Embryo Adoption Theologically Considered: Bodies, Adoption, and the Common Good

When a genuinely contested question arises in moral theology, initial analyses inevitably settle around particular lines of argument and counter-argument that rely on relevant moral claims which are presumed stable and settled. Mutual criticism, discussion, and further reflection bring more nuance and texture to these lines of argument as they also illumine those claims and teachings taken to be reliable moral markers or building blocks. What takes shape is a “debate” with more or less clearly demarcated “sides,” and subsequent scholarly entries into the contested question must traverse the debate’s terrain. Eventually, however, new routes into the question are called for and charted, as newcomers to and veterans of the debate alike begin to challenge the terms on which the conversation has settled.

In the case of embryo adoption, analyses have settled around the question whether it is morally permissible to transfer a genetically unrelated embryo into the uterus of a married woman, and answers to this question are crafted by appealing to relatively stable and settled Catholic teaching on marriage, or more specifically to the marriage “act” (i.e., heterosexual intercourse) or to the marital/nuptial significance of the human body. This essay argues that many of the heretofore available Catholic arguments about embryo adoption are methodologically flawed, problematically gendered, and theologically deficient. After developing these charges, the essay explores embryo adoption in light of theological reflection on Christ’s body and ours, adoption, and the common good. While I judge that embryo adoption is at least sometimes morally permissible, my aim here is not so much to argue for the moral permissibility of the practice, but (like Eric Gregory does admirably in his contribution to this volume) to call for and inaugurate more robustly moral theological consideration of the practice. More specifically, I consider embryo adoption in light of the affirmation that we are made God’s adopted children by being incorporated into Christ’s body.