Do Catholics Want to Throw Away Babies?

As more Americans than ever before turn to in vitro fertilization to create families, a surprising ethical question â?? what to do with thousands of embryos stuck in a sort of frozen limbo â?? is dividing conservative Catholics in the United States, with some calling for the embryos to be adopted, while others say: Not so fast.

In vitro fertilization, in use since the early 1980s, is pretty straightforward, at least medically. Doctors combine human eggs and sperm outside of the womb to create embryos and then implant one or more in a womanâ??s uterus. To increase the chances of success, doctors produce several embryos at a time, not all of which are implanted.