As of July 1, 2009, you can adopt an embryo in Georgia. A new state law promoted by pro-lifers allows the *parents* to transfer their legal rights to the embryo and any baby growing from it to other parents, who can then later officially adopt the child once it is...more than an embryo. The law is a breakthrough for opponents of abortion, because it gets people to see an embryo as an adoptable child.
The issue among pro-lifers and abortion rights advocates has long been the definition of life -- at which point does a fetus become a person with the right to live? Although the new law does not define when life begins, or state that the embryo is living already, the unwritten implication is that it is indeed a person.
After riding through Florida last week past countless pro-life billboards stating that a baby's heart begins to beat after 18 days, it was sort of fitting to read the news today and see an argument that a baby's life begins even earlier. Presumably thousands of embryos are currently being destroyed after they are no longer needed, and this law will give the "legal embryo custodian" an alternative to destroying their future offspring. They can instead adopt them out, without ever going through the trouble of pregnancy.
Is this the solution to the long wait lists for adopting a baby? How much will it cost to adopt an embryo? Who will then give birth to the child? It still isn't clear to me how all this will play out, but I'll be watching the news to find out.
Below is an excerpt from the Atlanta Journal Constitution story:
The issue among pro-lifers and abortion rights advocates has long been the definition of life -- at which point does a fetus become a person with the right to live? Although the new law does not define when life begins, or state that the embryo is living already, the unwritten implication is that it is indeed a person.
After riding through Florida last week past countless pro-life billboards stating that a baby's heart begins to beat after 18 days, it was sort of fitting to read the news today and see an argument that a baby's life begins even earlier. Presumably thousands of embryos are currently being destroyed after they are no longer needed, and this law will give the "legal embryo custodian" an alternative to destroying their future offspring. They can instead adopt them out, without ever going through the trouble of pregnancy.
Is this the solution to the long wait lists for adopting a baby? How much will it cost to adopt an embryo? Who will then give birth to the child? It still isn't clear to me how all this will play out, but I'll be watching the news to find out.
Below is an excerpt from the Atlanta Journal Constitution story:
...HB 388, which also goes into effect today, allows for the adoption of embryos. Religious conservatives championed the bill to provide an alternative to the destruction of embryos harvested by couples trying to conceive a child. Jim Beck, president of the Georgia Christian Coalition, was among its supporters.
"People of faith have always contended that an embryo is life," said Beck, who added that the new law "is really a step toward acknowledging that an embryo is, in fact, life."
The bill's authors, however, specifically skirted the issue of whether an embryo is a person, and it does not give embryos, including the estimated 20,000 now frozen in Georgia fertility clinics, their own rights.
Beck said that while he does not expect "a floodgate to open and people to step forward" and adopt embryos..."any embryo saved from destruction is a life and is a life that may enrich a family."
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