The Pro-Life Campaign has said it regrets the decision of the Medical Council to allow the donation of frozen embryos to couples other than their biological parents.
The anti-abortion group's spokeswoman, Dr Berry Kiely, said she would like to see this proposal rescinded in future editions of the council's ethical guidelines.
This follows the publication of the new guidelines by the council last week. In them, it proposed for the first time that fertilised eggs produced during the IVF process and not implanted in the womb of the woman from whom the eggs came should be made available to other infertile couples. This would mean that any children born of such a procedure would not share any genetic material with the family into which they were born.
The issue has arisen because of the practice of freezing surplus embryos produced during the IVF process. The process involves the hyperstimulation of the woman's ovaries and the production of five or six eggs, which are then fertilised by sperm outside the womb. However, not all are implanted, as more than two or three is not considered safe.
In the past, the surplus embryos were implanted in the neck of the womb, where they could not survive. More recently, they have been frozen for future use in another IVF attempt, usually if the first was unsuccessful.
However, circumstances can arise when they are not implanted in the womb of the mother and they can then be "thawed without transfer", which means that they die.
The Medical Council is suggesting instead that doctors consider the possibility of donating them to another couple.
At the moment, no legislation exists providing for such a procedure or regulating the complex legal status of children born as a result. Dr Kiely said: "It is unfortunate that the council took its decision at a time when other jurisdictions are assessing the negative effects of such practices which, heretofore, did not take account of the rights of the children involved.
"Every child has the right to information about his or her biological parents. In all cases where human embryos are produced, there should be a responsibility on the assisted human reproduction unit to keep full records and an obligation on biological parents to support the child should the need arise."
While the Pro-Life Campaign considered such an obligation necessary if donation was proceeded with, she said that it was preferable that the freezing of embryos did not take place at all.
"You can't freeze embryos without significant injury to a lot of them," she said. "Then they don't survive the thawing. We welcome the Medical Council's position of respect for human embryos, and its statement that they cannot be deliberately destroyed. We consider that the implications of the guidelines here is that freezing is not on."
She said the Pro-Life Campaign favoured the kind of legislation under discussion in Italy, and law in Germany, where only three embryos could be produced at one time and all had to be implanted in the womb of the woman who produced them.