Why more regulation won't solve the ethical IVF crisis

Though assisted reproductive technology is continually presented as a solution to infertility (one that is even pro-life), the fertility industry is rife with ethical problems.

Key Takeaways:

• Births resulting from in vitro fertilization are often called "miracles" in the media and in pop culture.

• The commodification that results from in vitro fertilization is often ignored.

• Would-be parents face numerous mental, physical, and even financial risks through the use of assisted reproductive technology.

The Big Picture:

In an era when technology has made significant advances, procedures like in vitro fertilization (IVF) may seem to be the panacea for infertility problems. However, behind all this talk about “miracle births” and glossy marketing headlines for IVF lies a much more ominous reality: a mindset and system that commodifies human life, subjects patients to risky data breaches, and regularizes the creation and destruction of embryos as if they were discardable goods. 

IVF operates on the premise that life can be produced in a laboratory, divorced from the natural union of husband and wife. From a pro-life viewpoint, this reality alone should raise eyebrows. Instead of being a result of a sacred act of love between husband and wife, the creation of a new human being becomes a mechanical process, supervised by lab technicians and specialists in clinical environments.

Once the creation of a new human being is industrialized, life itself becomes a mere product. IVF clinics now boast about “success rates,” “embryo packages,” and even “gender selection,” as though children are commodities to be tailor-made and purchased.  

To explain their actions away, IVF advocates adopt the treacherously flimsy stance that the IVF process is morally neutral, claiming that technology is a mere tool that is not inherently good or evil. Yet upon closer scrutiny, the very nature of IVF typically requires the creation of several embryos, most of whom would be disposed of or frozen indefinitely.

As it has been scientifically proven that each embryo “manufactured” in a clinical laboratory is a unique and genetically complete human life, no degree of regulation or government oversight can alter the fact that disposing of such embryos is the destruction of human life.

One can never justify the destruction of other human beings simply because their existence presented logistical complications in a lab. Yet IVF encourages a moral paradox by promising one baby at the expense of the lives of other human beings stored in petri dishes. 

IVF patients today also experience the deeply alarming risk of digital vulnerability. Fertility clinics amass huge amounts of sensitive data including health records, genetic information, photographs, consent forms, and other intimate details about couples and donors. These records are put in cloud systems vulnerable to data breaches. Once such sensitive data is stolen by hackers, they can never be completely retrieved. 

The Details:

Recently, the Termite ransomware group hacked Genea, one of Australia’s prominent IVF providers, causing private patient information to be leaked on the dark web. This understandably has caused traumatic experiences for IVF patients.  

There have also been reports of couples carrying and giving birth to babies who were not genetically related to them, due to the misplacement or mix-ups of embryos. This also is traumatic and heartbreaking. In some instances, mothers had to give up the newborn babies whom they carried, as they were not genetically related to them at all.

• Krystena Murray of Georgia carried and delivered a baby boy after undergoing IVF treatment but was forced to give up custody of the baby after finding out the baby was not biologically hers. 

• Across the Pacific Ocean, a Singapore woman conceived a baby through IVF with a stranger’s sperm instead of her husband's in another case of a tragic clinic mix-up.

While these two women filed lawsuits against the IVF clinics involved, no amount of compensation can alleviate the distress and heartbreak that follows such “errors.”

These two cases display how IVF unnaturally detaches the concepts of love, conception, and birth. When the reproductive process is facilitated by machines and laboratory “specialists," confusion and errors are likely. Although government oversight and regulation might decrease the probability of such mistakes happening, they cannot address the very detachment of childbearing from the intimate covenant of marriage and parental certainty that IVF brings about. 

The Issue with IVF & Ethical Alternatives: Dr. Lauren Rubal at the Young Leaders Summit

Why It Matters:

As IVF has become big business, clinics and their media sycophants have tried to appeal to emotional vulnerabilities and desperation. Various pro-IVF media outlets attempt to portray a false scenario that, without IVF, couples experiencing difficulties conceiving a child have “no hope.” The media’s weaponization of the desire to have children is one of the brutal facets of the fertility industry. But there are many other brutal aspects:

• Many aspiring parents-to-be land themselves in huge debt due to hefty IVF costs and expose themselves to physically and emotionally draining procedures, along with potential privacy risks. Even for those who do not share pro-life convictions, IVF provides diminishing returns at an increased risk.

• IVF cycles fail more often than they succeed. Even those who achieve successful pregnancies may find themselves grappling with the knowledge that unused embryos — their own biological children — remain frozen or discarded. 

• The ungoverned global market in donor eggs and surrogacy — industries deeply connected to IVF — targets vulnerable and impoverished women worldwide by commodifying their bodies for the interest of wealthier clients. Instead of empowering women, IVF often regards vulnerable women as suppliers of biological material within a global reproductive marketplace.

• IVF has given rise to “embryonic screening” and genetic selection. What began as a “solution to infertility” currently enables parents to select  “superior” embryos according to certain “desirable” traits, inevitably leading to attitudes determining who is “fit to live” and who is not. 

Rejecting IVF does not mean refusing compassion and empathy for couples who experience infertility. Rather, couples encountering challenges conceiving should be offered life-affirming alternatives such as ethical medical care, counseling, natural fertility awareness, adoption options, and faith-based community support. 

The Bottom Line:

IVF is not a neutral technological advancement, but a moral experiment gone seriously awry.

The more we uncover the human cost of IVF, the clearer it becomes that the problem is not lax oversight or loose regulations in the IVF landscape, but the very concept of IVF itself.

If we truly believe that every human life should be treated with dignity, then the only morally consistent approach is to reject IVF altogether.