ROME — An Italian priest has offered adoptive homes for embryos that have been frozen for scientific research. The Rev. Oreste Benzi of Bologna, well known in Italy for campaigning against abortion and prostitution, said in a statement July 7 that a number of Catholic families are “ready to immediately adopt abandoned human embryos.
“Unfortunately, in every country of the European Union, thousands of human embryos are stocked in freezers like freshly slaughtered beasts,” Benzi said. Calling this an “unjust and inhuman state,” he said, “Every single one has the right to survive, and we are willing to take responsibility for them.” Although the priest did not spell out the adoption plan, he indicated that the embryos would be gestated and born. He said the biological parents of the embryos would be contacted first, and if they did not take responsibility, volunteers would adopt the abandoned embryos in the full knowledge that “many of them won’t survive and that others will bear the physical signs of the injustice to which they have been subjected.”
The freezing of embryos for stem-cell experiments and cloning would be forbidden in Italy under draft legislation now before the Italian Parliament. Pope John Paul II has praised the bill for defending the rights of unborn children. Benzi said he supports stem-cell research “that gives hope to seriously ill people” but believes “the sacrifice of other weak and innocent human life” is unacceptable.
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