IVF is Immoral and Should Not Be Supported
The Pro-Life Movement has a serious complication
Please do not bring your preconceptions to this short article. Please read it through and understand that I am trying to be helpful. I am not passing judgment on anyone. And I know firsthand how difficult fertility-related conversations, decisions, and events can be. It took us 18 months of trying to conceive our firstborn and we have lost two babies to miscarriage. Marriage and family is a roller-coaster.
The Catholic Church opposes in vitro fertilization (IVF) for several key reasons rooted in its understanding of the sanctity of life, human dignity, and the purpose of marriage and sexuality. Primarily, the Church believes that each human life, from the moment of conception, has inherent dignity and must be respected. IVF often involves the creation of multiple embryos, some of which are discarded, frozen indefinitely, or used in experimentation. This is seen as morally unacceptable because it treats human life as disposable.
The general number of fertilized eggs (human beings) which are produced in the IVF process is 11. Generally, only 1 of those 11 is viable and develops in utero. The other 10 human persons (because biologically life does begin at conception) are frozen indefinitely, die, or are destroyed. So, there is no “safe” amount of fetuses. All of the biological conditions for life are satisfied at the moment of conception, and so the “safe” amount of fetuses referenced here are human beings, no matter how small they are.
Also very important to note is that the Church (and natural law) teaches that children should be conceived through the marital act, which is a unique expression of unity and openness to life within marriage. IVF separates conception from this act, reducing the process to a medical procedure rather than a shared act of love between spouses. This detachment is seen as contrary to the natural design of procreation. Sexual intimacy in marriage is a renewal of one’s wedding vows and is meant to be both unitive and procreative. There is simply no possibility of morally conceiving a child outside of this embrace.
Children are NEVER a mistake. I want to make that clear. If you were conceived through IVF, you are no less than anyone else! If you chose to conceive children through IVF, I will assume that you had the best motivations and just did not know what you were doing.
IVF is not the answer. Medications can cost between $2,000 and $7,000 per cycle (GoodRX). Genetic testing like preimplantation can cost over $3,000 (Parents). And if donor services are used (another HUGE moral issue), then an egg donor can cost between $25k and $30k per cycle (Parents). At present, this cost is insanely high. If the method was not extremely immoral and unethical, then the pricing scheme certainly would be.
To make matters worse, President Trump has stated that he wants to follow through with a campaign idea for the government to pay for IVF treatment or mandate that insurance companies pay for it. This is horrifically bad morally and economically. Economically, the annual cost to taxpayers could range from $960 million to $3.2 billion (based on the average cost of IVF per cycle, the number of IVF cycles per patient, the number of patients, and the total estimated cost). If the method was moral, then I might support such a cost. But to pay that much money for something immoral is not good. And to attach that cost to taxpayers like you and I who do not support such a practice is not good.
What complicates the picture further is JD Vance’s vocal support for the IVF mandate. JD is a Catholic convert (in 2019). We could easily be getting into the same Eucharistic coherence issues that we had with pro-abortion Joe Biden. The Pillar wrote a great article about this conundrum.
Pray for the would-be mothers who are desperate. May they receive the peace that only Jesus can give. Pray for President-Elect Trump and Vice President-Elect Vance; may they have a change of heart and see through the lies offered by this cash cow industry.
Marriage and family need champions. Children are not commodities to be engineered. Sex is a beautiful thing that needs to be further enshrined in Matrimony.
We are lost. Jesus, show us the way.