Ethical and Religious Directives for a Catholic Embryo Adoption Agency: A Thought Experiment

Abstract

At present, there is to our knowledge no Catholic institution engaged in overseeing the practice of embryo adoption (EA), nor any institution that currently oversees the practice explicitly claiming to do so in accord with Catholic ethical and religious principles. On the one hand, this is understandable, since the Catholic Church has yet to rule on the moral permissibility of the practice. On the other hand, this is somewhat surprising, since the Catholic tradition is arguably the most vociferous advocate of the dignity and rights of cryopreserved embryos. For many cryopreserved embryos, adoption represents their sole opportunity for continuing the human life cycle to which they are by nature ordered. Thus, one might expect some Catholic institution to inaugurate a program to aid such embryos, assuming EA does not come to be seen as incompatible with Catholic morality. In this essay, our goal is to provide a vision and a framework for the institutional oversight of the practice of EA done in accord with Catholic teaching. Towards this goal of providing direction for an EA agency guided by a Catholic Christian view of the human good and the common good of society, the essay proceeds in four parts. It begins with a brief background on the recent moral debate over EA among Catholic theologians, noting both the strengths and limitations of the debate as it has proceeded to date. This section also notes how EA has recently stumbled into the cultural limelight, having a prominent place in the recent “culture wars.” The essay continues with a presentation of the specifics of the practice of EA as it presently practiced in the USA, at least by those agencies which make their practices public. The third section presents a vision for a virtuous institutional practice of EA, seeking to move beyond a moral analysis that concludes that EA is merely “morally acceptable in certain circumstances” to one in which the practice can be seen as exhibiting the virtues of solidarity and charity, providing the gift of