Katie McMahon and her husband once turned to in vitro fertilization, or IVF, to conceive— but years later, they faced a heartbreaking decision: what to do with their four frozen embryos.
“These were indeed our children,” she told OSV News. The couple wrestled with whether to pursue embryo adoption or attempt to gestate them themselves.
Their experience led McMahon to co-found Shiloh IVF Ministry, a Catholic outreach based in Kansas City that offers hope and healing to those impacted by IVF.
Estimates suggest more than 1 million frozen embryos exist in the United States alone. They are the result of IVF, a procedure where embryos are created in a laboratory and then transferred to a woman’s womb.
More embryos are created than transferred—one of the many reasons why the Catholic Church opposes IVF—and many are stored away in a frozen state.
Each of these embryonic children is a human person with the same dignity and essential rights (including the right to life) as a born child or any other human being, according to church teaching.
“Without definitive magisterial teaching on all aspects of embryo adoption, faithful Catholics can and do take differing positions on this question,” said Joseph Meaney, past president and senior fellow of the National Catholic Bioethics Center.
