Catholics: First and Final Defense Against IVF
As promised, President Donald Trump signed an executive order for a domestic policy review of in vitro fertilization (IVF) access with an aim to reduce the cost of the procedure. Although this is a policy review with no immediate action, it is still an endorsement of IVF as pro-life, pro-family, and pro-society, and it comes from a president who has been called the most pro-life president in the history of the United States.
The public is mixed on the ethics of IVF. A Pew Poll from 2024 reported about a third of Americans say that the statement “human life begins at conception, so an embryo is a person with rights” describes their views extremely or very well. Yet of this group, 59 percent see IVF access as good. That amounts to about 20 percent of Americans who see the embryo as a person but 1) either do not understand that most embryonic children are suspended alive in cryogenic storage tanks, or 2) they think cryopreservation is acceptable for a human child. Both cannot be true. The other ~82 percent of Americans who do not think life begins at conception, not surprisingly, see IVF as a good thing.
There is an urgent need for education on what IVF entails, and it seems Catholics will need to step up and provide the last defense against artificial procreation. We have the arguments for this fight.
Doctrinal Development Regarding IVF
The Catholic Church is already the first defense against the false promises of IVF and in favor of human dignity. The argument, however, is a difficult one to make in modern culture that already accepts abortion. One can find many arguments based on the millions of embryonic children whose lives are suspended in a cryogenic storage tank awaiting their fate, for this is a terrible consequence of IFV; but it is just that, a consequence of something else that went wrong in the first place.
The argument against IVF hinges on the deeper ontological truths about the human person, the sanctity of marriage, and the gift of a child.
Donum Vitae (1987) is the main document of the Church that directly addresses IVF, but as early as 1897 the Sacred Congregation of the Universal Inquisition (later renamed the C
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