Is it ethical for a married couple to adopt a fertilized embryo that has been frozen as a “spare” from a couple who underwent in-vitro fertilization?

It is estimated that 2.1 million married couples or 5 million people in the United States are affected by infertility.  Infertility is defined as failure to get pregnant after one year of unprotected intercourse. About 40% of infertility cases are due to a female factor and 40% due to a male factor. The remaining 20% are the result of a combination of male and female factors, or are of unknown causes.  Issues of human infertility are extremely complex physiologically, psychologically, financially, legally and ethically. It is estimated that 85-90% of infertile couples will receive conventional treatment and 10-15% may become candidates for various forms of Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ARTs) to assist them in having their own biological children. In-vitro fertilization (IVF) is one of the most utilized reproductive procedures that has allowed couples to have their own biological children.  IVF accounts for 99% of ART. This procedure has been effective but it is still inefficient and expensive. One aspect of the inefficiency is that numerous embryos have been frozen through a process called cryopreservation. It has been estimated that there are 400,000 embryos frozen and stored since the late 1970s. In reality, the actual number of frozen embryos is probably closer to 500,000 with an additional 20,000 embryos added yearly.  Freezing these embryos has allowed for a limitation on the number of embryos transferred to a woman’s uterus which has decreased the number of multiple gestations. It also allows couples to use the frozen embryos in the future if the initial cycles are unsuccessful. This is not only more effective but also lowers the cost. The issue is now what to do with the 400,000 to 500,000 frozen embryos that remain as “spares.”

Ethically, embryo donation/adoption focuses on the issue of personhood. If embryos are persons then it would be a moral imperative to “rescue” these embryos from their current status of being in “frozen animation.” Numerous ethicists, embryologists, legal professionals and specifically, the Roman Catholic Church, argue that personhood begins at conception or what is known as fertilization. Prior to fertilization we have two human gametes—sperm and egg, that are living but are not a living organism. When fertilization occurs, something human and living “in a different sense comes into being.”[i]  Embryologists argue that “human development begins at fertilization when a male gamete or sperm (spermatozoon) unites with a female gamete or oocyte (ovum) to form a single cell—zygote. This highly specialized, totipotent cell marked the beginning of each of us as a unique individual.”[ii] The Catholic Church teaches that “human life must be absolutely respected and protected from the moment of conception.”[iii] “Right from fertilization is begun the adventure of a human life, and each of its great capacities requires time. . .to find its place and to be in a position to act. This teaching remains valid and is further confirmed, if confirmation were needed, by recent findings of human biological science which recognize that in the zygote resulting from fertilization the biological identity of a new human individual is already constituted.”[iv] The Church argues that at fertilization there is a new genetic individual in its own right, one who is whole, bodily, self-organizing, and genetically distinct from his or her mother and father.[v] Those who argue that personhood begins at fertilization would also argue that there is a moral imperative to give these frozen embryos the opportunity to be born and to develop because they are persons. Ethicist Therese Lysaught believes that embryo donation/adoption is an act that can properly be described as “rescuing a child orphaned before birth.”[vi] Ethicists arguing for the “rescue” of these children would encourage women to implant these embryos in their wombs in order to bring them to term. Some would permit not only married women to do this but also single women and even lesbian couples. The moral principle of sanctity of human life would overcome any other moral considerations. However, not all, even in the Catholic Church, would agree to this ethical analysis. Opponents of this position argue that this would amount to material cooperation in an objective immoral action. Not only is the process of IVF considered an intrinsic moral evil by the Magisterium of the Catholic Church, but allowing for the adoption of these embryos might condone the objective immoral procedure and may even encourage the creation of additional embryos through the IVF process. Even though the Catholic Church has not taken an official position on embryo donation/adoption, one could argue that from previous teaching, it is the only means of survival for these persons. “In consequence of the fact that they have been produced in vitro, those embryos which are not transferred into the body of the mother and are called ‘spares’ are exposed to an absurd fate, with no possibility of their being offered safe means of survival which can be licitly pursued.”[vii] Embryo donation/adoption is the only safe means of survival for these persons so thus it would be ethical. This statement by the Magisterium was directed toward embryo experimentation but it could also be applicable to embryo donation/adoption.

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[i] Kass, Leon. Life, Liberty and the Defense of Dignity: The Challenge for Bioethics (San Francisco: Encounter Books, 2002): 87.

[ii] Moore, K, & Persaud, T.V.N. The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology (Philadelphia: Saunders/Elsevier, 2008): 15.

[iii] Holy See, Charter of the Rights of the Family, no. 4: L’Osservatore Romano, November 25, 1983.

[iv] Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Donum Vitae—Instruction on Respect for Human Life in its Origin and on the Dignity of Procreation—Replies to Certain Questions of the Day, (Rome: Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, February 22, 1987): 1-29. http://www.priestsfor life.org/magisterium/donumvitae.htm

[v] Brugger, E. C. “The Principle of Fairness and the Problem of Abandoned Embryos,” Panel Discussion at the Conference on Emerging Issues in Embryo Donation and Adoption, (Washington, D.C.: May 30, 2008): 1-6.

[vi] Lysaught, 3.

[vii] Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Donum Vitae, Section 1, No.5.