Almost a century ago, Aldous Huxley wrote the visionary novel Brave New World. This is a story of a dystopian future of community, stability, and identity, where the population has come to love servitude.
The novel begins at the Central London Incubation and Conditioning Center, where humans are mass-produced in vitro. The director leads a group of students through the facility and explains how eggs are extracted, fertilized, and developed according to predetermined social classes (alpha and beta, or gamma, delta, and epsilon).
The loss of life is not the only reason why IVF is inherently immoral and evil. Children are also treated as products.
“Applying the concept of mass production to biology.”
Although Huxley was opposed to organized religion, this particular writing of his turned out to be highly prophetic. Almost 40 years after he published Brave New World, his in vitro fertilization was achieved. The first “test tube baby” was born in 1978.
Humans finally gained what is perhaps God’s most distinctive feature: control over creation.
But at what cost?
The Alabama Supreme Court ruled last month that embryos used in in vitro fertilization are actually fetuses and should be afforded the same protections under Alabama law as minors. In response to this decision, the state’s Republican governor sign SB 159, a bill that would give IVF clinics immunity if they destroy human embryos used in IVF. This means that these clinics are protected from criminal and civil liability for the destruction of human lives.
Perhaps in response to public backlash, many self-proclaimed “pro-life” politicians have expressed support for IVF, arguing that the process is consistent with their pro-life beliefs. However, the barbaric and inhumane procedures involved in IVF fall far short of upholding the sanctity and dignity of human life.
The number of frozen human embryos in the United States is up to 1 million. That doesn’t take into account the countless humans created in laboratories only to die after a few days or weeks.
During in vitro fertilization, Before fertilization, 10 to 20 eggs are collected from a woman, and the “magic number” is 15, creating 10 to 20 unique eggs that have never existed before and never will exist. humans are produced.
From there, the embryos are left in the lab to develop for five to six days. Only between 30% and 50% of the embryos that are still growing after three days will progress to the blastocyst stage, the final stage before these tiny humans are placed in the freezer.
Genetic testing is then performed to avoid implantation of genetically “abnormal” embryos. Dr. Mark Trolis, founder of the IVF Center, describes the advances his organization has seen in this screening process. Website:
It is possible to test the gender of the fetus and the presence of chromosomal abnormalities such as Down syndrome. This is very important for older women undergoing IVF. It can also screen for single gene defects such as sickle cell anemia, cystic fibrosis, and Tay-Sachs.
During the transition stage, women under 35 have about a 60% chance of becoming pregnant. However, this still does not guarantee a healthy pregnancy. A 2017 study found that only 51.7% of single embryo transfers resulted in a live birth, with a miscarriage rate of 12%.
If a pregnancy is successful and a human embryo remains, it often remains frozen in the lab indefinitely until the parents decide whether to have another child, put it up for adoption, or discard it. there is.
Some suggest embryo adoption as a solution to the destruction of human life caused by IVF. But the loss of life is not the only reason why IVF is inherently immoral and evil. It also treats children as commodities, an underlying message at the heart of our culture of death.
Don’t you want children? Our culture teaches couples to use contraception and to have an abortion if they make a “mistake.” And even if these couples ultimately decide to have children and it turns out they can’t, they can still use IVF to produce large numbers of children on their own time (most of which never leave the lab). ), the abnormality can be eradicated.
This commodification of human life means that when a child is desired, it inevitably becomes idolized, leading couples to spend tens of thousands of dollars on IVF in their desperation to conceive. However, if the child is unwanted, the child is seen as a problem to be solved by abortion.
This is not to say that people born through IVF are not children of God or unworthy of love. Praise God that they made it out of the lab safely. Couples who have struggled with infertility and have undergone IVF also deserve sympathy and understanding, not blame. But at the same time, we cannot ignore the obvious evils associated with IVF.
God designed the human body with natural means of reproduction. If a couple is having trouble conceiving, there is an entire field of medicine that includes: napro technology, It is designed to work on a woman’s body and help her conceive naturally. These methods also benefit a woman’s health and help address the root causes of hormonal issues that can prevent pregnancy.
If we want to end the culture of death, we must be morally consistent. Being pro-life means supporting and defending the sanctity of life, and there is no world in which IVF exists where this sanctity is not violated.
