{"id":2597633,"date":"2026-05-01T10:32:56","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T14:32:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/the-pro-life-movement-has-an-ivf-problem\/"},"modified":"2026-05-01T10:39:34","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T14:39:34","slug":"the-pro-life-movement-has-an-ivf-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/the-pro-life-movement-has-an-ivf-problem\/","title":{"rendered":"The Pro-Life Movement Has An IVF Problem"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">14<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fthe-pro-life-movement-has-an-ivf-problem%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2597633&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The article argues that IVF\u2019s growing popularity creates a major conflict for pro-life Christians. It claims that while pro-life teaching holds that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/shapiro-debunking-pro-abortion-propaganda\/\" title=\"SHAPIRO: Debunking Pro-Abortion Propaganda\">human life begins<\/a> at conception, standard IVF practices ofen treat embryos as something to be created, tested, and then discarded-intentionally destroying large numbers of embryos. The author points to increasing IVF birth numbers as evidence that manny people who identify as pro-life still support a system that, in their view, violates the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/post-dobbs-the-abortion-battle-hits-activist-state-courts\/\" title=\"Post-Dobbs, The Abortion Battle Hits Activist State Courts\">pro-life principle<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>It also describes how major IVF organizations resist laws that recognize embryos as persons, arguing instead for patient \u201cautonomy\u201d and \u201cethical\u201d constraints that do not interfere with typical industry procedures. The piece further criticizes practices such as embryo screening for traits (including sex selection and \u201cdesigner\u201d preferences), the creation of extra embryos for testing, and freezing embryos that may ultimately never be used, which the author likens to slow-motion disposal. The author notes practical barriers to embryo adoption, suggesting that adoption cannot realistically match the number of frozen embryos produced.<\/p>\n<p>The article describes tensions within the embryo adoption community and cites examples from public debate (including church figures) to illustrate what it sees as contradictions: some people claim to value embryos yet deny that embryos are children or living persons when that recognition would make IVF harder to justify. Ultimately, it urges Christians to consistently proclaim that human life begins at conception, even when doing so is difficult or unpopular.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>IVF is on the rise, and that\u2019s a problem for the pro-life movement.<\/p>\n<p>The problem is that pro-lifers know that human life begins at conception, but the IVF industry intentionally destroys human embryos in vast quantities \u2014 yet IVF is very popular, including among those who describe themselves as pro-life. Even as the American birthrate <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/04\/09\/us\/fertility-rates-decline.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">plummets<\/a>, more babies are being born through IVF, with the most recent release of data <a href=\"https:\/\/wng.org\/sift\/u-s-ivf-births-in-one-year-passed-100-000-for-first-time-1775576727\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">showing<\/a> the number of IVF babies surpassing 100,00 in a single year.<\/p>\n<p>This has established a pervasive dissonance. Many Christian churches proclaim from the pulpit that human embryos are fully human, but nonetheless seem untroubled when members, and even leaders, use IVF according to the industry-standard embryo-destroying protocols. They just prefer not to talk about the contradiction.<\/p>\n<p>Thus, many people, not having thought about the issue much, do not realize that there is a conflict between the pro-life commitment to treating human embryos as human persons and what the IVF industry does. For instance, when President Trump unveiled his pro-IVF fertility policy, reporter Emily Jashinsky <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/emilyjashinsky\/status\/1978928218292863080\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">asked<\/a> what his message was to those with \u201creligious objections to IVF.\u201d He replied, \u201cI think this is very pro-life. \u2026 You can\u2019t get more pro-life than this.\u201d\u00a0The apparent reasoning is simple: IVF helps people have babies and pro-lifers love babies. But the pro-life position is about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/assisted-suicide-group-teams-up-with-planned-parenthood-honcho\/\" title=\"Assisted Suicide Group Teams Up With Planned Parenthood Honcho\">protecting human life<\/a>, not just helping people to have babies when they want them.