What Does the Magisterium of the Catholic Church Teach?
1. Has the Vatican or the USCCB ever formally ruled against Embryo Transfer or Embryo Adoption?
NO. Neither the Vatican nor the USCCB has ever ruled against either Embryo Transfer or Embryo Adoption.
A Colloquy published in The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly, Winter 2011, p. 622, states the following:
“In an article published on December 12, 2008—the very day Dignitas personae was publicly released by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith—Archbishop Rino Fisichella, the then-president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, told reporters at the Vatican’s official press conference that “the discussion is still open” on the matter of embryo adoption. In addition, the CNS article reported that “the Vatican has not ruled out the possibility of embryo adoption” and even specifically stated that “the Vatican did not rule out the practice.” (Cindy Wooden, Catholic News Service, 12/12/2008.)
In its own carefully worded statement in December 2008, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops reinforced the Vatican’s clear position on the matter of embryo adoption, stating that while Dignitas personae “raises cautions and problems” about proposals for the adoption of abandoned frozen embryos, it “does not formally make a definitive judgment against them.” (Cfr. USCCB, “Questions and Answers: The Instruction Dignitas personae“; 12/9/2008) (Emphasis added.)
2. Should an embryo be treated as a person and a human being as far as medical assistance is concerned?
YES. Donum vitae I, 1 authoritatively teaches: “Since the embryo must be treated as a person, it must also be defended in its integrity, tended to and cared for, to the extent possible, in the same way as any other human being as far as medical assistance is concerned.”
3. Are therapeutic procedures on embryos (i.e., therapeutic Embryo Transfer to its mother’s womb) licit?
YES. The Catechism of the Catholic Church n. 2275, citing Donum vitae I, 3, teaches: “As with all medical interventions on patients, one must uphold as licit procedures carried out on the human embryo which respect the life and integrity of the embryo and do not involve disproportionate risks for it but are directed towards its healing, the improvement of its condition of health, or its individual survival.” (Emphasis is in the original.)
4. What “techniques” violate marriage and the rights of spouses and children: IVF or Embryo Adoption?
IVF: The Catechism of the Catholic Church n. 2376, citing Donum vitae II, 1, teaches: “Techniques that entail dissociation of husband and wife by the intrusion of a person other than the couple (donation of sperm or ovum, surrogate uterus) are gravely immoral. These techniques (heterologous artificial insemination and fertilization) infringe the child’s right to be born of a father and mother known to him and bound to each other by marriage. They betray the spouses’ ‘right to become a father and a mother only through each other.'”
5. What “techniques” dissociate “the sexual act” from “the procreative act“: IVF or Embryo Adoption?
IVF: The Catechism of the Catholic Church n. 2377, citing Donum vitae II, 4, teaches: “Techniques involving only the married couple (homologous artificial insemination and fertilization) are perhaps less reprehensible yet remain morally unacceptable. They dissociate the sexual act from the procreative act. The act which brings the child into existence is no longer an act by which two persons give themselves to one another, but one that ‘entrust the life and identity of the embryo into the power of doctors and biologists and establishes the domination of technology over the origin and destiny of the human person. Such a relationship of domina-tion is in itself contrary to the dignity and equality that must be common to parents and children. (DV II, 5)'”.
CONCLUSION: Heterologous and Homologous IVF are immoral; not Embryo Transfer or Embryo Adoption.
MAGISTERIAL & ETHICAL GUIDELINES FOR IVF PARENTS:
~ TWO MORAL OPTIONS FOR THEIR FROZEN EMBRYOS ~
1. Can IVF Parents licitly transfer their own frozen embryos to their own mother’s womb for gestation?
YES. “One must uphold as licit procedures carried out on the human embryo which respect the life and integrity of the embryo … its healing … or its individual survival.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church n. 2275; DV I, 3)
2. Can IVF Parents donate their frozen human embryos to research or clinical experimentation?
NO. “No objective even though noble in itself, such as a foreseeable advantage to science, to other human beings or to society, can in any way justify experimentation on living human embryos or fetuses, whether viable or not, either inside or outside the mother’s womb. The informed consent ordinarily required for clinical experimentation on adults cannot be granted by the parents…. (Donum vitae I, 4)
3. Can IVF Parents freely dispose of – thaw, destroy, discard – the lives of their frozen unborn children?
NO. Parents “may not freely dispose of the physical integrity or life of the unborn child.” (Donum vitae I, 4)
4. Can IVF Parents permanently – or even temporarily – freeze their surplus frozen human embryos?
NO. “The freezing of embryos, even when carried out in order to preserve the life of the embryo – cryopreservation – constitutes an offense against the respect due to human beingsby exposing them to grave risks of death or harm to their physical integrity and depriving them, even temporarily, of maternal shelter and gestation, thus placing them in a situation in which further offences and manipulation are possible.” (Donum vitae I, 6; see also Dignitas personae 18. Emphasis in original.)
5. Can IVF Parents choose to gestate their surplus frozen embryos in the womb of a surrogate mother?
NO. “Surrogate motherhood represents an objective failure to meet the obligations of maternal love, of conjugal fidelity and of responsible motherhood: it offends the dignity and the rights of the child to be conceived, carried in the womb, brought into the world and brought up by his own parents….” (DV II, A, 3)
6. Can IVF Parents support the hypothesis or project of constructing artificial wombs for IVF embryos?
NO. “[T]he gestation of human embryos in the uterus of animals, or the hypothesis or project of constructing artificial uteruses for the human embryo … are contrary to the human dignity proper to the embryo.” (DV I, 6)
7. Can IVF Parents donate their frozen embryos to infertile couples as a “treatment for infertility”?
N.B. The “Mitochondrial Replacement Therapy” (MRT) – which is also known as “Three-Parent IVF” –
is a “treatment for infertility” for infertile couples that requires a donated egg or a donated embryo that is destroyed during the IVF procedure in order to prevent the transmission of a maternal mitochondrial genetic disease, and it illicitly creates a “Three-Parent Embryo” with DNA from 3 parents: 2 mothers and 1 father.
NO. “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.” (Dignitas personae 19).
8. Can IVF Parents consider the “praiseworthy” proposal of “prenatal adoption” for their embryos?
YES. “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 [of a medical, psychological and legal nature].” (Dignitas personae 19)
CONCLUSION: Once conceived, human embryos may not be cryopreserved, discarded, or destroyed. Since Embryo Transfer is a licit therapeutic procedure (CCC #2275; DV I,3) the two moral options for IVF embryos are “maternal reception and gestation” (DP 18) by the embryos’ own IVF Parents or by heroic Adoptive Parents.
N.B. The American Association of Pro-Life OBGYNs encourages Embryo Adoption as an ethical alternative.