IVF is Not Pro-Life

Written by Alyssa Sonnenburg

On February 18, President Donald J. Trump signed an executive order that expands access to In-Vitro Fertilization (IVF).

According to the White House,

“The Order recognizes the importance of family formation and that our Nation’s public policy must make it easier for loving and longing mothers and fathers to have children.”

The executive order goes on to cite the dangerously low fertility rate America is currently facing, as well as the difficulty many families are having as they try to have children. President Trump goes on to promote IVF as being pro-family, which is why he says he has been pro-IVF “from the beginning.”

However, U.S. Senate Republicans voted to block the Duckworth-Booker amendment, which would have lowered the cost of IVF for middle class families and expand IVF access.

U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois bemoaned this vote and commented,

“Senate Republicans once again had a chance to put up or shut up and prove that their self-proclaimed support for IVF is more than just lip service.

Instead, they voted to block our amendment that would help lower costs for middle-class Americans who depend on it to build their families—after blocking our Right to IVF Act twice last year. So let there be no confusion: Senate Republicans may claim they support IVF, but their actions speak louder than words.”

U.S. Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey, the co-sponsor of this amendment, also made comments regarding the Senate Republicans:

“My Republican colleagues once again had the opportunity to recommit to protecting reproductive freedoms and Americans’ right to make their own medical decisions.

Unfortunately, they voted against making IVF treatments more affordable for the thousands of families across our country who depend on it to start and grow their families.”

While we can all agree to the existence of low birth rates and high infertility in both men and women, Christians must stand against the solution being IVF treatments.

Now, right at the outset, we can all agree that every child born through IVF is equally human, equally valuable, and worthy of rights and protection. They are a blessing that is to be cherished and loved.

Nevertheless, we as Christians must recognize the truth that the IVF industry is not pro-life.

Katy Faust, Founder and President of Them Before Us, a global movement defending children’s rights, recently appeared in an interview with Students for Life.

In the footage, she made a shocking statement:

“IVF destroys more embryonic life than Planned Parenthood.”

She went on to add,

“Only about 7% of babies created [through IVF] will be born alive… the vast majority of children… will die. They will never be born alive. They will spend their life forever in a freezer. They will be donated to research. They will be sex-selected or graded out of existence because they aren’t ‘fit.’

Very often, abortion is a part of IVF… where that serves as both quality control and quantity control…

When we actually look at the way that IVF is practiced, what we see is the baby-making industry of IVF and big fertility is responsible for the death of more embryonic life than the baby-taking industry–abortion.”

Let that sink in. The IVF industry kills more babies than Planned Parenthood.

As Christians, this fact alone should cause us to take another evaluative look at IVF and its moral standing in God’s eyes.

Allie Beth Stuckey rightly notes that children are always the un-consenting victims of the desires and wants of adults.

Wanting to have a family is a good thing. Hoping for children is a God-given desire. Children are a blessing from the Lord, as Psalm 127 beautifully reminds us.

Yet just because children are a blessing from God does not justify gaining them “at any cost.” The ends do not always justify the means.

They are not a commodity, as the IVF industry treats them.

Rather, they are fellow image-bearers with the same right to life and the dignity you and I have, and every life lost to the IVF industry is a moral tragedy we must mourn.

While we can celebrate the babies that come into the world through IVF, we as Christians must nevertheless recognize the anti-life mentality the IVF industry promotes and oppose its expansion and use.

Alyssa Sonnenburg is a dedicated Christian, wife, mother and is a 2022 graduate of Moody Bible Institute. She is a frequent guest on WPEO’s “The Good Word” program, a co-host of the Self-Evident podcast and serves as an Executive Assistant at IFI. Growing up on the southside of Chicago, she and her husband now live in the northwest suburbs.