Christians Must Consider the Moral and Ethical Hazards of IVF

This article is the second in a two-part series featuring remarks from the Social Conservatism Conference (SoConCon 2024) held July 23-26 in Washington, D.C. You can read the first article here.

Earlier this year, a national conversation surrounding the morality, legality and ethics of in vitro fertilization (IVF) was sparked after the Alabama Supreme Court determined that “extrauterine children” are, in fact, children under Alabama law.

The parents of several embryonic children who were created through IVF sued the Center for Reproductive Medicine after their babies were destroyed by a patient at the fertility clinic. The Alabama Supreme Court ruled in the parents’ favor after finding Alabama’s Wrongful Death of a Minor Act covered their children.

The decision to undergo IVF as a proposed “treatment” for infertility often stems from very painful and personal struggles. As the Daily Citizen has written previously, “It’s not easy or comfortable to talk about the ethics of assisted reproduction. But too much is at stake not to.”

A frank and important discussion regarding the morality, legality and ethics of artificial reproductive technologies took place at SoConCon 2024.

The panel, “IVF Part 1: Peeling Back the Layers on One of Today’s Most Relevant & Sensitive Issues,” featured several experts: Autumn Leva, Senior Vice President, Strategy at Family Policy Alliance Foundation; John Shelton, Policy Director at Advancing American Freedom; Emma Waters, Senior Research Associate in the Center for Life, Religion and Family at The Heritage Foundation; and Dr. Christina Francis, CEO of American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

IVF and Infertility

In her remarks, Waters pointed out that IVF is not truly a treatment for infertility.

“Typically, infertility is merely defined as a diagnosis. So, you’re infertile if you fail to conceive through unprotected intercourse after six to twelve months. And then you receive a diagnosis of infertility. But that’s not actually what infertility is,” Waters pointed out.

“Infertility is the symptom of an underlying condition. In most cases, it’s a mixture of underlying conditions in both the man and woman that results in infertility,” she noted.

“So, when we’re talking about treating infertility, IVF does nothing to treat those underlying causes of infertility. In reality, it’s treating your desire to have a child.”

Dr. Francis echoed Waters’ remarks, stating that “IVF is not geared whatsoever at treating whatever is causing the infertility. It is a workaround, completely.”

She went on to describe the various steps involved in the IVF procedure, including stopping the woman’s natural cycle via medication.

One drug that can be used for this is called Lupron, which Dr. Francis says essentially “immediately puts the woman into menopause, because it completely shuts down her ovaries and shuts down hormone production.”

Then, physicians stimulate the ovaries to grow eggs and follicles via hormonal injections before delaying ovulation with shots of the pregnancy-related hormone HCG.

“After that course, the eggs are harvested, and then the physician will decide how many of the eggs they will try to fertilize,” Dr. Francis said.

“Oftentimes people think this must be a relatively safe procedures,” she added, “but it’s not a benign procedure for women. It places her at risk for Ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome. It can be severe, and women can die from it.”

Ethics of IVF

Waters also emphasized the importance of the sexual union between husband and wife as the God-designed means of procreation.

“We need to help people think critically about assisted reproductive technology, and not just in that simple framing of, ‘Oh, if a life is created, any means are justified.’ We wouldn’t hold that standard for most of our public policy,” Waters said.

“We have to very seriously consider if all the lives lost [as a result of IVF] are worth the lives that are created.”

Indeed, more lives are lost due to IVF each year than abortion. In fact, only 7% of embryos created through IVF will be born alive.

Legality of IVF

Waters posited two questions she thinks policymakers must address when considering the legality of IVF.

“The first question concerns life. How do we appropriately care for life once its conceived?” Waters asked.

“The second question is, ‘What are commonsense regulations that we should have in place to govern Big Fertility?’ In the same way that we govern Big Tech, the pharmaceutical realm and the food industry. What are proper regulations to put in place?” she asked

Dr. Christina Francis pointed out that there are practically no laws – federal or state – governing IVF in the United States.

“We need to think very hard about surrogacy, which is also linked to IVF. And the general commodification of human beings, which is what we see through this,” Dr. Francis said.

“When it comes to IVF, it really is like the Wild West right now, and there really does need to be some ethical guardrails that are put into place,” she added.

John Shelton addressed the Alabama legislature’s rush to adopt “liability shields” for fertility clinics following the Alabama Supreme Court’s decision, giving doctors who provide IVF full civil and criminal immunity for any death or damage to embryos.

“This has been very interesting for the party that talks about parental rights, to create liability shields that undermine those parental rights when it comes to … care and responsibility for the unborn,” Shelton said.

Conclusion

At Focus on the Family, we affirm that husbands, wives and doctors can take steps to lessen ethical concerns associated with IVF if it is used only by a married man and woman with no third-party involvement (no donor sperm, donor eggs, or surrogacy) and the process creates only the number of embryos that can be safely implanted in the mother’s uterus at the time they’re produced (none are frozen for future IVF cycles).

Recent polls have shown that most Americans – 70% – say that having access to IVF is a good thing.

As Christians, its incumbent upon us to carefully think through the moral and ethical problems posed by IVF. We must do so; it is our duty to the hundreds of thousands of lives lost each year because of it.

Related articles and resources:

Counseling Consultation & Referrals

IVF: Moral and Ethical Considerations

Concerns Over Alabama Bill Providing Immunity for IVF Providers

The Commodification of Children: It’s Not ‘Conservative’ to Support Surrogacy

‘Our Babies Have Barcodes.’ The Moral Problems With IVF and Surrogacy.

Lesbian Couple Has Baby Boy Instead of Desired Girl and Sues IVF Clinic Saying It Was Just Like Rape

We Need to Talk About Assisted Reproduction

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