IVF is popular. It is also not pro-life

In vitro fertilization has grown in popularity in recent years. There are myriad reasons for this. Heterosexual couples who delay parenthood for career, financial, or lifestyle reasons may use IVF to start a family later in life. Additionally, unpartnered single women or LGBT couples who desire children might use IVF to create a family unit. Regardless of the root causes, the GOP must address this cultural and reproductive surge.

When one looks deeper into the issue of IVF, the ethical concerns cannot be ignored. On the surface, IVF appears to be just an alternative path to having children. The party that bills itself as pro-family and generally anti-abortion should be behind that, right?

The problem is the human cost required to achieve a successful pregnancy. A regular “side effect” of the IVF process is the freezing, discarding, or loss of multiple embryos. These unique, individual human lives become the currency needed to reach a live birth. The cost is simply too great. IVF is decidedly not an anti-abortion pursuit. Politicians and voters alike who label themselves anti-abortion can only stand on one side of this issue.

During his 2024 campaign, President Donald Trump spoke about his support for IVF. He indicated he would address the issue during a second term in the White House. Less than a month before the election, Trump called himself “the father of IVF” at a town hall. In late May this year, Trump said he is the “father of fertility” while announcing protections for and ease of access to IVF.

Trump’s turn as a self-described champion of reproductive issues is an odd one for a president credited with helping to secure an anti-abortion victory with the overturning of Roe v. Wade. What’s worse is the confusion it has created in a post-Dobbs world for an ostensibly anti-abortion Republican Party.

A container with frozen embryos and sperm stored in liquid nitrogen is removed at a fertility clinic in Fort Myers, Fla., Oct. 2, 2018. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)

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Republican Ken Paxton, running for Senate in Texas, recently announced his support for IVF. This is in contrast to the Texas Republican Party. The state party platform is clear in stating that life begins at conception. Accordingly, the party believes IVF should neither be allowed nor supported.

For politicians such as Trump and Paxton, supporting in vitro fertilization has nothing to do with principles and everything to do with popularity. A Pew Research poll from May 2024 revealed that 70% of Americans believe IVF is a good thing.

But popularity is never the measure of moral rightness. Since the end result of the IVF process is sometimes a healthy child, far too many people look past what it takes to get there. In addition to those who just don’t care about the human cost are those who are ignorant to the entire process in the first place. IVF is often presented as another route to building a family. It is often portrayed as being as wholly positive as adoption. Reproductive issues are often presented as black and white: Abortion is bad and anything that results in a new child is good. However, it is much more complicated and consequential than that.

Anti-abortion voters on the right would do well not to look to politicians as their moral guides. Protecting life in the womb requires both dedication and knowledge. It demands that one remains unmoved even if standing against supposed political party allies. Neither Trump nor Paxton is an anti-abortion leader. If they were, they’d take the difficult but necessary stance in opposing IVF because of how it destroys human lives.

THE FOLLY OF ABORTION ABOLITIONISM

The Dobbs decision wasn’t the end of abortion in the United States. It also didn’t settle all concerns about reproductive issues. To be truly anti-abortion requires a commitment to life issues that goes beyond abortion. To just be anti-abortion is never enough.

The Republican Party cannot simultaneously proclaim that life begins at conception while turning a blind eye to a process that routinely destroys the very lives the party claims to protect. If all unborn life is worthy of protection, then that extends to those lives whose defense is seen as politically inconvenient.