They are unwanted, surplus to requirements, an embarrassment - but not to God.
The dilemma is, what to do with them?
They are individual lives so they cannot be destroyed, although I doubt if many IVF Directors are too worried about that.
Now, there is a move by some Christian groups to 'adopt' them, for women to place themselves in the role of a prospective mother and to be implanted with the embryos.
We know, do we not, that the end, in terms of abiding by Catholic doctrine, can never justify the means but, for the life of me I cannot see a logical solution other than 'adoption'.
The Daily Mail (ugh) reports that:
"While conservative Christians and the Catholic Church have long opposed abortion, they diverge when it comes to embryo adoption.
This is because the Catholic Church is fundamentally opposed to IVF treatments, saying 'It needs to be recognised that the thousands of abandoned embryos represent a situation of injustice that cannot be resolved,' said Vatican theologians in a 2008 bioethics treatise".
Perhaps a Canon Lawyer or a Theologian or both would like to comment?
Although I completely understand the sentiments, I understand that there are ethical problems with embryo adoption. I recall hearing at least one moral theologian suggest that it would not necessarily be wrong to allow these embryos to die. Tragically, the embryos have been created in a situation in which they will naturally die without the intervention of extraordinatry means (freezing). As a result, removing them from the freezer may be akin to turning off a life support machine when someone is at the end of their life.
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