- Feb 5, 2002
- 166,693
- 56,303
- Country
- United States
- Faith
- Catholic
- Marital Status
- Married
- Politics
- US-Others
Scripture and tradition tell us something astonishing about our embryonic brothers and sisters currently being kept in frozen storage: they are a vulnerable population that perhaps demands our attention the most. Indeed, embryo adoption appears to be smack-dab in the center of the demands of the Gospel.
The process is now well established in our culture. Couples that cannot have biological children naturally (due to age, a biological issue, or because they are of the same sex); or individuals who simply want to have a baby “of their own” (who can purchase one or both gametes and also, if necessary, a gestater); or those who want to design a baby (fertility clinics now regularly offer sex selection through pre-implantation genetic diagnosis) now pay specialists to create embryos for them in a laboratory via in vitro fertilization (IVF) of ova by sperm.
“Excess” and unwanted embryos are very often produced in the IVF process. This is in part because the process is so expensive, and clinicians and parents want back-up embryos available if the first or multiple attempts at pregnancy fail. They are also created because in many cases aspiring parents want strict quality control over the project, such as selecting the sex and other genetic traits. One of three things happens to the “excess” embryos: (1) they simply get discarded and killed, (2) they are used for research and killed, or (3) they are frozen indefinitely. Astonishingly, there are now over a million embryos in that third category (a number that will only grow larger with time), the vast majority of which will not be used by the people who created them.
These embryos can stay viable for a very long time, as evidenced by the recent story of a Christian couple who adopted embryos created and frozen in 1992 and welcomed twins into their post-natal lives 30 years later. The couple already had four children, but these newborns are—in a very real sense—their oldest children. “I was 5 years old when God gave life to Lydia and Timothy,” said their father.
Continued below.
www.thepublicdiscourse.com
The process is now well established in our culture. Couples that cannot have biological children naturally (due to age, a biological issue, or because they are of the same sex); or individuals who simply want to have a baby “of their own” (who can purchase one or both gametes and also, if necessary, a gestater); or those who want to design a baby (fertility clinics now regularly offer sex selection through pre-implantation genetic diagnosis) now pay specialists to create embryos for them in a laboratory via in vitro fertilization (IVF) of ova by sperm.
“Excess” and unwanted embryos are very often produced in the IVF process. This is in part because the process is so expensive, and clinicians and parents want back-up embryos available if the first or multiple attempts at pregnancy fail. They are also created because in many cases aspiring parents want strict quality control over the project, such as selecting the sex and other genetic traits. One of three things happens to the “excess” embryos: (1) they simply get discarded and killed, (2) they are used for research and killed, or (3) they are frozen indefinitely. Astonishingly, there are now over a million embryos in that third category (a number that will only grow larger with time), the vast majority of which will not be used by the people who created them.
These embryos can stay viable for a very long time, as evidenced by the recent story of a Christian couple who adopted embryos created and frozen in 1992 and welcomed twins into their post-natal lives 30 years later. The couple already had four children, but these newborns are—in a very real sense—their oldest children. “I was 5 years old when God gave life to Lydia and Timothy,” said their father.
Continued below.
Lives in Limbo: A Case for Embryo Adoption
Scripture and tradition tell us something astonishing about our embryonic brothers and sisters currently being kept in frozen storage: they are a vulnerable population that perhaps demands our attention the most. Indeed, embryo adoption appears to be smack-dab in the center of the demands of the Gos
www.thepublicdiscourse.com
So are you planning on adopting one of these abandoned embryos as the OP describes or are attempting IVF yourself?
