Church Teaching
The Roman Catholic Church
As with the Church's position on Designer Babies, the Church is already against IVF and PGD because embryos are discarded. To create a Saviour SIbling using PGD, you have to discard totally healthy embryos, just because they are not a donor match, which the Catholic Church would see as murder.
In France, Catholic Bishops made a statement in response to a Saviour Sibling:
To want to cure a brother in humanity honors man,” the bishops wrote. “Many people dedicate their lives to this! To support parents in their suffering who have a seriously sick child is a duty of society. We understand their anguish and their hope in medicine. However, to legalize the use of the most vulnerable human being to cure is unworthy of man. To conceive a child to use him-- even if it is to cure-- is not respectful of his dignity.
Archbishop Pierre d’Ornellas of Rennes and others, February 2011
The Church of England
As with many medical ethics issues, the Church of England is divided. They want to follow the teachings of the Bible and not act against our God-given nature. At the same time, they want to do the most loving thing. As a result, Anglicans cannot agree. This statement was part of a wider response to issues raised by genetics, written in 2004:
We have great sympathy for the reported cases of 'saviour siblings', but we remain concerned that the acceptability of 'saviour siblings' tips us on to a slippery slope, where individuals are increasingly seen only as a means to an end and not as an end in themselves. Having said that, some of us also believe that there might be strong compassionate grounds for 'saviour siblings', provided that it is clear that: (a) there is no other therapeutic option available; (b) the medical treatment on the 'saviour sibling' really does involve no more than minimal discomfort; (c) the 'saviour sibling' is wanted, loved and cherished as a baby in his or her own right.
A more recent response says:
Any parent put in such a situation is going to do whatever they can to help their child. And clearly it’s an emotive subject. But sometimes, as human beings, we need to step back and consider the consequences of our actions from a bigger perspective than the immediate and the personal.
The Church of England has been raising some of these ‘big questions’ regarding ‘saviour siblings’ over the past few years. Are we treating such children as a commodity rather than as an individual who is unique and valued for who they are rather than what they can provide?
What might it mean for a child to know that they were conceived for a purpose, and had that need not existed, neither might they exist?
In what ways, negatively as well as positively, might the relationship between the donor sibling and the recipient be affected? Ought the donor sibling be able to give consent?
Obviously these big questions need to be balanced against the chance of offering life to a very ill child - and there are certainly no easy answers. But sometimes the question needs to be asked, just because we can do something, should we?
The Venerable Jan McFarlane, Archdeacon of Norwich and spokesman for the Diocese of Norwich
