When the Supreme Court of Alabama declared last month that frozen human embryos ought to be considered “children,” debate raged around the internet. Arguments about the case’s implications and what policy should be in that state and beyond are only increasing. I’ve been struck by how in vitro fertilization (IVF) is being framed as something pro-, or for, life because it creates babies, and as something God-inspired, a modern technology helping those with infertility — as legitimate as doing heart surgery to help someone who has heart disease. Is it?
If we look only to the end result of precious babies being born and smiling parents embracing them, then it would appear so. But we must probe deeper and ask this vital question: What is done in order to achieve that end result? Having said that, on an issue like this, it is important to tread sensitively, for it is a deeply personal matter that involves a very good and ordered desire for offspring. I know that well — I didn’t experience my first pregnancy until age 40 and have lived through the deaths of four of my preborn children who were lost to miscarriage. The ache of the absence of children is deep and devastating.
Yet, as I write in my book, Conceived by Science: Thinking Carefully and Compassionately about Infertility and IVF, reproductive technologies such as IVF involve harming and killing some children to create others. How can it be ethical to create one, or a few humans,
