{"id":7100,"date":"2004-06-24T09:41:02","date_gmt":"2004-06-24T09:41:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2004\/06\/embryonic_tales.html"},"modified":"2004-06-24T09:41:02","modified_gmt":"2004-06-24T09:41:02","slug":"embryonic_tales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/06\/embryonic_tales.html","title":{"rendered":"Embryonic Tales"},"content":{"rendered":"

From CT: What to do with frozen embryos?<\/a><\/p>\n

\nJim and Susanne are not alone. More than 400,000 frozen embryos are stored in clinics across the United States. No one knows how long frozen embryos retain their viability, but children have been born from embryos stored five to ten years.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And then, from a letter from a reader:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\nThey were one of the many couples I encountered during my frequent visits to
\nthe OB\/GYN prior to my surgery. Here I was, facing the premature end of my reproductive years, spending many hours in the waiting room with couples trying to kick-start theirs. The irony was not lost on any of us. Normally, we would not have mingled but my doctor’s desire to see me early in the morning brought us together.<\/p>\n

The lack of moral underpinning and conscious faith in these young people’s lives contributes greatly to their willingness to undergo these “purely scientific, medical” procedures. Only when they get in the middle of
\nit,faced with in-vitro embryos whose destiny they must determine, do they come
\nface-to-face with the moral implications of their deeds. At a visceral level, they encounter a multiplicity of crises of faith and morals with little foundation upon which to wrestle.<\/p>\n

The journey of infertility was no picnic before and our technology has made it worse, not better for too many individuals.<\/p>\n

Twenty-two years ago, an OB\/GYN slammed my medical record shut and pronounced us unable to conceive. In some respects, what appeared to be a cruel sentence turned out to be a gift, his lousy bedside mannernotwithstanding. I did not seek out more answers, a new technology, in
\nlarge part due to the state of infertility treatments as well as enough self-researched catechesis and common sense to know what was licit and what not. Rather, we turned our efforts to consider adoption — and prayed for the grace to be the best aunt and uncle we could possibly be.<\/p>\n

As you well know, about a year later I found myself pregnant — and today,
\nthey number four. And yes, we are aunt and uncle to five more.<\/p>\n

Our desire to regulate and initiate procreation has removed humanity from
\nthe equation — both the prospective parent’s as well as the child’s.
\nChildren have now become products of a process subject to societal
\nregulation and proclivities rather than viewed as a gift of mystery from
\nGod. What was once a beautiful mystery is now viewed as mere biologicalmechanics.<\/p>\n

In our erasure of human dignity, we have also blinded ourselves to the
\nDivine present at procreation.<\/p>\n

And we call this progress?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From CT: What to do with frozen embryos? Jim and Susanne are not alone. More than 400,000 frozen embryos are stored in clinics across the United States. No one knows how long frozen embryos retain their viability, but children have been born from embryos stored five to ten years. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. 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