Political commentator's heartbreaking loss exposes pain of IVF

Fox News contributor and liberal commentator Leslie Marshall has shared the heartbreak of her journey with in vitro fertilization (IVF), including that she went through 13 cycles and 11 miscarriages.

Key Takeaways:

• Fox News contributor Leslie Marshall recently shared her IVF story, including that she underwent 13 rounds of IVF and suffered 11 miscarriages.

• Marshall and her husband have two children: one from adoption and one via IVF. Her first son died as an infant due to Canavan disease, a genetic condition. There was a 25% chance that any child they had would have the condition and a 75% chance that the child wouldn't.

• Following their son's death, the couple opted for IVF so they could test their embryonic children for Canavan disease in order to avoid having another child with the condition.

The Details:

Marshall appeared on the January 1 episode of Outnumbered, during which time she and her colleagues discussed the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Marshall mentioned that it isn't always easy for people to get married and have kids, as Kirk promoted.

"I understand marriage and family is important to a lot of people, but I know people that would love to get married just haven't met the right person or the guy hasn't asked yet," she said. She added:

I suffered 11 miscarriages and I have two children, one after adoption, one after 13 IVF cycles, and I have a son who died. So I just say that because I know that when people say, 'Get married and have children,' it's not as easy for everybody. There are a lot of women that struggle with infertility and just because a woman doesn’t have a child, left or right, it doesn’t mean that they don’t want a child, maybe they actually can’t have [children].

She added, "Some of my friends saw what I went through and thought, 'Maybe I don't want to go down that road.'"

Her colleagues expressed their sorrow over her losses. Fellow Fox News contributor Lisa Boothe told her, "I hear what you're saying, Leslie, and I'm so sorry that you went through that. I know that's — I've had friends who have gone through miscarriages — it's heartbreaking. So I'm sorry you went through that."

The Backstory:

Marshall's first child, a son, died from a condition called Canavan disease, a genetic condition of which she and her husband, Dr. Asghar Husain, are both carriers. Canavan disease damages the brain's white matter, disrupts nerve signals, and leads to neurological issues. Severe forms cause death, but siblings can have differing severities and outcomes. Each child the couple had would have a 25% chance of having Canavan disease and a 75% chance of not having Canavan disease.

After losing their son, the couple began IVF using pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) in order to avoid having another baby with the condition. That desire is understandable, but that would mean any embryo who tested positive for the condition would not be implanted. Each embryo was tested for Canavan disease, and embryo after embryo — up to 11 — tested positive and was likely destroyed. Marshall also suffered 11 miscarriages. At least 22 babies were lost during this process.

READ: Prenatal screening is a pro-life tool hijacked by the abortion industry

That's when the couple sought adoption and eventually welcomed a son. Marshall's doctor asked what they wanted to do with the remaining frozen embryos — all of whom had tested negative for Canavan disease. She was told that her choices were to implant them or destroy them.

"Destroy! Now, I am pro-choice, but it was not my choice to destroy my embryos. The doctor also told me these were not very strong or healthy embryos and the chances of my getting pregnant after being implanted with these were very slim," she wrote in 2020. Regardless, she and her husband opted for implantation, and she became pregnant with their daughter. While she was unwilling to destroy her healthy embryos, it appears that destroying embryos who were deemed "unhealthy" had been part of the plan all along.

Why it Matters:

IVF is marketed as a solution for infertility, but also as a way for individuals and couples to test their embryos for health conditions and traits such as IQ and eye color, before pursuing pregnancy. What is kept relatively quiet is the low success rate of IVF and how many embryos are intentionally destroyed.

At least 11 of Marshall's children were destroyed as embryos because they had Canavan disease. She lost another 11 to miscarriage. If she and her husband had become pregnant naturally, there would have been a 75% chance that their child would not have the condition. It's understandable that they were concerned about having another baby who would die soon after birth or in childhood or who would need specialized care throughout life. But none of those options were guaranteed. What was guaranteed was that by using IVF and PGD, they would be creating human lives to test them for quality and then intentionally destroy them when they didn't pass health screenings. That's eugenics.

Beyond that, IVF is seen by many as a Band-Aid approach to infertility. According to the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology, the success of IVF depends on several factors, including a woman's age at the time that her eggs are harvested. The IVF process does not include finding the source of a woman's or couple's infertility.

In 2023, there were 432,641 IVF cycles at 371 reporting clinics, but only 95,860 babies were born. Based on a conservative nine embryos created per cycle, 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.

Restorative Reproductive Medicine (RRM) seeks to find and treat the cause of infertility, providing a higher success rate of pregnancy and live birth without the significant loss of life that is so common in IVF.

According to the International Institute for Restorative Reproductive Medicine, the success rate of live birth with RRM is above 60%, and 32.1% of women who have not been able to conceive during multiple IVF treatments can expect to have a baby using RRM.