Volume 16, Issue 1, Spring 2016
Francis Etheredge
Pages 49-54
Frozen and Untouchable
A Double Injustice to the Embryo
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.