By Lori Hadacek Chaplin
Reproductive rights advocates reacted with anger and indignance upon hearing the February 16, 2024, Alabama Supreme Court ruling that embryos created through in vitro fertilization are children.1 They rightly understood that a law’s affirmation that preborn babies are human children could not only change the IVF practices of US fertility clinics but might also lead to abortion bans. Even Republicans jumped to defend the fertility treatment, declaring that IVF is “pro-family” and “pro-life.”2
However, scratch the surface of the multi-million-dollar IVF industry, and you will find a web of ethical problems.
What is IVF?
IVF is an invasive treatment that attempts to help infertile couples conceive a child. First, the woman receives hormones to stimulate her ovaries to mature many eggs rather than the typical single egg produced monthly. Then, mature eggs are harvested and fertilized with sperm in a lab. One or more fertilized eggs, called embryos, are then transferred to the womb.
Before the doctor makes this transfer, the parents can have the embryos screened for potential genetic disorders and/or to choose the sex of the child. Often, there are embryos who are not transferred, and parents must determine what they will do with them; they can freeze them, discard them, or donate them.
Because a human being exists from the moment of fertilization, all three choices pose ethical dilemmas.
To read the remainder of this article, visit clmagazine.org/topic/human-dignity/the-immorality-of-creating-children-through-ivf.
To read additional pro-life articles, visit the Celebrate Life Magazine website at clmagazine.org.