- Feb 5, 2002
- 182,412
- 66,010
- Country
- United States
- Gender
- Female
- Faith
- Catholic
- Marital Status
- Married
- Politics
- US-Others
Katie McMahon and her husband realized the gravity of using in vitro fertilization, or IVF, to conceive when, years later, they needed to make a decision about their final four embryonic children frozen in time by cryopreservation.
“We really had kind of come to see the disorder with IVF and didn’t want to pursue IVF again, but it became apparent that these were indeed our children,” she told OSV News. “The dilemma became ‘Are we going to choose embryo adoption?’ or ‘Are we going to try to gestate them ourselves?'”
Today, McMahon helps other women navigate questions like these as the co-founder of Shiloh IVF Ministry, a ministry that offers hope and healing those impacted by IVF. Her story is one of many: Estimates suggest more than 1 million frozen embryos exist in the United States alone. They are the result of IVF, a procedure where embryos are created in a laboratory and then transferred to a woman’s womb. More embryos are created than transferred — one of the many reasons why the Catholic Church opposes IVF — and many are stored away in a frozen state.
Each of these embryonic children is a human person with the same dignity and essential rights (including the right to life) as a born child or any other human being, according to church teaching.
McMahon and other Catholic experts, including a bioethicist and the founder of a burial ministry for deceased embryonic children, spoke with OSV News about the future of these unborn children and the possibility of placing them for adoptionin light of Church teaching. While embryonic children must be treated as persons, the church distinguishes regular adoption, or adoption after birth, from embryo adoption.
Continued below.
www.oursundayvisitor.com
“We really had kind of come to see the disorder with IVF and didn’t want to pursue IVF again, but it became apparent that these were indeed our children,” she told OSV News. “The dilemma became ‘Are we going to choose embryo adoption?’ or ‘Are we going to try to gestate them ourselves?'”
Today, McMahon helps other women navigate questions like these as the co-founder of Shiloh IVF Ministry, a ministry that offers hope and healing those impacted by IVF. Her story is one of many: Estimates suggest more than 1 million frozen embryos exist in the United States alone. They are the result of IVF, a procedure where embryos are created in a laboratory and then transferred to a woman’s womb. More embryos are created than transferred — one of the many reasons why the Catholic Church opposes IVF — and many are stored away in a frozen state.
Each of these embryonic children is a human person with the same dignity and essential rights (including the right to life) as a born child or any other human being, according to church teaching.
McMahon and other Catholic experts, including a bioethicist and the founder of a burial ministry for deceased embryonic children, spoke with OSV News about the future of these unborn children and the possibility of placing them for adoptionin light of Church teaching. While embryonic children must be treated as persons, the church distinguishes regular adoption, or adoption after birth, from embryo adoption.
Continued below.
Can 1 million frozen embryos be placed for adoption?
Katie McMahon, co-founder of Shiloh IVF Ministry, supports those navigating IVF ethics and the Church's debate on embryo adoption.
www.oursundayvisitor.com
