is at stake—the Church ought to clarify her stance on this issue, for now the Church has left Catholics free to form and act on their own conscientious judgments. I hope that this article will assist those seeking to form their consciences on this issue, by offering a careful analysis of the relevant magisterial pronouncements and moral principles, and by showing why embryo adoption—if pursued in the right way and with the right intentions—is indeed consistent with Catholic teaching.