At last, a comprehensive collection of essays that examines and advances ethical evaluations of the controversial and increasingly popular practice of embryo adoption. In the United States alone, 400,000 frozen embryos created for in vitro fertilization exist but are no longer desired for that purpose. What are we morally obliged or permitted to do about these "spare" embryos? More of their genetic parents are considering donating these embryos to others to gestate and raise. This practice is politically volatile (figuring in debates about embryonic stem cells) and medically and morally complex. At the present time within the Roman Catholic Church there is no official teaching on embryo adoption. Catholic ethical analyses grapple with the way embryo adoption comports with respect for embryonic human life yet challenges Catholic moral critiques of assisted reproductive technologies. This volume brings together leading philosophers and theologians to engage Catholic debates about embryo adoption in an interactive format. The editors, a philosopher bioethicist and a moral theologian, provide a helpful overview of the practice and the arguments surrounding embryo adoption. They engage neglected Catholic ethical resources and issues to advance the current debate and chart new directions in Catholic moral thinking about this intriguing practice. The volume also includes a description of embryo adoption from a physician practitioner along with reflections from a couple who successfully adopted an embryo.

Résumé

The book's strength is its careful consideration, from a variety of perspectives within the Catholic tradition, of the practice of embryo adoption. It approaches the question in an open and reasonable way by allowing proponents of diverse positions within the tradition. This method both sheds a great deal of light on the particular question and at the same time introduces the reader to the relevant general principles that guide Catholic moral thought.

Contenu

The Morality of Embryo Adoption.- Introduction: The Ethics of Embryo Adoption and the Catholic Tradition.- Heterologous Embryo Transfer: Metaphor and Morality.- Human Embryo Transfer and the Theology of the Body.- On the Moral Objectionability of Human Embryo Adoption.- Could Human Embryo Transfer Be Intrinsically Immoral?.- Ethical Considerations in Defense of Embryo Adoption.- RealMothers and Good Stewards: The Ethics of Embryo Adoption.- The Debate Engaged.- Embryo Adoption Theologically Considered: Bodies, Adoption, and the Common Good.- From Rescuing Frozen Embryos to Respecting the Limits of Nature: Reframing the Embryo Adoption Debate.- Embryo Adoption? An Egalitarian Perspective.- A Protestant View: The Ethics of Embryo Adoption and the Catholic Tradition.- Morality in the Practice.- Development of the National Embryo Donation Center.- An Embryo Adoptive Father's Perspective.- An Embryo Adoptive Mother's Perspective.- Ethical and Religious Directives for a Catholic Embryo Adoption Agency: A Thought Experiment.- Embryo Adoption and the Law.- Artificial Wombs and Embryo Adoption.