Russian Church Reexamining Stance on IVF in Light of Medical Advances

Pravoslavie ^ | 2/10/21

[marshmallow]

The Russian Orthodox Church has initiated a broad discussion among its clergy and flock to consider updating its stance towards in vitro fertilization reproductive technology, taking into account the development of medical science over the past 20 years.

The draft document, “Ethical Problems Associated with In Vitro Fertilization,” was published on the official site of the Russian Church on Friday and on several other outlets. Comments are being collected by the Inter-Council Presence of the Russian Church until March 29.

The Russian Church formulated its first official position towards IVF in the document, “Bases of the Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church,” adopted by the Council of Bishops of the Russian Church in 2000. All kinds of IVF (referred to as extracorporal fertilisation in the document) “involving the production, conservation and purposeful destruction of ‘spare’ embryos” are “morally inadmissible.”

The new draft document notes that since 2000, medical advances have led to the possibility of producing only or two embryos during IVF and transferring them to the womb, thus “the Church also allows for the possibility of IVF for spouses who are of childbearing age.”

At the same time, the document emphasizes that the Church cannot condone the obtaining of “excess” embryos, the cryptopreservation of embryos, fetal reduction, the donation of germ cells, surrogacy, or preimplantation diagnosis.

[CondoleezzaProtege]

Pro-Life ping. Not Catholic - but still very much related.