<\/p>\n<p>And protecting human life from conception is incompatible with how IVF is usually practiced. This is why IVF advocates are against recognizing human embryos as human persons. For example, Resolve (the National Infertility and Family Building Association) <a href=\"https:\/\/resolve.org\/advocacy\/our-issues\/opposing-personhood\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">highlights<\/a> the group\u2019s opposition to laws that recognize that human life begins at conception.<\/p>\n<p>In contrast, a few Christians have promoted the idea of an \u201cethical IVF\u201d that treats every human embryo as a precious human life, and therefore avoids the casual destruction of embryos that is routine in the rest of the IVF industry. This is laudable insofar as it disavows the killing of human embryos, though it does not address other objections to IVF (for example, that it is dehumanizing to make people in laboratories).<\/p>\n<p>But the IVF industry is determined to refuse all ethical constraint. The American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM), the IVF industry trade group, has even <a href=\"https:\/\/www.asrm.org\/advocacy-and-policy\/fact-sheets-and-one-pagers\/just-the-facts-restorative-reproductive-medicine-and-ethical-ivf-are-misleading-terms-that-threaten-access\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">complained<\/a> that \u201cethical IVF\u201d is \u201coften used as a political tool to justify limiting standard practices like genetic testing or embryo creation.\u201d ASRM concluded that though \u201cethical considerations are vital, they should not override the autonomy of individuals seeking to build families through proven medical treatments.\u201d Of course, prioritizing client \u201cautonomy\u201d negates any \u201cethical considerations.\u201d No wonder the IVF industry has embraced everything from <a href=\"https:\/\/wng.org\/opinions\/a-baby-isnt-a-consumer-product-1777342748\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">eugenics<\/a> and designer babies to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/us-news\/chinese-billionaires-surrogacy-pregnancy-7fdfc0c3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">selling<\/a> American-born babies by the dozens or even hundreds to rich Chinese citizens.<\/p>\n<p>Similarly, when IVF industry spokesman Sean Tipton was <a href=\"https:\/\/thedispatch.com\/article\/trump-ivf-executive-order\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">asked<\/a> about whether proposed federal subsidies should cover \u201cscreening for sex selection of embryos,\u201d he replied that, \u201cWe don\u2019t think the government needs to be in the business of limiting patients\u2019 choices regarding their medical care.\u201d Which is to say that the IVF industry wants taxpayer dollars to be spent on private sector eugenics as parents try to \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/KianSadeghi5\/status\/2048794317414916507\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">optimize<\/a>\u201d their designer babies, from sex to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fertility-docs.com\/programs-and-services\/pgd-screening\/choose-your-babys-eye-color\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">eye color<\/a> to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/science\/2024\/oct\/18\/us-startup-charging-couples-to-screen-embryos-for-iq\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">IQ<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>This \u201coptimization\u201d means creating lots of extra embryos, genetically screening them, and then discarding the rejects. Or freezing the extras, but that is just a slow-motion way of discarding them. And though embryo adoption is possible, at <a href=\"https:\/\/publichealth.jhu.edu\/2024\/the-alabama-supreme-courts-ruling-on-frozen-embryos\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">current<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/pii\/S0015028222014303#bib1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">rates<\/a> it would take 600 years just to try to adopt all the currently frozen embryos. We do not know the upper limit of how long an embryo can survive in cryopreservation, but it probably isn\u2019t hundreds of years. And, of course, the IVF industry is still producing embryos far faster than they are being adopted.<\/p>\n<p>There have even been <a href=\"https:\/\/wng.org\/articles\/cold-war-1767668692\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">ugly fights<\/a> in the embryo adoption world, induced by, and further revealing, the conflict between treating human embryos as products and seeing them as persons. In a New York Times series on IVF and embryos, Anna Sussman <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2025\/04\/08\/opinion\/embryos-court-custody-property.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">noted<\/a> that \u201cseveral people in the embryo adoption world told me that personhood for embryos would make their work harder, not easier.\u201d So? The purpose is protecting nascent human lives, not catering to doctors.