It was my pleasure to attend a symposium on infertility ethics at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis on November 8. The actual presentations are available at www.lcms.org/life. My notes/summaries of a presentation follows.
Weise, Robert W. “Embryo Adoption: Helping or Hurting my Neighbor?” Lecture, Infertility Ethics Symposium from LCMS Life Ministry and the Concordia Seminary Life team, St. Louis, November 8, 2014.
Dr. Weise’s presentation was a little hard to follow. He was speaking very fast and sometimes his presentation did not seem to be tracking with the extensive visual aids that were very full of text. I present the notes as I was able to take them, allowing the reader to try to reassemble the presentation.
I The child in the womb: ‘God has made me’
Creator and creation -
Male and Female
One Flesh Union
caring
stewardship
procreation and/or adoption
one in Christ
In traditional adoption the child is already presenting himself in need of care.
In embryonic adoption the child was always considered “extra.”
In the one flesh marriage, there’s the issue of introducing a surrogate of some sort into the marriage. It serves as a disconnect - consider Abraham and Sarah.
Creator and the created humans in the womb - from the beginning a human is entirely complete. The complete person continues to have involvement of both parents.
II The child in the womb: raise the child
Deuteronomy 6 and Ephesians 6 - the word of the Lord and the parental teacher
Love your neighbor as yourself - love does no harm
That love starts as soon as the child is in the womb.
III The child outside of the womb - made by man’s hand
Created and graded via IVF and DESI (Direct Egg Sperm Injection) (Also referred to ICSI but unsure what the abbreviation indicates)
The grading tells us something about our society. Some children are valid and some are not. Society then decides you are a:
non-person
property
deserve special respect
referred to now as pre-embryo and pre-zygote
What about embryonic adoption?
1 - embryo is not a person
2 - as of 11/2002 tax dollars are given for embryonic adoption
3 - five year deadline until “extra” embryos adopted
Nightlight adoption - move to adopt embryos
adoptive parents
all frozen embryos are adopted
What if brother/sister adopted by different families later marry?
If the “birth parents” do not use all, they find a surrogate
Average success rate to birth is 39%. Many embryos die in process.
Frozen embryos are considered property. The industry is unregulated.
Does this process help the neighbor? Yes. Does it hurt the neighbor? Yes.
The surrogacy relation and the creation of humans with a knowledge they will die creates serious problems.
Weise, Robert W. “Embryo Adoption: Helping or Hurting my Neighbor?” Lecture, Infertility Ethics Symposium from LCMS Life Ministry and the Concordia Seminary Life team, St. Louis, November 8, 2014.
Dr. Weise’s presentation was a little hard to follow. He was speaking very fast and sometimes his presentation did not seem to be tracking with the extensive visual aids that were very full of text. I present the notes as I was able to take them, allowing the reader to try to reassemble the presentation.
I The child in the womb: ‘God has made me’
Creator and creation -
Male and Female
One Flesh Union
caring
stewardship
procreation and/or adoption
one in Christ
In traditional adoption the child is already presenting himself in need of care.
In embryonic adoption the child was always considered “extra.”
In the one flesh marriage, there’s the issue of introducing a surrogate of some sort into the marriage. It serves as a disconnect - consider Abraham and Sarah.
Creator and the created humans in the womb - from the beginning a human is entirely complete. The complete person continues to have involvement of both parents.
II The child in the womb: raise the child
Deuteronomy 6 and Ephesians 6 - the word of the Lord and the parental teacher
Love your neighbor as yourself - love does no harm
That love starts as soon as the child is in the womb.
III The child outside of the womb - made by man’s hand
Created and graded via IVF and DESI (Direct Egg Sperm Injection) (Also referred to ICSI but unsure what the abbreviation indicates)
The grading tells us something about our society. Some children are valid and some are not. Society then decides you are a:
non-person
property
deserve special respect
referred to now as pre-embryo and pre-zygote
What about embryonic adoption?
1 - embryo is not a person
2 - as of 11/2002 tax dollars are given for embryonic adoption
3 - five year deadline until “extra” embryos adopted
Nightlight adoption - move to adopt embryos
adoptive parents
all frozen embryos are adopted
What if brother/sister adopted by different families later marry?
If the “birth parents” do not use all, they find a surrogate
Average success rate to birth is 39%. Many embryos die in process.
Frozen embryos are considered property. The industry is unregulated.
Does this process help the neighbor? Yes. Does it hurt the neighbor? Yes.
The surrogacy relation and the creation of humans with a knowledge they will die creates serious problems.
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