Can You Be Pro-Life and Pro-IVF?

While we still don’t know for sure if this story is legitimate or created for social media engagement, pro-lifers are rightly outraged at the idea, with many sharing their own stories about those with Down syndrome in their lives.

I personally like to tell people of one specific resident I had when I worked in a house with adults with intellectual developmental disabilities (IDD)—how much she would make me laugh, and how she would tell me she loved me every time I put her to bed at night. She had a profound impact on my life, and I’ll never forget her.

And yet, while pro-lifers, including myself, are justifiably angry at the thought that any couple could so callously snuff out the life of their child based on a diagnosis that he or she would be “less than perfect,” I often find that many pro-lifers still find excuses to justify in-vitro fertilization (IVF), a procedure that—at best—discards embryos that don’t look like they’re developing properly based solely on visual inspection. 

Pro-lifers often justify IVF because, unlike abortion, it doesn’t take the lives of human beings in a direct, obvious manner. After all, it brings about life, and if every embryo created is transferred, or donated for another couple to transfer, then what’s the problem? 

Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis

Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD) is a popular “add-on” feature to determine the likelihood of implantation success and test for inherited genetic anomalies, such as cystic fibrosis and spinal muscular atrophy. Preimplantation diagnosis also allows couples to choose which embryos to transfer based on preferred sex.

A man once commented on one of my previous articles that I can’t possibly justify not allowing him and his wife to have children because it’s not just for infertility–it’s the only way he and his wife can avoid passing on genetic diseases to their children, and he “doesn’t like that this is ignored.” Yet by trying to eliminate genetic disorders through preimplantation genetic diagnoses, couples are performing an inherently immoral act; the taking of innocent human life. 

Although they do so in hopes of bringing about a good effect, in doing so, they are embracing and living in the consequences of the fall, instead of rising above it. Christ broke the curse of death by coming to give abundant, eternal life, but PGD makes medical science into a distorted version of God.

Preimplantation Genetic Testing

Preimplantation Genetic Testing (PGT) is the procedure that analyzes chromosomes to determine conditions such as Down syndrome. Dr. Lauren Rubal, the reproductive endocrinologist, stated that if an IVF cycle yields 12 embryos, about half of the embryos will continue to mature, and about half will be considered “chromosomally normal” after they undergo preimplantation genetic testing. The other three will be discarded.

PGT and PGD both involve conducting an embryo biopsy that removes 3-10 cells from the section that will form the placenta, followed by laboratory genetic testing of DNA. Dr. Rubal stated that it’s possible to biopsy the wrong area of chromosomes in an embryo and be incorrect about a diagnosis. However, even diagnoses that are indeed not “incompatible with life,” such as those with Down syndrome, are automatically deemed “non-transferrable.” 

Dr. Rubal further stated that PGT is not always accurate, and that chromosomally “normal” babies have been born from embryos deemed “abnormal,” or from “aneuploid” cells as opposed to “euploid” cells. 

These tests can show blastocysts as having abnormalities when they are indeed normal, resulting annually in thousands of healthy embryos’ destruction. Embryologists at the Center for Human Reproduction were also witnessing failed IVF attempts with embryos initially declared “normal,” and observed thousands of babies born from embryos that were deemed “abnormal.” 

How many innocent human beings’ lives could have been saved if they had not been subjected to the judgment of whether they were “good quality” humans?

Preimplantation Screenings

While not every couple opts to have their embryos undergo PGT upon fertilization, embryos are still graded and chosen for transfer based on their likelihood of successful implantation in the womb after a screening process that picks the “best” blastocysts (day 5 or 6 after fertilization) to implant. 

After these blastocysts are screened, only the ones determined “genetically healthy and normal” are transferred—with meager hope of implantation. The embryologist checks embryos under the microscope for 5 days and observes embryo development such as the embryonic membranes and the inner cell mass. The embryos are then graded and selected and the ones that appear healthiest are chosen for transfer. 

Dr. Craig Turczynski, a reproductive physiologist, revealed that embryos are often labeled “non-viable” or “imperfect” and were discarded—despite the fact that, given the opportunity to implant, they would have been perfectly viable. “The current method of evaluating viability is based on visual inspection,” Turczynski writes, “and we have some ideas of what makes a viable embryo, but it is imperfect.”

Lethal language

Physicians will often use “lethal language” phrases such as “fatal fetal anomaly,” “lethal or terminal prenatal diagnosis,” and “incompatible with life.” This language impacts decisions such as abortion, in that it often makes parents feel like termination is the best decision, even though physicians can’t actually determine with 100% accuracy whether a baby will live. 

Lethal language gives the “false impression” that physicians can indeed determine with 100% accuracy whether a baby will live, contrary to the fact that this is not true and several studies have indeed proven otherwise. A study from 2017 actually found that, if babies with trisomy 18 underwent heart surgery, their survival rate almost doubled.

A lot of commenters on posts about the Ridgways made the argument that the tests for Down syndrome are often wrong, and they may have killed a perfectly healthy child. While this is true, this argument should make no difference when it comes to providing preborn and embryonic human persons with the right to life. If children are indeed born with developmental disabilities, does that suddenly make them less worthy of life?

The Bottom Line

Instead of exhibiting the voluntary, self-sacrificial love that Christ emulated through his suffering on the cross, abortion and the IVF process ask that children be involuntarily sacrificed to satisfy the desires of those who should be their greatest protectors: their parents. 

But while many pro-lifers are quick to condemn the inherently immoral practice that is abortion, we must face the reality that playing trial and error with the lives of embryonic human persons made in the image of God is inherent within the IVF process. 

The fact that grading these persons based on quality or screening for any imperfections is part and parcel of this industry should give pro-lifers pause about creating human beings in laboratories, even if they think they are doing it in an “ethical” manner.

Katie Breckenridge is the author of Silent Sorrows: Let’s Talk about Abortion, Reproductive Technologies, and Adoption (Abuzz Press, 2024). The views expressed in this op-ed do not necessarily reflect those of the Union of Orthodox Journalists.