For one critic, a report that IVF-conceived embryos are being cremated and turned into jewelry for their mothers shows the basic problem with the artificial creation of human embryos.

“I have no words. I have no category for who would think this would be something good to do,” said Jennifer Lahl, the founder and president of the California-based Center for Bioethics and Culture.

“It’s so undignified that these embryos have been destroyed to become jewelry,” she told CNA. “I thought, ‘My gosh, it really has hit rock-bottom’.”

Lahl, who has a background as a pediatric critical care nursing and hospital administration, has long been a critic of egg donation and IVF.

Now, the small Australian company Baby Bee Hummingbirds is turning embryos into keepsake jewelry.

A story in the Australian mothers’ website Kidspot portrays the process as a solution to “extra” embryos that are created in the in-vitro fertilization process. It recounts the story of a couple who had conceived three children, including twins, but faced financial strain in paying for the annual storage of the leftover embryos and could not imagine disposing of them or donating them.

“I don’t believe there is any other business in the world that creates jewelry from human embryos, and I firmly believe that we are pioneering the way in this sacred art, and opening the possibilities to families around the world,” Amy McGlade, the founder of Baby Bee Hummingbirds, told Kidspot.

Families send the jeweler IVF straws containing the embryos, which are cremated into embryo ash, which is then incorporated into the jewelry.

Kidspot cited one mother who had her embryos turned into jewelry through the business.

“I’d heard others had planted them in the garden but we move a lot, so I couldn’t do this,” said the mother, who had the seven embryos placed in a heart-shaped pendant. “I needed them with me.”

She said the six years of IVF treatment was “painful, tormenting, a strain on our marriage and just plain hard.”

“Finding this has brought me so much comfort and joy,” she said. “I finally at peace and my journey complete.”

“My embryos were my babies – frozen in time,” she said. “When we completed our family, it wasn’t in my heart to destroy them. Now they are forever with me in a beautiful keepsake.”

Full story at Catholic News Agency.