The fertility industry in Romania is growing at a rapid rate

Western Romania is rapidly becoming a major center in the country’s emerging “baby industry,” as private IVF networks are being established to shape how infertility, pregnancy, and even human embryos are treated economically and culturally.

Key Takeaways:

• Fertility firms are growing significantly in western Romania, with profitability as the focus.

• The fertility industry in Romania has been bankrolled by the government for years in hopes of reversing a demographic crisis.

• IVF is inherently anti-life and eugenic.

• In the U.S., more preborn human beings are dying each year during the IVF process than the number of deaths taking place due to elective abortion.

The Details:

Recently, the Embryos IVF network purchased the Calla Infertility Diagnostic and Treatment Center in Oradea, a clinic with more than 13 years of experience in obstetrics, gynecology, and assisted reproduction. Consequently, Embryos IVF is poised to have a significant presence in western Romania, together with its existing clinic in Bucharest, a new satellite in Buzău, and another acquired clinic in Sofia, Bulgaria. 

Set up in 2018 by Romanian doctors, Embryos IVF has become one of the largest IVF operators in the nation, currently welcoming thousands of IVF-seeking couples annually and aiming for a turnover of more than 15 million euros for its Romanian and Bulgarian network.

The majority owner of Embryos IVF is Integral Capital Group, an investment firm leveraging its regional health care fund to construct a major IVF network in Central and Eastern Europe. 

Why It Matters:

According to Xinhua, “Romania became the 18th country in the world to achieve IVF success in 1996. It launched a national IVF and embryo transfer program in 2011.”

For years,  the Romanian government earmarked public funds to bankroll the country’s national IVF program, in an effort to address the country’s demographic crisis. This year, however, the government suspended financial support for IVF, making the country the only EU state to do so.  

A complex ecosystem of fertility clinics with modern IVF services marketed to local and foreign clients looking for cheaper prices and greater success rates in the country has created an end-to-end reproductive “value chain,” from ovarian stimulation and egg retrieval to embryo culture, genetic testing, and embryo transfer.​

Investment-backed groups like Embryos IVF integrate multiple clinics, diagnostic services, surgery, endocrinology, and imaging, monetizing the reproduction cycle into a consolidated business line within the private healthcare market. In this model, embryos and gametes gradually become “outputs” to be benchmarked based on birth success rates, cycles sold, and profitability. 

Investment funds trying to cash in on human fertility with IVF and embryo transfer at the expense of the moral status of embryos are trivializing and commoditizing human beings. 

Zoom Out:

As with other IVF treatments around the globe, Romania’s national IVF and embryo transfer program is fundamentally anti-life. Donor gametes, embryo freezing, and embryo reduction entail the creation and subsequent destruction or freezing of human beings in the embryonic stage.

As previously reported by Live Action News:

In 2023, there were 432,641 IVF cycles at 371 reporting clinics, but only 95,860 babies were born. That year, an estimated 1,946,884 embryos did not survive to be implanted, and another 1,759,664 were either frozen, destroyed, donated to research, or released for embryo adoption. In comparison, there were 1,037,000 abortions in the US in 2023...

As the number of IVF cycles increases year after year, so does the number of lives lost to the process — and it's staggering...

The number of humans dying during the IVF process each year has surpassed the number of humans dying from abortion each year in the U.S."

To complicate matters, once private capital comes into the picture, IVF clinics have a strong financial incentive to raise the number of cycles, create “surplus” embryos, and promote add-on services such as genetic screening and potential sex selection, legal circumstances permitting. 

Gender selection packages, marketed with glossy veneers, showcase how economic demand can blur the boundaries between reproductive medicine and designer-baby territory. Once that occurs, the slippery slope to eugenics is not too far ahead. 

Can You Be Pro-Life And Support IVF?

The Bottom Line:

The recent Embryos’ IVF acquisition in Oradea is more than just another corporate deal: it is a good illustration of how profiting from the objectification and commodification of human beings is encroaching on the most intimate spheres of human life in Romania.

Pro-life advocates both in Romania and beyond who object to baby trafficking and IVF must step up efforts to articulate a life-affirming alternative where every child is regarded as a unique gift instead of a commodity to be designed and monetized. 

Instead of IVF, adoption and family support policies that welcome vulnerable children already born should be promoted to decrease the demand for morally questionable reproductive technologies as “solutions” to Romania’s demographic winter.