Friday, August 5, 2011

HLI President declares the question of embryo adoption to be closed

A recent debate took place the issue of embryo adoption at Christendom College in Front Royal Virginia between two moral theology professors Janet Smith and the Rev Tadeusz Pacholczyk who is professor of moral theology at the US National Catholic Bioethics Centre.

Janet Smith held that embryo adoption could be morally appropriate and compared it with any other form of adoption but the Rev Pacholczyk disagreed on the basis that it violates the marriage covenant, the end he said cannot justify disordered means.
A complete report on the debate can be seen on this LifeSite.com link

Monsignor Ignacio Barreiro Carambula the interim president of Human Life International (HLI) in his recent newsletter commenting on the debate says that the question of embryo adoption is closed. Monsignor Barreiro says: "From a rational perspective it should be clear that embryo adoption is unnatural", but he also cited Par. 19 of Dignitas Personae
“The proposal that these embryos could be put at the disposal of infertile couples as a treatment for infertility is not ethically acceptable for the same reasons which make artificial heterologous procreation illicit as well as any form of surrogate motherhood; this practice would also lead to other problems of a medical, psychological and legal nature.”
“It has also been proposed, solely in order to allow human beings to be born who are otherwise condemned to destruction, that there could be a form of “prenatal adoption”. This proposal, praiseworthy with regard to the intention of respecting and defending human life, presents however various problems not dissimilar to those mentioned above.”
So what this document is stating is that adoption in the womb presents similar problems to those that are found in artificial heterologous procreation and surrogate motherhood.
Monsignor Barreiro's full statement on the issue can be viewed on the following LifeSite.com link