Aliens in America: Day 34

Is IVF a Holy Option?   

“As aliens, live in reverent fear” (1 Pet. 1:17). 

As a Christian, living in reverent fear means respecting who God made and how He made us. Every life has dignity, beginning as embryos. Sadly, in vitro fertilization (IVF) reduces embryos to commodities.  

When a woman opts for IVF, she’s injected with hormones that trigger her ovaries into a state of “superovulation.” Her eggs are harvested and combined with sperm in a “glass dish” (Latin, “in-vitro”). The healthy embryos are transferred into the mother’s uterus with the hope of implantation. One might try this over and over again.   

Many embryos are created in this process: healthy embryos may be frozen and saved for efforts to come, and unhealthy ones destroyed. Most clinics harvest a host of eggs. Paris Hilton famously froze 20 male embryos hoping to find the female one. IVF gave Paris ‘options.’ 

More embryos are destroyed through IVF than through abortion every year in the USA. Abortion took less than a million lives in 2022-2023, while IVF harvested 1.5 to 1.8 million embryos that were not brought to term.  

Joe Rogan said in his interview with JD Vance that the rights of prenatal persons are based on a ‘religious idea.’ Not so. It’s based on personhood, ‘the verifiable reality that a fertilized ovum is unequivocally an individual with his/her characteristic aspects already well determined. Right from fertilization begins the adventure of a human life.’ Through IVF, we’ve made ourselves the determinators of life and death. 

Trump champions IVF as an invaluable medical treatment for building the American dream; on the campaign trail, he promised that the government would ensure free access to this costly procedure. That concerns me but doesn’t surprise me. We tend not to think through our moral choices.    

To be sure, fertility problems are deeply personal and painful. But IVF skirts the problem. It is not a cure for infertility—it works around it without getting to the barriers that prevent natural conception.   

Ania and I sought help for pregnancy; our monthly disappointment propelled us to surrender control to God and seek sound help. This required both of us. Barriers to pregnancy require husband and wife. Fertility problems aren’t just a women’s issue.  

We’re grateful to the St. Paul VI Institute and Dr. Anne Nolte, the co-founder of the National Gianna Center for Women's Health and Fertility. They’ve helped us identify the underlying reasons for our fertility problems, with medical interventions restoring us to health. 

We need to get to the root issues. We’ve work to do, for the sake of prenatal persons and many couples facing real barriers to pregnancy. Please hear me: IVF is not a treatment, let alone a cure, for infertility. Let’s pursue the real help we need to conceive naturally.  

The bigger picture: no one has a ‘right’ to children. Our insistence as Americans on personal ‘rights’ can reduce children to a commodity. Children are a gift to welcome, not a guarantee, and never a ‘thing’ for doctors to nourish or discard. We can do better than IVF, America.  

‘Thank You, Jesus, for inviting us to reason together. We pray for the curtailing of IVF and an advancing of natural pregnancy and other ways to build family. Draw near to those who suffer from infertility. Heal broken hearts and restore hope. Convict us to think through what we do with our bodies in the good effort to be fruitful.’      

‘Jesus, You are the King, and we are first citizens of Your Kingdom. Would you free us for You in this election season, not to hide but to shine? You’ve always asked nothing less from Your elect whom You have made ‘strangers in a strange land’ (Ex. 2:22). Here we are, a people who don’t know what to do but who look and listen to our King.  

“Father of all holiness, 

guide our hearts to You. 

Keep in the light of Your Truth 

all those You have freed from the darkness of unbelief. 

We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son.”’ 

Amen 

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