The ethical limbo in which frozen human embryos exist is, tragically, a real limbo, and in their untouchability lies an apparent contradiction: that God cannot rescue a person whom man, in his pride, has co-created outside the truly necessary incorporation within a family. The author explores the possibility that ethical objections to embryo adoption are based on a flawed conflation of two problems: (1) the immorality, injustice, and harm of the procedure that supplants the marriage act; and (2) the rights of the child conceived outside the welcoming nature of the marriage act—the primary rights of every conceived person to completing, wholesome, and relational nurture. The author argues for the humanitarian right to embryo adoption, within marriage, from the point of view of the rights of the person conceived.

There is a mystery, present from conception, namely, how the human person, who transcends the individual elements of sperm and ovum, can nevertheless come to exist at the first instant of the sperm’s interaction with the ovum, an event marked by the formation of an “embryonic skin,” or wall. In this essay, the author holds that the full complexity of the human person implies such a profound unity-in-diversity of human being that we must, in the end, let the dialogue between reason and revelation lead us to conclude that the first instant of embryonic life is the first instant that the person comes to exist: that the first sign of embryonic life is a “natural sacrament” of the internal act of God which brings the person to exist, one in soul and body. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 12.3 (Autumn 2012): 421–430.

The Fathers of the Second Vatican Council recognized that the doctrine of the Incarnation is specifically concerned with the coming of Christ to free mankind from bondage to both original and personal sin. Original justice and original sin also can be examined through the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. By considering these concepts through the original moment of Mary’s conception, we gain a better understanding of the moment that each person is conceived. Thus a proper understanding of the Immaculate Conception will help us develop a better definition of human conception.

The in vitro fertilization industry is generally unregulated in the United States, although individual states have enacted laws trying to rein in some of the more flagrant abuses of the practice. The weakness in the American system is the failure to protect the rights of experimental subjects, first expressed in the 1949 Nuremberg Code and again in the 1979 Belmont Report, which emphasized the need to protect those with diminished responsibility. Who is more vulnerable to mistreatment than the unborn? A different approach exists in Great Britain, where the national government regulates the production and use of human embryos. There are advantages to the British practice: it encourages scientists to publicize what they propose to do; it can focus the public on the objective good or harm of a particular proposal; and it makes it easier to identify the currents of thought which contribute to the political advocacy of IVF.

A research project currently underway at the Mexico City campus of the Instituto de Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterey (ITESM) was presentedfor discussion. A number of constructive suggestions from participants have been incorporated into the paper.