I recently had a conversation with a fellow Christian about President Trump’s Feb. 18 executive order reducing barriers to accessing in-vitro (IVF) procedures — an order that states like Georgia are already codifying into law. This conversation revealed to me that many Christians still hold the misguided belief that IVF is a “pro-life” procedure.

Is It Justified by Results? Lessons from History

The first argument made by this person was: “I know they hanged people at Nuremberg for inventing this technology, but it does help people.”

There’s a lot to unpack in this statement. First, Nazi physicians didn’t invent the technology for IVF, though they did artificially inseminate prisoners. However, this was an interesting connection between German eugenic medicine and the eugenic practices inherent within the IVF process. In fact, Germany has some of the most restrictive laws regarding IVF procedures — condemning egg donation, the freezing of “excess” embryos and experimentation — as German medical researchers are especially aware of “the shadow of eugenics hanging over them.”

German scientists are more cautious toward experimenting with human life, and this should certainly tell us something about the overall IVF process. Are the experiments Nazis performed, such as the freezing and high-altitude experiments, suddenly moral because the data obtained can help people? No. The innocent victims of IVF, while not experiencing the pain of experimentation as Nazi prisoners did, are created only to be put to death. IVF experiments with, and treats as disposable, the lives of millions of human beings annually.

The IVF Industry and the Destruction of Human Life

“I understand why you’re against IVF, but it does have practical applications,” said my friend. “IVF is so expensive. We need to make IVF cost less than abortion.” 

Of course, IVF has “practical” applications. The fact that the industry isn’t dealing with abstract, theoretical human beings is precisely the issue. Real children are created and killed in laboratories. There are many practical issues inherent in the IVF process. 

Foremost of these issues: IVF takes more lives than abortion. The Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology reported 389,993 IVF cycles in the U.S. in 2022, compared to the CDC’s report of 609,360 abortions. If every cycle produced eight children, then there were about 3.1 million embryonic human persons created.

There’s a huge game of trial-and-error that takes place with millions of embryonic human beings, since even the “best prognosis” patients, those under 35 years of age, have an average of two egg retrieval cycles, and those over 40 can undergo up to nine. If 10 eggs are retrieved, then about eight of them will become embryos upon fertilization. Even just two retrieval cycles create 16 people who won’t all survive.

What Does ‘Viable’ Really Mean?

My interlocutor brought up a couple he knows who had already implanted one embryo, are planning to implant another, and later hope to test three other frozen embryos for viability. Certainly, a freezer is not a dignified place for human beings to exist — human beings are not made to be frozen.

But here’s the issue for testing for “viability,” besides the fact that humans shouldn’t be created into positions where they have to be determined as “unviable.” Nature knows better than we do when it comes to the creation of life. This is why women’s bodies will naturally reject embryos that are chromosomally “incompatible with life.”

Dr. Craig Turczynski‘s research shows that embryos who appear abnormal often result in chromosomally “normal” babies, and vice versa. Former embryologist Dr. Lauren Rubal seconded these findings. Dr. Rubal stated that it’s possible to biopsy the wrong area of chromosomes in an embryo and be incorrect about a diagnosis. However, even diagnoses that are indeed not “incompatible with life” — such as those with Down syndrome, trisomy 18 or Turner’s syndrome — are automatically deemed “non-transferrable.”

Survivors, Side Effects and Silent Costs

One man stated, “I was conceived through IVF — I am fully against it. I was conceived alongside eight of my siblings. I’m the only survivor.” How many of his siblings may have been deemed “unviable” when they actually had a chance of making it? How many of his siblings’ lives had begun after intentionally being forced into existence in a laboratory only to be lost to any number of unnatural IVF conditions? How does being the only survivor among his siblings impact his psychological well-being?

Speaking of unnatural conditions, the unnatural conception environment can impact cellular processes and alter chromosome structure, the transcription of DNA, and embryonic development, leading to physical and intellectual disabilities and epigenetic changes. Creating children in unnatural conditions in the hope that they will turn out “fine” is one of the largest experiments on human beings in history.

When IVF Masks the Real Problem

The next argument made was that he had another friend who, upon the birth of one of her children through IVF, must have had something “triggered” inside of her by the process, because she subsequently conceived a child naturally.

What this tells me is that she most likely had an underlying condition that was never treated and was instead masked by IVF. The money-hungry, multi-million-dollar IVF industry failed to help her seek alternative, restorative, reproductive medicine treatments that balance hormones, help her make lifestyle changes, and provide surgeries before she began the IVF process.

Love the Children, Question the Means

Lastly, “Without IVF, my friends wouldn’t have their beautiful children.”

The issue isn’t with the beautiful children created through IVF, but with an industry that takes advantage of the vulnerability of those struggling with infertility and treats human life as expendable. Children are precious and worthy of life and love no matter how they’re conceived, and no parents should regret the existence of their children.

However, this doesn’t mean the practice that brought them into existence is ethical. Couples should never have to be put into situations where they are forced to treat their children as disposable, choose which of their children to transfer or freeze, and make the painful decision of what to do with those who are “leftover.”

The Christian Call to Ethical Medicine

Even though it’s considered standard medical practice, physicians are called to heal, to “do no harm,” and to uphold the innate worth and dignity of every human being. IVF is not healing, nor does it honor the worth and dignity of embryonic persons. IVF provides women with unneeded medications, risking unnecessary side effects, leaves underlying fertility conditions unhealed, and prejudices every single human being created as potentially disposable. This is human experimentation — not medicine.

Let’s stop pretending that IVF is a child-honoring procedure just because it “helps people” and brings life into the world. We Christians can’t expect anyone to listen to us when it comes to honoring the basic right to life of every human being made in God’s image when we’re condoning the creation and trial of even one human life in a laboratory.