<\/p>\n<p>This illustrates how the tension between the IVF industry\u2019s view of embryos as products and the pro-life conviction that life begins at conception often leads to absurd, convoluted reasoning. People who claim to want to save frozen human embryos (because they are individual human lives) end up denying the personhood of those embryos because acknowledging it would complicate matters. Another example of intellectual contortions came after the Southern Baptists <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sbc.net\/resource-library\/resolutions\/on-the-ethical-realities-of-reproductive-technologies-and-the-dignity-of-the-human-embryo\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">passed<\/a> a resolution in 2024 urging caution in the use of IVF, and emphasizing the need to respect the lives of human embryos, Baptist pastor Jeremiah Johnston, an <a href=\"https:\/\/prestonwood.org\/about\/our-staff\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">associate pastor<\/a> for the enormous Prestonwood Baptist congregation, responded with an op-ed denying the humanity of IVF embryos.<\/p>\n<p>Johnston <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dallasnews.com\/opinion\/commentary\/2024\/08\/23\/im-a-pro-life-pastor-ivf-allowed-me-to-become-a-dad\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">claimed<\/a> that \u201cAn embryo is not synonymous with a child. \u2026 Only when an embryo successfully attaches in a mother\u2019s womb does a child begin its beautiful journey to soon living an independent life. I say this as a pro-life individual who believes every life is sacred and precious.\u201d This is biologically illiterate. Embryos, however conceived, grow and develop for days before they are ready to implant \u2014 indeed, it is this growth that makes it possible for IVF practitioners to test and grade embryos. Johnston\u2019s argument ignores this, and would preclude condemning the IVF industry\u2019s embrace of eugenics and its mass destruction of human embryos that don\u2019t make the grade.<\/p>\n<p>Johnston\u2019s assertions also have theological implications, as they suggest that the incarnation did not occur until the embryonic Jesus implanted in Mary\u2019s womb \u2014 a theologically fraught claim. Of course, from biology to theology, Johnston\u2019s arguments were motivated not by scripture or reason, but by the conflict between his supposed pro-life convictions and the way he and his wife had used IVF. He could not proclaim that life begins at conception without condemning himself. And the rest of his church, from fellow leaders to the newest member, cannot consistently profess that truth without appearing to attack him. Christian acceptance of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/gop-led-bill-protects-ivf-industry-but-not-the-babies-it-routinely-kills\/\" title=\"GOP-Led Bill Shields ..., Neglects ... It Ends\">life-destroying practices<\/a> that are standard within the IVF industry undermines the church\u2019s pro-life witness.<\/p>\n<p>This is a difficult subject. Many of those who have used IVF in these ways did so from the broken-hearted longing and sorrow of infertility, and often without really knowing how the IVF industry operates, and how casually it creates and discards \u201cexcess\u201d human embryos. And criticisms of IVF and the IVF industry can feel like attacks not only on the parents who have used them, but also on the children conceived through them. This is not true; each IVF baby is a precious human person made in the image of God \u2014 but so are all the IVF embryos that are thrown away or stuck in frozen stasis.<\/p>\n<p>These truths cut against the grain of a culture in which IVF is popular and little value is placed on early human life, whether in the womb or in the petri dish. Nonetheless, as Christians we are called to proclaim the truth that human life begins at conception, no matter how inconvenient or unpopular it may be.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>      Nathanael Blake is a senior contributor to The Federalist and a fellow in the Life and Family Initiative at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. He is the author of &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/ignatius.com\/victims-of-the-revolution-vtrp\/\">Victims of the Revolution: How Sexual Liberation Hurts Us All<\/a>&#8221; (Ignatius, 2025).<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>IVF rises-pro-lifers face a contradiction: embryos destroyed<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":538,"featured_media":2597634,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Copy-of-Untitled-89.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[32468,41139,8347,36292],"class_list":["post-2597633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-ivf","tag-medical-ethics","tag-pro-life","tag-reproductive-rights"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Copy-of-Untitled-89.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2597633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/538"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2597633"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2597633\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2597642,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2597633\/revisions\/2597642"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2597634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2597633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2597633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2597633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}