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Your Embryo, My Embryo
By Jessica Deal
More than ever, modern America is feeling the effects
of January 22, 1973, when Roe vs. Wade was decided. Roe has led to a
cheapening of life and marriage that is causing complicated moral
problems, some of which may be hard, even impossible, to solve. The
family life crisis, coupled with our advancements in science and
technology, creates scenarios that, just a few decades ago, would have
sounded as if they had come out of an absurd sci-fi novel. Who could
have dreamed in 1973 that future divorced couples would fight custody
battles over frozen embryos?
Believe it or not, this is a trend that is quickly
gaining momentum. An infertile couple wants to have biological children,
so they decide to try in-vitro fertilization (mistake number one). The
embryos are created and ready for implantation, but the happy couple
begins to argue, and they soon divorce (mistake number two). Now an ugly
court battle commences as one parent fights for the life of the embryos,
while the other wants them destroyed (mistake number three).
Consider the case of Augusta and Randy Roman of Texas.
Their story exactly follows the trend mentioned above. Augusta Roman
wants to save the babies she and her husband “created” through IVF, but
he does not want them to live. Mr. Roman stated that, “They [the
embryos] were not created to be used in such a way that simply limits me
to being a sperm donor, likewise they are not created to be used against
my wishes.” His wishes? How did we come to this point, where life
is a thing to be owned, created and ended whenever we want?
Laws concerning frozen embryos have not been fully
developed yet, and the trickiness of the moral questions surrounding the
problem makes it difficult to find answers. The high courts in six
states, as well as the European Court of Human Rights, have dealt with
such divorce cases, with most rulings in favor of the parent wanting to
destroy the embryos.
The moral questions are very complicated: the embryo is
a human life and should not be destroyed, but is embryo adoption morally
licit when IVF is not? IVF violates the dignity of human sexuality and
that of the life created. In our own country it is customary to create
“extra” embryos and then subject them to “selective reduction”, making
IVF in America synonymous with abortion. Would the problems of IVF apply
to the adoption of forgotten embryos as well?
On the one hand, embryo adoption requires the
implantation of the embryo in the mother, which resembles surrogate
motherhood and can be seen as a breach of marriage. “For a woman to have
implanted in her womb an embryo conceived by someone else is, in my
opinion, a violation of the nuptial meaning of her body. Here a woman
participates in pregnancy apart from her husband, which violates the
meaning of motherhood, fatherhood and marriage itself,” said Father Tad
Pacholczyk, the director of education for the National Catholic
Bioethics Center.
On the other hand, the woman adopting the embryo does
not have to be seen as a surrogate mother or cooperating in the practice
of IVF, for she may truly want to save the life and is not receiving
payment for her services. William May, professor of moral theology at
the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and the Family,
contends that embryo adoption is not a violation of marriage and family
life. “The woman is not choosing to give herself in an act of genital
union to someone other than her spouse. Thus her choice does not violate
any relevant human good but rather serves to protect and nurture human
life,” he said.
It will be extremely difficult to discern the right
answer to this new dilemma. As the consequence of our immorality, we may
have twisted ourselves in the web so much that it is impossible to get
out. It is a tragedy that, with over 200,000 abandoned frozen embryos in
fertility clinics across the country, a morally licit way to save their
lives might not exist. However, let the debate continue and hopefully a
deeper appreciation of life and recognition of our wrongs will result.
Only God can create life and take it away; that is the problem with all
practices of the culture of death. Life is a precious gift, not a
possession.
Sources:
1. James Penrice,
“Latest trend: Couples sue each other over embryos,” Our Sunday
Visitor 96, no. 13 (22 July 2007): 3
2.
http://www.ivf.net/ivf/index.php?page=out&id=2731
3.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/texassouthwest/stories/DN-embryo_09tex.ART.North.Edition1.4369dfa.html
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