Q. In Mark’s Gospel account of Jesus’ bringing the daughter of Jairus back to life, he says that Jesus “gave strict orders that no one should know this and said that she should be given something to eat” (5:43). I don’t understand this. Surely, Jesus must have known that this miraculous event would soon become widely known. — S.H., Illinois.
A. Jesus gave similar admonitions to others whom He cured, but of course no one having had his sight or hearing or mobility restored could be expected to keep silent about it, and certainly when the daughter of Jairus went outside her house, everyone would know that the little girl who was dead was now alive.
So why did Jesus say this? Perhaps He was hoping that, while reports of the miracle would, in Matthew’s realistic words, “spread throughout all that land” (9:26), His Messiahship would remain hidden until He was ready to make it known.
Recall that Jesus faced considerable unbelief and hostility in His ministry, which is why He spoke in parables to the people and more plainly to His disciples. They were well-disposed by faith to accept His teachings, but the crowds were not. Their hearts were still hardened and their minds were still darkened to an understanding of the reign of God, and they would require a more gradual unveiling of the mystery of the kingdom. They were expecting a Messiah who would be a warrior king, not a “suffering servant.”
So while Jesus did not hesitate to heal the sick and raise the dead, He tried to play down these wonderful signs by urging the beneficiaries of His healing touch to keep quiet, knowing full well that their silence was unlikely.
Q. What is the Church’s teaching on frozen embryos? Could it possibly be moral for a woman to “adopt” an embryo and let it develop in her body, seeing as the only other option is to destroy these frozen embryos or keep them frozen indefinitely? — I.W., via e-mail.
A. The Church has condemned the freezing of hundreds of thousands of embryos, sometimes referred to as “snowflake babies” or “orphans in ice,” but it has not specifically condemned embryo adoption. In its 2008 document Dignitas Personae, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) said that the adoption of frozen embryos, “while praiseworthy with regard to the intention of respecting and defending human life,” is problematic.
It sided with Pope John Paul II’s appeal to scientists and doctors to halt the production of human embryos, quoting him as saying that “there seems to be no morally licit solution regarding the human destiny of the thousands and thousands of ‘frozen’ embryos which are and remain the subjects of essential rights and should therefore be protected by law as human persons” (n. 19).
That this situation resulting from the process known as in vitro fertilization (IVF) is a tragedy was made clear by the CDF in its 1987 declaration Donum Vitae:
“Every human being is to be respected for himself, and cannot be reduced in worth to a pure and simple instrument for the advantage of others. It is therefore not in conformity with the moral law deliberately to expose to death human embryos obtained in vitro. In consequence of the fact that they have been produced in vitro, those embryos which are not transferred into the body of the mother and are called ‘spare’ are exposed to an absurd fate, with no possibility of their being offered safe means of survival which can be licitly pursued.”
As far as adopting these tiny humans, respected and orthodox moral theologians have come down on both sides of the issue. In supporting their adoption, the late Dr. William E. May argued that the woman’s act of transferring the unborn baby from the freezer to her womb is a good act; that “her pregnancy is not the result of an immoral act of generating human life whether by fornication, adultery, or the use of new reproductive technologies. The child has already been generated in a way that violates his or her dignity, but the woman in no way collaborated in its immoral mode of generation.”
He said that the act is not “opposed to the good of marriage because the woman is not choosing to give herself in an act of genital union to someone to whom she is not married…nor is the woman in any way cooperating in the evil of in vitro fertilization or choosing to bear a child for the benefit of other persons, as a surrogate mother does, but rather for the benefit of the child himself or herself….
“To avoid scandal, the woman should take care to let it be known that she regards in vitro fertilization and surrogate mothering as intrinsically evil, that babies produced artificially are human persons of incalculable value and in need of protection, and that her only interest is to protect an abandoned unborn baby’s life.”
On the other side of the debate was the late Msgr. William B. Smith. Referring to the Donum Vitae statement that “embryos which are not transferred into the body of the mother and are called ‘spare’ are exposed to an absurd fate, with no possibility of their being offered safe means of survival which can be licitly pursued,” he said, “No safe means that can be licitly pursued! Perhaps, the CDF did not intend to address this precise case, but I read here a first principled insight indicating that this volunteer ‘rescue’ is not a licit option.”
Noting the Church’s opposition to surrogate motherhood, Smith said that while frozen embryo transfer does not precisely fit the CDF’s definition of surrogacy, “it seems to me that the foundational reasons for rejecting ‘surrogacy’ as licit also apply to this project — a failure to meet the obligations of maternal love, conjugal fidelity, and responsible motherhood; and the facts offend the dignity and right of the child to be conceived, carried in the womb, brought into the world, and brought up by his own parents, setting up to the detriment of families a division between the physical, psychological, and moral elements which constitute families.”
More recently, in November 2016, Fr. Tad Pacholczyk, a priest and ethicist with the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia, said that he has seen “an increasing number of Catholics who regret having engendered human life in this way, and regret that they ignored or weren’t informed about the teachings of the Church on IVF and infertility. They are perplexed and even tormented about what to do with these ‘spare’ human embryos who really are their cryogenic children.”
He said that when asked about this question, “I stress that there are no easy answers. Human embryos can never just be thawed and discarded, as that would be morally indistinguishable from the case of discarding a newborn or an infant in a dumpster to die. In fact, the step of merely thawing out human embryos exposes them to great risk, with as many as half not being able to survive the process. I usually suggest to parents that, for the time being, embryonic children should be kept frozen as a way of protecting them and respecting their life and integrity.
“As the discussion continues, I may also recommend that they consider setting up a trust fund so that after they pass on, their frozen children will be provided for. These children clearly cannot be educated, clothed, or fed, but they can be afforded a measure of protection in their frozen state, with fresh liquid nitrogen continuing to be provided, at least for a time.”
As for embryo adoption, Fr. Tad said that “the transfer of ‘spare’ embryos to another woman, who implants, gestates, and raises them as her own, might end up being recognized as morally allowable by the Church. This unusual form of adoption is still morally debated, and Dignitas Personae, the most recent Church document addressing the matter, raises serious concerns about the idea, as have a number of philosophers and bioethicists, myself included. When confronted with the absurd fate of having embryos trapped in a state of suspended animation indefinitely, few or no alternatives really seem to exist.”
He recalled a conversation with a divorced woman who had seven frozen children in storage. “She described how she agonized daily over the plight of her babies,” Fr. Tad said, “and how it felt like an open wound that could never quite heal. She shared how each year, on the anniversary of the embryos’ creation — their ‘birthday’ of sorts — she would place a call to the fertility clinic and inquire about their status. She would ask the staff to look up and verify how many were stored at the facility.
“Fearful that something might have happened to her children, or that they might end up being abandoned or forgotten, her annual call served as a reminder to herself and to those at the clinic that they were still there, that somebody still cared, despite the callousness of a world that seemed only too ready to ignore this ongoing humanitarian tragedy.”
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