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 Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) rejected artificial fertilization and insemination on the basis of the separation of the unitive and procreative aspects of marital sex. Donum Vitae states, “The teaching of the Magisterium on this point has already been stated” (II.B §6, note 51), referencing a list of documents tracing the doctrinal development. The response of the Holy Office in 1897 from Pope Leo XIII to the question, An adhiberi posit artificialis mulieris fecundatio? (“Can artificial insemination of a woman be used?” was an emphatic, Non licere (“Not allowed.”).¹

Pope Pius XII repeated the teaching in 1951 and 1956 to the medical community, encouraging doctors to consider technological advances in terms of morality and the common good. The pope said, unequivocally, that a child conceived by IFV outside of marriage using donor sperm or eggs not belonging to the spouses is “illegitimate.” Immediately after this statement, Pope Pius XII said, “Artificial fertilization in marriage, but produced by the active element of a third party, is equally immoral, and as such must be condemned without appeal.”

This distinction introduced the debate over “assistance” versus “replacement” in Donum Vitae: “A medical intervention respects the dignity of persons when it seeks to assist the conjugal act either in order to facilitate its performance or in order to enable it to achieve its objective once it has been normally performed” (II.B, §7). So, for well over a century, IVF was recognized as a procedure that is immoral because it replaces the conjugal act in marriage.

It is worth noting that the earliest considerations by the Vatican referred to artificial insemination, which is different from modern IVF. In the insemination procedure, sperm are injected into the female’s uterine cavity (or cervix), whereas IVF involves introducing the sperm to the female egg in a petri dish. The first consideration in the Church only related to replacing the conjugal act with a medical procedure and not the consequential (and also immoral) act of freezing or destroying embryonic children. If the Church’s wisdom regarding the dignity of the human person had been heeded, there would not be millions of embryonic children in freezers today.

The Rights of Children

Donum Vitae, of course, goes further. This instruction also addresses the rights of children because these rights are connected to the inseparability of love-making and life-giving. To understand the teaching, one must consider IVF from the perspective that the needs of a child are greater than the wants of a parent. This should not be hard since it is a perspective familiar to society in determining any aspect of a born child’s life. In court cases regarding parental rights or custody, the best interest of the child comes first.

The difference is that society does not view an embryonic child on the same moral level as a born child. It is a hard case to make since a culture that accepts abortion already doesn’t see the fetal child as having the same rights or dignity as a born child. There have been all kinds of strange debates about the beginning of an unwanted human child’s life even though any developmental biology textbook will name fertilization as the beginning of life for any other species. Even wanted children are considered living humans from the moment of conception. The scrutiny only applies to unwanted human children.

At the societal level, children’s rights are violated. With abortion, these unwanted fetal children can be killed. With IVF, there is a gray area. To cut costs, many embryonic children are produced so the parent can get the one they want. The leftover siblings are stored indefinitely in freezers until a decision is made about what to do with them. If they are unwanted, they are either destroyed or donated to scientific research aimed at curing diseases for the wanted people of society. If the embryos are ever wanted, then they are implanted in a woman’s uterus.

At the familial and individual level, the embryonic child’s rights are violated because all children have a right to be conceived in love by a married mother and father. Again, this will sound antiquated to the modern ear, but it is not a complicated concept. If humans have inherent dignity, then the bringing into existence of a new human life must be honored.

The Church says that the dignity of the child is paramount, so special that his or her life must begin in united, physical, spiritual, and emotional love. Then the child should be raised in that love, which goes radically against the idea that children should be shelved in freezers until they are wanted, or killed because they are unwanted. This origin in love is the beginning we all deserve, and even when this ideal is not achieved, as it rarely is, wholeness, love, unity, and strong families are the goals we aim for in our individual lives, in our families, and in our societies.

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