The recent debates within Roman Catholicism on heterologous embryo transfer (HET) – the practice of transferring a previously cryopreserved human embryo to the uterus of a woman who is not the genetic mother – have been surprising to both Catholics and non-Catholics. Given the Church’s position that human life has moral status from fertilization onward and her vigorous defense of human embryos against destruction in human embryonic stem cell research, support for the practice might seem assured. Yet, Catholic philosophers and moral theologians have shown that HET raises crucial concerns regarding the continued cultural commodification of human life, the meaning of human sexuality and marriage, and the nature of human personhood.
Three specific areas of concern have arisen: First, whether HET is impermissible because it involves cooperation with (or the appearance of cooperation with) practices that the Church has deemed illicit (i.e., frozen embryos and the dilemma they present only exist because of the practice of in vitro fertilization – IVF). As demonstrated by the work of Brown and Eberl in this volume, however, these are not in principled arguments against the practice and do not to tell against HET in all circumstances.
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Brakman, SV. (2007). RealMothers and Good Stewards: The Ethics of Embryo Adoption. In: Brakman, SV., Weaver, D.F. (eds) The Ethics of Embryo Adoption and the Catholic Tradition. Philosophy and Medicine, vol 95. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-6211-7_7
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