Frozen Embryos

There was a time when adoption was thought of in terms of providing children for childless couples. That position is now reversed and the function of adoption is to provide parents for children who, for one reason or another, are effectively parentless. In other words, consideration of the needs of the child is paramount. This is enlightenment in action, it constitutes genuine progress in social thinking.

The frozen embryo case now before the courts must take account of the outcome for the child should the ex-wife achieve a successful outcome, both in her court case and her subsequent pregnancy.

Such a child will be born into a single parent family and will, almost inevitably, learn at some stage of the current litigation. This is hardly the set of circumstances which would be deemed to be in the best interests of the child. These grounds alone suggest that the court should find in favour of the ex-husband.

This then leaves the thorny dilemma of what to do with the frozen embryos.

There are far more parents seeking to adopt than there are children available for adoption. Many people go abroad to adopt and this gives rise to accusations that babies are actually being sold. The past week has seen such accusations about a lady actively involved in providing adoptions from Vietnam. Surely this is one potential solution which would not ignite another emotive and highly divisive pro-life/pro-choice debate?

Footnote: The section in italics published as a letter in the Irish Independent, they left out the final section which deals with use of the frozen embryos. I can probably expect to be added to the SPUC hate-list.