Pro-Life and Catholic View of Human Embryo Adoption

"Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive". How often I would hear my mother use this expression when I was a child. Phrases like this always left huge impressions upon me, and usually proved frighteningly true. Today I would slightly change the last part of this sentence to read, "Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice evil." This very accurately and sadly describes today's world, where it would seem that all natural and moral laws of God have been cast aside, in favor of an "anything goes" lifestyle. A world where convenience and entitlement rule the day ... where mankind sees himself as taking the place of the Creator .. who can manipulate everything and anything in order to satisfy his wants.

Some of these manipulations may appear, on the surface, to be noble, in that they seek to relieve or correct some form of human suffering or lack. In that light, In-Vitro-Fertilization (IVF), has seemed, for many couples facing infertility problems, a miracle of modern science. As a mother of 5 children myself, I have never been faced with this particular heartache, and as such, make no attempt here to judge others, who were or are, faced with this dilemma. Still, every human being who walks this earth, myself included, have or will, face at one point in life, a disappointment or loss of some type. And I hold with earlier generations, who believed that one dealt with life's sufferings and disappointments ... at least to the extent that none of them would ever consider doing something immoral or unethical to alleviate their suffering. Today all that has changed ... which brings to mind another statement of my mother's, which became a guidepost for me, "You have to play your hand with the cards life deals you." But today the deck is being re-shuffled ... and with frightening results. And IVF, the answer to many a couple's dream of having children, has created a whole new deck and a whole new game. Now, this new deck which science is playing with, has created as many as half a million frozen IVF embryos in fertility clinics across the United States alone. These are the 'left-over' embryos, who were not needed once the woman was successfully impregnated, and are then left in cryopreservation, as so much over-stock.

Oh what a tangled web? Now the question is ... what do we do with these little lives, frozen in suspended animation? Is Embryo adoption the answer? And what does the Catholic Church have to say on the subject? Well, the deck has been shuffled so quickly over the past 40 or 50 years, that even the Church has had to try and catch it's breath in trying to keep up! Catholic theologians, debating the issue, have fallen into different camps ... those who believe IVF is immoral - and as such think that embryo adoption would simply be an immoral answer to an immoral problem - to those who believe IVF is moral - to those who feel that though IVF itself is immoral, the rescue of the innocent victims is ... well perhaps, let's say, a necessary evil?

Now, here is the present statement by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops on the matter: "Embryo adoption - the document does not reject the practice outright, but warns of medical, psychological and legal problems associated with it and underscores the moral wrong of producing and freezing embryos in the first place."

So, without further ado, I will give my own humble opinion on the subject. To begin with, IVF is an abomination ... completely and totally immoral and unethical .. and a Frankenstein answer to the heartache of couples who suffer infertility ... and I am totally in agreement with the Catholic Church's stance against the practice of creating life outside the marital act, and outside the womb. But as far as the poor little souls who already exist in cryospace .. I would suggest that, there are many times when evil forces good men to drastic measures. War is an abomination ... yet the Catholic Church uses a term: "the just war theory",which recognizes that there are times when good men must engage in the abominable in order to fight evil - especially when it involves the rescue of innocent victims of evil, such as the victims of the Holocaust in World War II. The little innocent victims of IVF, who are frozen like so many little snowflakes, are today's victims of evil. "Snowflakes", by the way, is the name of an adoption program by Nightlight Christian Adoptions, that exists specifically for the adoption of "surplus" IVF embryos. Would this encourage complacency of the immoral process of IVF? Perhaps. Does going to war encourage complacency of it? Sometimes. Yet the reality of our world is, that there will always be evil in every generation, which must be opposed - possibly by going to war - or other drastic measures.

If the pro-life argument is that, "life begins at conception and every life is sacred" ... then how can we discount the little snowflake souls? The pro-life argument about a child conceived in rape, not being aborted, is that "the child should not pay for the sins of the father". Well then ... why should the little snowflakes pay for the sins of their foolish parents, who conceived them in such an abysmal way, and have now abandoned them as so much overstock in a store? If there is such a thing as a "just war" as the Church puts it .. even though war itself is an abomination ... then could there not be a "just rescue" of these little souls who are trapped in cryopreservation? Or ... should we simply thaw them out and let them die ... as some suggest? Or could some good intentioned married women possibly look upon their wombs as life-rafts to rescue these little innocent victims of this modern holocaust? To be sure ... there is no easy answer here. But I suggest we need to pray really hard to come up with something ... for while we sit around and debate, innocent souls are trapped in a frozen limbo, like so many snowflakes. And as science teaches us ... every single snowflake is a "one of a kind". Each of these little snowflake embryos is a unique one of a kind soul ... loved by God. This is not how He intended them to be created and then just left to die. What say you?