The Controversy of IVF

Rather than expanding IVF to create more children, we have a moral obligation to stop killing the ones we have. We have a shortage of babies because we are aborting them.

On the other side of the coin from abortion is In Vitro Fertilization (IVF). Abortion doesn't trust in the goodness of God in creating a child, and IVF doesn't trust in the goodness of God in withholding a child. One doesn't want a child they have, while the other wants a child that they don't have.

Ninety-five percent (95%) of all children created in a lab do not live to be born. Far more children are created than implanted in a mother, and more children are implanted than given opportunity to take their first breath.

With the increase in abortions is the increase in infertility, as one of the consequences of abortion for many women is permanent infertility. Doctors may engage in both aborting and creating children in a kind of on-going cycle.

With the increase in abortions, there is also a decrease in available babies to adopt. Currently, there are 36 couples wanting to adopt a baby for every one baby available. There are approximately the same number of couples waiting to adopt as there are abortions every year. And this doesn't account for a couple wanting more than one child.

Like most temptations, IVF promises a shortcut to trusting and waiting on God for His answer and whatever God thinks is best for our life. IVF perpetrates power and control over the creation of a child, one's circumstance, natural ability, and attempts to circumvent dependence on God to produce children.

Little understood, the controversy around IVF is multifaceted. Here are some of the concerns:

A homosexual or infertile couple want to bypass natural biological abilities to create a child outside the act of love making. A doctor, rather than the husband, implants a pregnancy inside the woman, disrupting the love making and bonding process that God gave to a wife and husband within a committed marriage relationship. God created a process where a child is to be conceived in love, birthed in love, and parented in love. God also created the process as a beautiful expression of His love and an opportunity for people to depend on and know God. The creation of a child is the visible outcome and demonstration of two becoming one flesh.

Through IVF, the beautiful gift of expression within marriage is reduced to a biological process that eliminates God from the equation and treats humans as less than spiritual beings to give them what they think they want and cannot be happy in life without. It violates the marriage bond and spiritual oneness of the union and replaces God with scientists in the middle of the relationship.

Through IVF, a man - the husband or a man outside the marriage - is exposed to pornographic materials to produce sperm outside the relationship with his wife, an immoral act.

A woman - who has all the eggs she will ever produce before she herself is born - is hyped up on dangerous amounts of hormones to mature an unnatural amount of eggs all at once to be harvested, instead of gradually maturing one egg a month throughout childbearing age (with the ability to come alive by meeting sperm six days in the month). These hormones can change a woman's emotions and behavior, causing harm to her physically, emotionally, and in her relationships (both short-term and long-term). The hormone imbalance for the wife and exposure to pornographic materials for the husband can put a heavy strain on any marriage.

Unlike adoption, where parents are heavily screened to know that they can provide a loving and safe home for a child, there is no screening for those purchasing children through IVF.

More children are produced than will be implanted, and many of these children during embryonic development are inhumanely frozen, experimented on, or destroyed. More children are implanted than necessary in the womb, not all children are healthy, and children are electively killed through "pregnancy reduction" or "termination" (aka abortion).

Through IVF, human beings are purchased, bought, and sold as property, both the children during embryonic development and many biological parents who may be paid as sperm donors or surrogate mothers.

At childbirth, surrogate mothers must give up the baby she has carried, and who has bonded with her, creating potential trauma for both her and the child. The child is removed from the surrogate mother's familiar voice, heartbeat, and the flavors of her cooking that the child has experienced through amniotic fluid in the womb and would experience in the milk that could provide the child comfort, healthy antibodies, and easy digestion that is biologically formulated specifically for the child. Children are born naturally loving the mother who gives them birth. They are removed from the only human contact they have known, from the familiar sounds and cadence of the mother's voice and heartbeat that the child has grown accustomed to prior to birth.

Men donating sperm do not know their children or how many children they have procreated. They don't know who is raising their children or what their children become.

These children may never know who their biological parents are if the donors are other than the parents raising them, and their actual biological parents may have never met each other. These children may never know their medical histories or extended relatives and siblings. There may be more pressure placed on these children to perform up to their advertised potential if they are a "Designer Baby".

The use of IVF to produce "Designer Babies" reduces having children to meeting parents' standards, more than loving a child for the unique person they are and as entrusted to them by God. There is little known about the environmental versus biological correlation of talent and personality of children who are produced as commodities for the purchase of parents. Children created biologically from other parents reduces a parent's ability to identify with their child and the child's ability to connect with parents.

Only 3-7% of the children created through IVF result in a live birth. Nine out of ten (95%) of "test tube babies" have defects, are used for experimentation, are discarded, fail to implant, are "eliminated" through "pregnancy reduction" (aka selective abortion), are miscarried, or stillborn.

We don't know how many birth defects we are creating by unnaturally maturing eggs and manipulating incompatible gametes. Of those children who make it to birth, they face a higher risk of fetal anomalies, including heart defects and cancers, specifically childhood leukemia.

There are more natural ways to work with the body to increase fertility that are healthier and more humane for parents and children (up to 70% improvement rate). Treating the underlying health issues which cause infertility produces healthier children and parents without the ethical and moral compromises or damaging consequences of IVF.

In short, IVF disrupts the love-making process, removes trust in the goodness of God in creating a child, and mistreats the humanity of these children deserving of dignity and compassion. IVF destroys more children than it creates. IVF by-passes laws against slavery, making it possible to own humans as property - both adults and children - through legal contracts.

For those who cry out to God in time of need asking for the gifts we would like from Him, we come to know His character which is always good, loving, just, kind, patient, and right. We come to trust that He knows more of what we need - and do not need - than we do. (Jer 17:9) We stop demanding that the world give us what we think we cannot live without and is God's to give. And we start receiving from God what He knows is best for us and everyone around us. We can discover along the way what each of us needs most in our lives - Him.

All created children deserve the opportunity to be born. This would require a more ethical, humane, and moral approach to infertility.

"no good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless." (Psalm 84:11)

Christians, You Must Know THIS About IVF's Dark Secret | @Mark Spence

Alternative to IVF

Alternatives to In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) for Overcoming Infertility and Delivering a Healthy Baby - Lozier Institute

I Quit My Job Of 25 Years Over Surrogacy—Here’s Why | Tennessee Conservative

In Vitro Fertilization (IVF): A Comprehensive Primer - Lozier Institute

IVF: The World's Deadliest Industry

IVF, Conjugal Love and Marriage | Human Life International

Designer Babies Are Teenagers Now—and Some of Them Need Therapy Because of It | WIRED

The Christian Family, In Vitro Fertilization, and Heroic Witness to True Love - Catholic Diocese of Arlington

Christians, You Must Know THIS About IVF's Dark Secret (Interviews regarding IVF and the gospel)| @MarkSpence