Massacre of the embryos.

London--Embryos are no more than four cells, yet they represent a new life. Animal embryos mark the existence of new animal life, human embryos that of a new human being.

The moral chaos of modern medical scientists can be no better expressed than by the announcement in England that 3,300 human embryos were slated for extinction by July 31. These were the ones whose biological parents had disappeared during the five years of their existence. Five years being the maximum for frozen embryos under British law, they had to be "disposed" of.

The event reaffirmed--or perhaps revealed to the public at large for the first time--that hundreds of embryos are destroyed every day. The low success rate of in vitro fertilization (IVF) means that many embryos die in the process regularly. Still, doing it wholesale was particulary sinister and scandalous.

What to do?

The Catholic Church has opposed IVF from the beginning. IVF has none of the human aspects of the marriage act, yet leaves a human being in its wake, which is then further assaulted by freezing and defrosting, and which then, as in the case here, may be simply destroyed.

Still, now that the "extra" embryos are here--what is to be done with them? Because there were some minor differences of opinion among Catholic leaders, Canadian newspapers saw another opening for stirring the antireligious pot. "Cardinal backs `prenatal massacre,' " blared the Toronto Star headline; "Catholic leader defies Vatican, backs destruction of embryos," said the Ottawa Citizen (Aug. 1). What is the truth?

Cardinal Basil Hume of England, when asked, offered the simple opinion that frozen embryos "are frozen human life and [therefore] should be...allowed to die and then be disposed of with dignity." The Associated Press (AP) story contrasted this to other Catholics, including Italian Cardinal Ersilio Tonini, who felt that perhaps the best way was for families to adopt these embryos. What did the AP and the Canadian dailies leave out?

First, Cardinal Hume had described the destruction as "repugnant," "deplorable" and "profligate." He said that human life begins at fertilization and that "it is morally wrong" to destroy such life or put it at risk by creating frozen embryos. "The Catholic Church," he pointed out, "forbids IVF which," he continued, "has now created a moral culde-sac from which there is no satisfactory way out."

He urged that "alternative and morally acceptable methods of treating human infertility . . . be investigated," adding that at the very least "there should be no more creating and freezing of spare embryos."

What about adopting embryos? The Cardinal said: "I would not rule this solution out as morally unacceptable though I think it raises substantial practical difficulties and presents theological problems." (Tablet, Aug. 10)

Vatican

This was precisely the view of Fr. Faggioni, OFM, in the Vatican's newspaper L'Osservatore Romano (OR). He questioned adoption as a solution to the problem of embryos. He was backed by Bishop Elio Sgreccia, vice-president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, who questioned the appropriateness of adoption without a universal agreement to stop the production and freezing of embryos. And Fr. Gino Concetti, OFM, the regular moral theologian for the O.R., saw adoption as a breach of principles and values opposed to the only real solution, stopping the production altogether. After all, would it not involve a form of surrogacy, for example. Stopping the creation of embryos is what Pope John Paul II called for, again, on May 25, 1996. (Tablet, Aug. 10)

Donum vitae, the 1987 Vatican instruction on high tech conception, states that the freezing of embryos

"even if done to guarantee the preservation of the life of the embryo--cryopreservation--constitutes an offence to the respect due to human beings, in that it exposes them to grave risks of death or harm for their physical integrity, deprives them, at least temporarily, of maternal reception and gestation, and places them in a situation susceptible to further offences and manipulations.

It is not therefore licit to produce embryos in vitro, and even less so to produce them voluntarily in abundance, so as to make cryopreservation necessary."

("O.R. repeats Pope's call to stop production of embryos," Wanderer, Aug. 1)

In Canada this view was restated by Mr. Bede Hubbard, spokesman for the Catholic Conference of Bishops, when he noted that human embryos should not have been artificially produced in vitro and frozen in the first place. (Sun, July 25, '96)

What then are we to do? We should oppose the newly proposed legislation of Federal Health Minister David Dingwall, Bill C-47, in which he continues to accent the creation of embryos and allows for research experimentation up to fourteen days of the embryo's life. This bill will be introduced shortly.

Please write the Minister of Health, Confederation Bldg. #607, Parliament Hill, Ottawa, ON., K1A 0A6. Tel. [phone]; Fax [phone] and send copies of your letter to your M.P. Donum vitae is available from Catholic Insight @ $2.00 per copy.