Restorative reproductive medicine involves deeper and more comprehensive diagnostic studies, and more detailed cycle monitoring than a typical workup, to inform surgical, hormonal, and/or even lifestyle treatments that frequently work to truly heal patients.

These practices, and additional research to strengthen them, warrant support and awareness. Patients and hopeful parents deserve no less.

IVF in contrast, especially as practiced in the United States, represents a relatively unregulated industry that creates hundreds of thousands or even millions of preborn children who will be interminably frozen, expended in attempts to place them within a mother, or discarded and killed (often in a selective, eugenic manner).

Many religious employers that are otherwise exempt from ERISA, however, choose to provide their employees’ health insurance under ERISA anyway precisely because ERISA’s preemption of state law allows them to avoid having their consciences violated by state-level insurance requirements (including for IVF).

A mandate within ERISA would therefore place these employers in a new bind between its requirements and those of problematic state laws. At the same time, certain other religious employers’ plans, such as those of independent religious schools, may not qualify as “church plans” exempt from ERISA in the first place.

As pastors, we see the suffering that infertility can cause and the deep desire of couples to grow their family. We strongly encourage licit means of easing this suffering, both medically and emotionally. For all of the above reasons, we implore you to consider that life-ending assisted reproductive technologies (ART) cannot be the solution.

[T]he majority of human embryos created through IVF do not survive to birth. It is now known that more human beings die annually during the IVF process in the U.S. than from abortion. It is unknown exactly how many are destroyed for failing to meet the standards set by fertility doctors, but estimates paint a grim picture.

In 2023, there were 432,641 IVF cycles at 371 reporting clinics in the U.S., but only 95,860 babies were born. Based on a conservative average of nine embryos created per cycle (a study found nine to be the number needed to optimize live birth rates), an estimated 3,893,769 embryos were created in 2023 alone. About half of those are estimated to have not survived beyond the next two stages: the blastocyst stage and the genetic testing stage.

Of the remaining estimate of 1,946,884 embryos, 91,360 were automatically "banked" for "future use." Of the remainder, only 95,860 survived to birth after being graded, labeled, selected, and transferred. This leaves 1,759,664 human embryos unaccounted for, who were either frozen, miscarried, donated to research, or released for embryo adoption (with the adoption rate at just 1-6%). In comparison, there were an estimated 1,037,880 abortions in 2024 in the U.S. (and 1,053,430 abortions in 2024).

Restorative reproductive medicine involves deeper and more comprehensive diagnostic studies, and more detailed cycle monitoring than a typical workup, to inform surgical, hormonal, and/or even lifestyle treatments that frequently work to truly heal patients.

These practices, and additional research to strengthen them, warrant support and awareness. Patients and hopeful parents deserve no less.

IVF in contrast, especially as practiced in the United States, represents a relatively unregulated industry that creates hundreds of thousands or even millions of preborn children who will be interminably frozen, expended in attempts to place them within a mother, or discarded and killed (often in a selective, eugenic manner).

Many religious employers that are otherwise exempt from ERISA, however, choose to provide their employees’ health insurance under ERISA anyway precisely because ERISA’s preemption of state law allows them to avoid having their consciences violated by state-level insurance requirements (including for IVF).

A mandate within ERISA would therefore place these employers in a new bind between its requirements and those of problematic state laws. At the same time, certain other religious employers’ plans, such as those of independent religious schools, may not qualify as “church plans” exempt from ERISA in the first place.

As pastors, we see the suffering that infertility can cause and the deep desire of couples to grow their family. We strongly encourage licit means of easing this suffering, both medically and emotionally. For all of the above reasons, we implore you to consider that life-ending assisted reproductive technologies (ART) cannot be the solution.

[T]he majority of human embryos created through IVF do not survive to birth. It is now known that more human beings die annually during the IVF process in the U.S. than from abortion. It is unknown exactly how many are destroyed for failing to meet the standards set by fertility doctors, but estimates paint a grim picture.

In 2023, there were 432,641 IVF cycles at 371 reporting clinics in the U.S., but only 95,860 babies were born. Based on a conservative average of nine embryos created per cycle (a study found nine to be the number needed to optimize live birth rates), an estimated 3,893,769 embryos were created in 2023 alone. About half of those are estimated to have not survived beyond the next two stages: the blastocyst stage and the genetic testing stage.

Of the remaining estimate of 1,946,884 embryos, 91,360 were automatically "banked" for "future use." Of the remainder, only 95,860 survived to birth after being graded, labeled, selected, and transferred. This leaves 1,759,664 human embryos unaccounted for, who were either frozen, miscarried, donated to research, or released for embryo adoption (with the adoption rate at just 1-6%). In comparison, there were an estimated 1,037,880 abortions in 2024 in the U.S. (and 1,053,430 abortions in 2024).