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Gail Finke's avatar

I am more persuaded by the arguments against embryo adoption than those for them, but it does seem to me to be a gray area. Most articles and arguments I've seen published do tout it as a solution for infertile couples who want the experience of gestation and birth, and who find it difficult or impossible to adopt an infant (because there are so few infants available). It is promoted as both "just another way to adopt," and one that is uniquely wonderful and generous and which makes the couple doing it especially praiseworthy.

Is that more a problem of how it's presented than a problem with what it really is? Maybe. But how many fertile couples would choose to bear other people's children instead of their own? Not many. Especially if they have to pay to do so.

If IVF were illegal, and these frozen embryos were all there were and would ever be, I could perhaps look at them more impartially. But in reality, human beings keep being created and thrown away or frozen "to keep just in case." That fact makes it difficult for me to evaluate this issue without revulsion.

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Mary C. Tillotson's avatar

I believe American abolitionists purchased slaves in order to free them. In Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet Jacobs recounts how she escaped and then later was purchased by abolitionists, and she felt very strongly that she didn't want to be purchased because she recognized her own human dignity.

I recall hearing a suggestion that the embryos be baptized and permitted to die. I'd be interested in the practicality of this approach. How developed are the frozen embryos? Do they have heads yet? If not, could you baptize a person who's too young to have an identifiable head? How long would it take them to die? I imagine splashing water on them would kill them, because it would thaw them, but it wouldn't be murder because of double effect. Could you complete the baptism before the person died or would the first splash of water kill them? Would a partial baptism work in this case? Obviously the intention is there. Would it be morally permissible to purchase embryos in order to baptize them, knowing that they will die? Could parents morally hand over their own embryos for this? Would both parents have to agree? What if you can't find the biological father? Would the mother's husband be able to give permission?

Edited for typo

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