Katie McMahon and her husband realized the gravity of using in vitro fertilization, or IVF, to conceive when, years later, they needed to make a decision about their final four embryonic children frozen in time by cryopreservation.
"We really had kind of come to see the disorder with IVF and didn't want to pursue IVF again, but it became apparent that these were indeed our children," she told OSV News. "The dilemma became 'Are we going to choose embryo adoption?' or 'Are we going to try to gestate them ourselves?'"
Today, McMahon helps other women navigate questions like these as the co-founder of Shiloh IVF Ministry, a ministry that offers hope and healing those impacted by IVF. Her story is one of many: 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.
McMahon and other Catholic experts, including a bioethicist and the founder of a burial ministry for deceased embryonic children, spoke with OSV News about the future of these unborn children and the possibility of placing them for adoption in light of church teaching. While embryonic children must be treated as persons, the church distinguishes regular adoption, or adoption after birth, from embryo adoption.
"Prenatal or embryo adoption involves the adoptive mother having the abandoned embryo transferred to her womb in the same procedure as couples using in vitro fertilization attempt to achieve pregnancy," said Joseph Meaney, past president and senior fellow of the National Catholic Bioethics Center, or NCBC. "The main question that has yet to be fully resolved by the Church is if it is morally licit to become pregnant with and gestate a child who is from outside the marital union?"
Church teaching
Catholic bioethicists largely cite two Vatican documents on the topic of embryo adoption: "Donum Vitae" ("The Gift of Life") from 1987 and "Dignitas Personae" ("Dignity of a Person") from 2008. Both come from the Congregation (now Dicastery) for the Doctrine of the Faith.
"Dignitas Personae" directly addresses the question of what to do with the "large number of frozen embryos already in existence," while commenting on the "grave injustice."
The document first condemns proposals "to use these embryos for research or for the treatment of disease" or to "thaw such embryos without reactivating them and use them for research." It also rejects the proposal that they "could be put at the disposal of infertile couples as a treatment for infertility."
The document moves next to adoption.
"It has also been proposed, solely in order to allow human beings to be born who are otherwise condemned to destruction, that there could be a form of 'prenatal adoption,'" it reads. "This proposal, praiseworthy with regard to the intention of respecting and defending human life, presents however various problems."
It adds: "All things considered, it needs to be recognized that the thousands of abandoned embryos represent a situation of injustice which in fact cannot be resolved."
"Dignitas Personae" goes on to cite St. John Paul II, who made an appeal in 1996 "that the production of human embryos be halted, taking into account that there seems to be no morally licit solution regarding the human destiny of the … 'frozen' embryos which are and remain the subjects of essential rights and should therefore be protected by law as human persons."
An ongoing debate
While the church is clear about who embryos are and what cannot be done to them, it leaves embryo adoption up for debate.
"Without definitive magisterial teaching on all aspects of embryo adoption, faithful Catholics can and do take differing positions on this question," said Meaney, who recently wrote about "The Question of Embryo Adoption" for the National Catholic Bioethics Center. "Catholics have a duty to discern very carefully in conscience a decision to pursue embryo adoption."
McMahon of Shiloh IVF Ministry and Laura Elm, the founder and executive director of Sacred Heart Guardians and Shelter, or SHG, which provides free burials for deceased embryonic children, agreed that embryo adoption must be carefully discerned by individual couples.
"So many hearts are in a good place to want to remedy an injustice that has been done to these children," Elm said, adding that SHG does not take a position on this issue. "Unfortunately, many times human embryos are seen erroneously as an agent to a pregnancy or as a treatment for infertility."
"The right frame of mind," she said, "is to recognize the full humanity of these human embryos -- and that adopting them by a family that does or does not have infertility is really about serving the child."
A personal encounter
At SHG, Elm has helped bury 1,715 embryonic children since 2018, including many who died in the process of adoption.
"Depending on the technology that was used to freeze these human beings as well as the process of thawing them, sometimes they don't survive," she said.
Elm began her ministry in 2017 after working at an insurance company where she dealt exclusively with fertility clinics that delivered IVF. She saw the data around what happened to the children created: While some were transferred to a woman's womb, many more were either frozen or left to die.
"I thought maybe I could try to show them dignity and care and respect -- even if it's their remains -- by providing an alternative to medical waste disposal," she said.
Today, her ministry helps bury these children at a Catholic cemetery north of Minneapolis.
McMahon and her husband -- who have two living children as a result of IVF and 10 children who died in the process of IVF or through miscarriage -- decided against adoption for their final four embryonic children. They miscarried two; the other two didn't survive the thawing process. She co-founded her ministry in 2023 to help others through her own experience.
"For those who have participated in IVF and need healing or have difficulty thinking about the options that you have with IVF. … Shiloh IVF is definitely here for you and ready to accompany you without judgment because we've been there," she said.
Solutions and support
Women and couples, whether they are struggling with infertility or seeking help after IVF, are not alone, experts wanted them to know. Online, their organizations offer support. Among other things, NCBC offers a free personal ethics consultation, SHG provides forms for prayer and burial requests and Shiloh IVF Ministry does consultations.
They also recognized the goodness of children, regardless of how they were conceived. While "the extremely serious ethical violations that are integral to the IVF process cannot be ignored or approved," NCBC's Meaney called persons conceived with IVF "great blessings as are all children."
These experts recognized the extraordinary cross carried by couples who struggle with infertility -- a cross some of them know personally.
"It is extraordinarily important to understand and empathize with the pain of those struggling with infertility and to affirm the goodness of the intention to have children and become parents," Meaney said.
Meaney noted the opportunity to discuss ethical alternatives to IVF, such as Restorative Reproductive Medicine. McMahon also recommended reaching out to Catholic ministries such as Springs in the Desert and The Fruitful Hollow.
"God hears you and he is working within you," McMahon wanted people to know. "He loves you no matter what."
