Embryos created using IVF don't deserve to be killed and worn as jewelry
As the fertility industry grows, the commodification and dehumanization of human beings in their earliest stages of development — treating them as products, rather than human beings — has also continued to grow. One particularly disturbing piece of evidence is the increasing popularity of companies that create jewelry using "leftover" human embryos created through IVF.
Key Takeaways:
Since the first baby was conceived using in vitro fertilization (IVF) in 1978, an estimated 38 million children have been born through the technology. Countless millions more human beings have been created and destroyed in the process.
Millions of embryos are created and then abandoned — either left frozen indefinitely, destroyed, donated, or even swapped with other couples.
Several businesses have taken advantage of the issue created by the fertility industry, creating jewelry made from these "leftover" human beings who were created and destroyed: the ultimate commodification.
The Details:
To the shock of many, companies that turn one's "leftover" embryos into jewelry have been around for nearly a decade. As Live Action News reported back in 2017, Baby Bee Hummingbirds also created jewelry out of these human beings (though the business may now be closed).
Blossom Keepsake is another of these companies. The UK-based business, seemingly run by two women who advertise their business on Instagram, creates sentimental jewelry ranging from simple birthstone rings to jewelry made from used pregnancy tests, breastmilk, and even human ashes after cremation, as a memorial.
Though none of these may be overly controversial (and the jewelry is beautiful), one of their other offerings is controversial: jewelry made out of human embryos, marketed towards mothers who don't know what to do with the "leftover" children they created using IVF and then chose not to implant or release for embryo adoption.
Blossom Keepsake is not the only non-fertility-industry business to find a way to profit from the deaths of human embryos.
On its website, Blossom Keepsake describes the jewelry as a way to "honor" the children created through IVF whose lives were intentionally ended. The website reads:
When storage is ending and donation does not feel right, there is a gentler way to honour what you created.
We craft modern heirloom jewellery that quietly holds your embryo within a beautiful, discreet setting. Each piece is made to order in precious metals and handled with care at every step.
... only the wearer will know the secret your jewellery contains. The embryo will not be obviously visible but we do use a marker to show where the embryo is within the stone.
Commentary:
Notice the statement above: "Storage is ending." In other words, someone's living children have been in cold storage for a lengthy amount of time, likely with siblings already out in the world. These "leftovers" didn't make the cut.
And this one: "Donation does not feel right." Bluntly put, "If I can't have you, no one can." The parents refuse to release their embryos to another couple for embryo adoption because it doesn't "feel right." Apparently, they felt just fine with the idea of creating far more children than they knew they would ever want, and they think it is "gentler" to end those lives and wear them every day as an accessory than to allow them the chance at life with another family. Gentler.
"Honour what you created." What, not who. They are seen and treated as property, not as human beings. Wearing the remains of a child whom you intentionally killed seems macabre, to say the least.
Behold, our Brave New World of opulent, debonair nihilism. Human embryos encased in jewelry—a shiny memento of having created human beings in a lab and then destroyed them.
A recent study published in Fertility and Sterility estimated that as many as 13 million children have been born through IVF around the world since 1978. Yet IVF destroys far more children than are actually born, as multiple embryos are typically created in each IVF cycle. These embryos are then screened to decide which are the "best" using a grading system, and only the most desirable embryos are implanted. The rest are either frozen indefinitely, destroyed, or fail to implant in another IVF cycle.
According to research published in Reproductive Biomedicine Online, over 2.5 million IVF cycles are performed every year, with only 500,000babies born annually.
It is estimated that over one million embryos are frozen in storage in the United States alone. And yet, the number of children conceived through IVF is growing each year, with 2.6% of all births in the United States coming from IVF in 2023 — a number which has been steadily increasing.
Why It Matters:
With the rise of the fertility industry, children are increasingly seen less as individual human beings with inherent rights of their own, and more as products to which any adult is entitled, whenever that adult is willing to spend the money to buy them.
Turning "leftover" children into jewelry is just one example of how the fertility industry dehumanizes children. Embryos have been fought over and abandoned in divorce or custody agreements; other parents have engaged in embryo trades so they can get children with the exact characteristics they want. This makes sense, considering they only treat them as human beings once they are successfully implanted or born.
And while the now-adults conceived through the fertility industry often disavow the process through which they were born, it rarely matters. The priority is adult desires over the needs of children, so these children — particularly donor-conceived children or those born to surrogates — are intentionally created and then robbed of their biological background, heritage, and history — or the only mother they have ever known.
“I am a human being, yet I was conceived with a technique that had its origins in animal husbandry,” one person wrote in the Anonymous Us book. “Worst of all, farmers kept better records of their cattle’s genealogy than assisted reproductive clinics … how could the doctors, sworn to ‘first do no harm’ create a system where I now face the pain and loss of my own identity and heritage.”
The Bottom Line:
Embryo jewelry is thriving because embryos created through reproductive technologies are not treated with the dignity they deserve as human beings.
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