The bioethicist John Haas, president emeritus of the National Catholic Bioethics Center, and Elizabeth Rex, of the Charlotte Lozier Institute, debated on October 22 at the Saint John Paul II Shrine in Washington D.C. on the moral licitness of the adoption of frozen embryos. The event, organized by the pro-life organization Defend Life, took place after a Mass in honor of the saint and was broadcast live, according to EWTN News.
Haas maintained that this practice is morally illicit because it requires transferring a frozen embryo into the uterus of a woman with no genetic link to it. In his view, this violates the Church’s teaching on sexuality within marriage and, moreover, deliberately endangers the life of the embryos during thawing. For this reason, he defended that the only moral solution is to keep them frozen, citing the instruction Donum vitae (1987) regarding “surplus” embryos, and recalled that the end does not justify the means.
Rex defended the opposite position and pointed out that neither the Vatican nor the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops have “ever formally ruled against embryo transfer or embryo adoption,” that is, they have never formally spoken out against the transfer or adoption of embryos. She acknowledged that in vitro fertilization is immoral according to the Church, but argued that this and transfer to the maternal uterus should not be separated, because leaving the embryo in a dish or frozen would amount to an abortion. In her opinion, the embryo is already a person who needs medical assistance.
Haas replied that the only relevant magisterial pronouncement is “half a sentence” from the instruction Dignitas personae and that the Holy See has made “a single statement on behalf of embryo adoption,” that is, not a single statement in favor of embryo adoption.
The question remains open among Catholic theologians, since the Church has not issued a definitive judgment on the licitness of embryo adoption. The instruction Dignitas personae, published in 2008 by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, affirms the dignity and rights of frozen embryos and describes the proposal of “prenatal adoption” as praiseworthy in its intention, although it warns that it raises various problems. The same document states that the thousands of abandoned embryos represent a situation of injustice that cannot be resolved.
The debate is part of a broader discussion on assisted reproductive technologies. InfoVaticana previously reported on the pastoral letter of the Bishop of Arlington, Michael F. Burbidge, in which he described IVF as unjust and morally incorrect even if embryonic children were not destroyed.