In 2019, Chad and Michael of Baltimore, Mayland, decided to start their family as a gay couple. Worried that biological parents would not want to give their children up for adoption to two men, Chad and Michael looked into alternative routes and decided to pursue embryo adoption.
“Embryo donation seemed like a great way to honor that feeling [of desiring children] that we had — to give a donated embryo a warm and loving home to two rad dads,” wrote Chad.[1]
Chad went on to detail “all the ways [they] could filter [their] options and view the available embryos” and the involvement of a “friend” whom he referred to as the “gestational carrier” throughout his embryo adoption story.
Parental Desire and Personhood of Children
This stomach-turning story highlights some of the ethical dilemmas posed by IVF, embryo implantation, and embryo adoption.
Chad and Michael were two men living together in sin, yet they felt the natural desire for parenthood. In itself, desiring to be a parent is a good thing; after all, children are a blessing from the Lord.[2] Yet a problem arises when adults put their own desires and wishes above the rights and personhood of children.
When frozen embryonic children are relegated to serving the purposes and desires of parents to the point that children’s traits are selected like choosing food items on a McDonald’s kiosk, those children then become a commodity and their personhood is diminished.
Even in a real marriage between a man and a woman, couples should desire the Lord’s blessing of children, but they also need to do it on His terms. Desiring children is good, but we cross a line when we use artificial means contrary to God’s design for marriage.
Separating the marital sexual relationship from procreation subverts the biblical sanctity of that marital union and places the power to create in the hands of man over God.
As Christians especially, we must recognize that God is the Creator. He forms children in the womb, and He alone should have that level of power.
Slippery Slope
Embryo adoption rests on the edge of a slippery slope. While many Christian families choose to adopt embryos to give frozen embryonic children a chance to live a regular life, the embryo adoption process is not necessarily billed as being primarily for the good of the child.
Take, for example, the National Embryo Donation Center, which presents embryo adoption like this: “Embryo donation can be an opportunity for many who have given up hope of ever raising a child.”[3] Elsewhere the website reads: “Embryo adoption allows the genetic parents to give their embryos a chance for birth. And it provides you with an opportunity to have children. Embryo adoption allows you to experience pregnancy and the birth of a child.”[4]
Notice that the emphasis is placed on the birth and adoptive parents’ wants rather than the rights of the preborn person. This is also evident through phrases such as “embryo donation” and various explanations of parents choosing what to do with their excess embryos, as if the embryos are property.
There are Christian families who choose to cut through the dehumanizing elements and adopt embryos for their own good.[5] And while the benefits of embryo adoption for both the child in her embryonic stage of development as well as couples who adopt these children to love and care for them are manifest, there are still many ethical complexities arising from the process.
Fortifying IVF Practices
In part 1 of this series, Georgia Right to Life (GRTL) highlighted the blessings of embryo adoption. In this article, some of the ethical concerns will be addressed. GRTL does not condemn embryo adoption but rather recognizes that finding a solution to the crisis of excess frozen embryos requires an honest discussion of the ethical complexities involved.
One concern raised in the embryo adoption discussion is that the continued availability of frozen embryos emboldens the in vitro fertilization (IVF) industry. As we have shown before, the IVF industry produces several times the number of embryos that are necessary to perform the procedure.
Infertility clinicians will argue that as many as 20 embryos must be available and that possibly only two may be ruled as “viable” while the remaining 18 embryos are either frozen or immediately ruled out in the selective reduction process.[6] And the New England Journal of Medicine stated that in 2023, roughly 30% of IVF attempts did not result in a clinical pregnancy. [6a]
How Old is Too Old?
Dangers also exist that frozen embryos will reach a point in time that they are no longer considered “viable” and will be “too old,” and thus will be automatically discarded. Additionally, the laws in Greece state that a woman can only engage in embryo transfer until age 54.[7] What happens to the embryonic child once the biological mother reaches this age?
Another factor to consider is the legal length of time that the embryos are allowed to be stored before they are donated or destroyed.
The ethics surrounding this dilemma should cause concern. Generally, the laws protecting frozen embryos vary from state to state in the US. Some states have more recently sought to or passed legislation to restrict or to even give some recognition of rights to the frozen embryo.
Sadly, most states view these frozen embryonic children as property and this can lead to extremely devastating circumstances should the biological parents divorce, die, or otherwise abandon the embryos.[8]
Rates of Success
Further concerns are raised regarding the surrogacy aspect of embryo adoption. Fetal embryo transfers do not guarantee pregnancy. The pregnancy rate is reported at 40 to 50%.[9]
Embryo adoption, involving the transfer of a donated embryo, has been associated with a higher risk of pregnancy-related high blood pressure, including pre-eclampsia than frozen embryo transfer using the recipient’s own embryos. Pre-eclampsia can threaten the mother’s health and may require early delivery, exposing the child to complications of prematurity.[10]
If more than one embryo is transferred, a resulting multiple pregnancy increases risks for the mother, including high blood pressure and bleeding, and for the children, including premature birth and low birth weight. These risks do not mean complications are inevitable, and the absence of a genetic relationship alone does not establish that a child will be unhealthy.[11]
In Conclusion
The crisis of frozen embryos is a true tragedy, one that embryo adoption might not be able to solve. And real children hang in the balance.
As Katy Faust of Them Before Us writes: “The reality is that these children are not commodities to be swapped and traded, thawed and discarded, used for research, or donated to another family. They are the very real children of the mother and father who created them. And just like every other child on the planet, those frozen children have a right to be known, loved, and raised by their mother and father.”
The matter of embryo adoption will be perpetuated as long as there is a legal “right” to the Artificial Reproductive Technologies which allow for the harvesting of, research of, and destruction of living human embryos.[12]
Personhood advocates need to ardently pray for a solution to this crisis: for an end to the exploitation of children through in vitro fertilization and for an ethical solution for the preborn persons already created.
Sources:
[1] Gay Couple Embryo Adoption Testimony | Shady Grove Fertility
[2] Psalm 127:3
[3] National Embryo Donation Center
[4] Adoption Information | National Embryo Donation Center
[5] Embryos Desperately Need Adoption | Georgia Right to Life
[6] According to Worldmetrics.org, the US IVF market is projected to reach $13.1 billion by 2030, IVF Fertility Industry Statistics (2026): Latest Research
[6a] Ibid.
[7] Months after son killed in crash, couple welcomes daughter born from embryo frozen for 22 years | CBS News
[8] Frozen Embryo Law | American Surrogacy
[9] Realities of Embryo Adoption | The Center for Bioethics & Culture Network
[10] Ibid.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Georgia House Bill 428
Zemmie Fleck
Georgia Right to Life
Executive Director