Embryo donation (also: embryo adoption) is the passing on of surplus cryopreserved embryos to third-party intended parents, who gestate and raise the child.
Ontological classification
- is a path of use of: surplus embryos
Personal-ontological classification
Ontologically a relinquishment that respects the personhood of the embryo. The child gestated through embryo donation is, from fertilization onward, a complete human person with full ontological dignity.
Ethical assessment
Embryo donation represents an ethically ambivalent path of use:
- Compared with discarding or indefinite cryostorage, the milder path: it opens to the already-existing embryo the chance of birth and of growing up.
- Compared with conception in the marital act, not equivalent: it leads to a fragmented parenthood – the intended parents are neither the genetic nor necessarily the gestational parents.
Dignitas personae (2008, no. 19) for its part assesses embryo donation critically, because it responds to a state of affairs that itself should not have arisen.
Sources: Generated by querying the Personhood ontology.
Further sources:
- Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (2008): Instruction Dignitas personae on Certain Bioethical Questions (8 December 2008), no. 19 (adoption for the sake of birth).
- ESHRE Task Force on Ethics and Law (2009): Ethics Task Force: Embryo donation for reproductive purposes. Human Reproduction 24(8): 1813–1817.
- ASRM Ethics Committee (2024): Defining embryo donation: an Ethics Committee opinion. Fertility and Sterility (current version).
- Frith, L., Blyth, E., Crawshaw, M. (2011): Embryo relinquishment and donation programmes: a policy and practice review. Human Fertility 14(4): 245–252.
- Deutscher Ethikrat (2014): Embryospende, Embryoadoption und elterliche Verantwortung. Opinion (German).