Do Embryo Adoptions “Give Too Much Personhood to the Embryo”?

A recent article ran in The New York Times about embryo adoption (also known as snowflake adoption), through which couples (particularly those who struggle with infertility) adopt an embryo “leftover” from an invitro fertilization (IVF) treatment. This baby (a real, living human being) is then placed in the womb of the adoptive mother to hopefully implant and continue growing. Unless they are adopted, these embryos—tiny humans made in God’s image—will otherwise likely stay frozen (suspended) until they are discarded (i.e., killed).

From a Christian perspective (and it is no surprise most embryo adoption agencies and prospective parents are Christians), this adoption program is a wonderful thing—these babies are being saved and given what is needed for them to fully develop. But according to Kimberly Tyson, the marketing and program director at Snowflake Embryo Adoption in Loveland, Colorado, many in the medical community are not very positive regarding these adoption agencies. She says,

The issue in the medical community is that by calling it “adoption,” we give too much personhood to the embryo. . . . As Christians, of course we believe they’re persons. . . . But for the reproductive medical community, if you bestow humanity to the nascent human embryo, you’re interfering with other services that they like very much.

Of course, included with the “other services” is abortion and embryonic stem cell research. As soon as you start ascribing personhood to embryos and unborn children, you interfere with such “services” (murderous ones) because it suddenly becomes clearly unethical to kill embryos as they are not blobs of cells or tissue. They are children!

Every child is precious, made in God’s image, and deserving of life.

We should celebrate snowflake adoptions and the couples who are willing to rescue those babies and welcome them into their family. Every child is precious, made in God’s image, and deserving of life.

Sadly, the sacrifice of children by abortion permeates our world! One can only begin to imagine how corrupt the world must have been before Noah’s flood when only eight people were saved on the Ark from the watery judgment on man’s wickedness.

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This item was discussed on Answers News by cohosts Avery Foley and Dr. Gabriela Hayes. Answers News is our twice-weekly news program filmed live before a studio audience here at the Creation Museum and broadcast on my Facebook page and the Answers in Genesis Facebook page. The team also discussed the following topics:

• Kentucky bans abortion after a heartbeat is detected.
• Is a 20-million-year-old sea cow Central America’s oldest marine mammal?
• Lesbian activist ousted for using the wrong pronoun for a transgender rapist.
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Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,
Ken

This item was written with the assistance of AiG’s research team.