The National Catholic Bioethics Center is offering a two-book bundle, featuring Human Embryo Adoption, vol. 2: Catholic Arguments For and Against, edited by Trent Horn and Kent Lasnoski, and Human Embryo Adoption, vol. 1: Biotechnology, Marriage, and the Right to Life, edited by Rev. Thomas Berg and Edward Furton.

Individually, Human Embryo Adoption vol. 2 costs $34.95, and Human Embryo Adoption vol. 1 costs $14.95. Now you can preorder the two-book bundle for just $39.95 $31.95!

Human Embryo Adoption, vol. 2: Catholic Arguments For and Against

edited by Trent Horn and Kent Lasnoski

Half a century after the birth of the first person conceived through in vitro fertilization, there remains no definitive magisterial teaching on the moral liceity of embryo adoption. Catholics agree that the status quo, which has led to millions of unborn children being frozen in suspended animation as byproducts of IVF, is unacceptable. Nevertheless, consensus is elusive, and faithful Catholics sit in a kind of limbo, not knowing what if anything can be done for these young prisoners.

Human Embryo Adoption, vol. 2: Catholic Arguments For and Against is the first academic book to systematically investigate the new argumentative strategies proposed since the 2008 promulgation of Dignitas personae, which contains the Church’s most direct statement on embryo adoption. The volume organizes current perspectives thematically, pairing arguments from one side of the debate with corresponding arguments from the other side. These involve questions on the proper use of sexual faculties, parenthood and the rights of the child, the theology of adoption, the example of the Annunciation, the Theology of the Body, and the works of mercy.

By gathering the best arguments from a variety of approaches on both sides of the debate, Human Embryo Adoption presents the positions, arguments, and replies as they currently stand and as they are poised to move forward. This not only will help moral theologians move past the current impasses in the debate but will inform the consciences of faithful Catholics as they consider the practical question of what to do with offspring whose lives have been placed in a state of suspended animation.

ISBN 978-0-935372-82-3 (paperback)

6” x 9”

396 + xiv pages

Read Jimmy Akin’s chapter, “Prenatal Adoption and the Magisterium,” here.

Human Embryo Adoption, vol. 1: Biotechnology, Marriage, and the Right to Life

edited by Rev. Thomas Berg and Edward Furton

What should we do with the hundreds of thousands of frozen embryos held in fertility clinics around the world today? One solution would be adoption. Would such a course of action be moral? In this volume, the leading thinkers in Catholic bioethics divide into two opposing camps in a great debate over biotechnology, sexuality, marriage, and the right to life.

ISBN 978-0-935372-50-2

The launch date for Human Embryo Adoption vol. 2 is June 16, 2025!