Avant-propos - Studia Moralia

122 JOHN BERKMAN
2. Is Embryo Adoption wrong in principle?
If Donum vitae neither prohibits nor even addresses the
morality of adopting frozen embryos, one can still ask whether
the adoption of previously frozen embryos would be ruled out by
the principles articulated in DV. To begin with, it is worth noting
that DV does not rule out ET of already created embryos into
the body of a woman – even when they are created with donor
ova and/or sperm. This at least provides prima facie evidence
that embryo adoption cannot be ruled out in advance as wrong
in principle. 14 For while DV clearly prohibits the technological
procedure known as IVF-ET as morally wrong in principle, its
chief objection is not to the transfer of the already-created
embryo into the body of the woman (i.e. the ET), but to the very
creation of these embryos (i.e. the IVF). 15
One can certainly imagine a variety of scenarios where ET
would be morally unproblematic. For example, it would certain-
14 For instance, a close reading of the critique of heterologous IVF (i.e.
conception using gametes of at least one person other than the spouses) in
DV (see II.A.2) reveals that the critique is always directed at the means of
conception of the child. At no place does the critique rule out ET once
embryos have been created. Presumably, some individuals might come to see
the wrongfulness of seeking to bring a child into the world through the
process of IVF after the embryos have been conceived, but prior to implantation
of them into a woman’s womb. Nowhere is it stated that the embryos
created at the request of a woman or a couple should be abandoned after
they have been conceived. Furthermore, the various statements in DV which
might be interpreted as prohibiting embryo transfer would seem to require
one to draw the additional (reductio ad absurdum) conclusion that all adoptions
must be rejected, whether ordinary (post-natal) or pre-natal.
15 In its evaluation of homologous ‘in vitro’ fertilization, DV typically
groups homologous IVF and ET together, typically referring to the process
as “IVF and ET” (DV, II, B, 5 passim). However, at the end of this section, DV
states its objection only to IVF as “in itself illicit.” Thus, “… the Church
remains opposed from the moral point of view to homologous ‘in vitro’ fertilization.
Such fertilization is in itself illicit and in opposition to the dignity of
procreation and of the conjugal union, even when everything is done to avoid
the death of the human embryo” (DV, II, B, 5. Italics in original). This is not
to say that ET is always morally appropriate or acceptable, but that it is not
ruled out as “in itself illicit,” as is IVF.