Last week, President Trump issued an executive order endorsing in vitro fertilization, calling for lower and subsidized costs and expanding access and protections of the practice nationwide. On one hand, this executive order is consistent with the others, following up on what Trump promised during his campaign. Endorsing IVF was a tactic to mitigate critiques from the Left on his role in the undoing of Roe v. Wade. Kamala Harris’ running mate Tim Walz, after repeatedly (and falsely) claiming to have pursued children through IVF, claimed that Trump would ban the practice as part of his plan to restrict reproductive health care and exert control over women. His counterpart JD Vance pushed back on that claim during their debate, saying that banning IVF was not a legal possibility, though he did talk about the technology in far more muted terms than Trump, as one would expect from a Roman Catholic.
At the time, the Colson Center joined the chorus of numerous pro-life and pro-family leaders arguing that open-ended support of IVF is not a pro-life position. Through a series of videos on the topic in the What Would You Say? series, we contend that if life begins at conception, which has been a central pro-life talking point for decades, IVF, as currently practiced, needs far more regulation, not less. Claiming IVF to be pro-life does not make it so.
In fact, despite how the recent executive order was worded, IVF is not even a pro-fertility position. Though born children do result, the way IVF is overwhelmingly and almost universally practiced means that far more lives are taken in the process than survive. Embryos that fail the so-called screening process are deemed not viable and destroyed. This process checks for everything from the desired sex of the embryo to any potential genetic or health conditions. Advocates of IVF can call this widely accepted and practiced step whatever they want, but the best word is eugenics.
After the screening process, the “viable” embryos are utilized to achieve pregnancy. If pregnancy is achieved, the remaining embryos are considered “excess,” which numbers in the millions in the United States alone. Most are left stored and frozen, literally suspended in time. A very small number of these little image-bearers will be given a chance at life through embryo adoption, also known as “snowflake adoption.” The rest will either remain in storage indefinitely, donated to medical research, or simply destroyed.
One consequence of this practice is that embryos are often considered “property” in custody battles during divorce or other relationship settlements. Another reality is that virtually anyone can choose to participate in creating more embryonic image bearers for any reason. While many will operate from the good, God-given desire to have children, others are far more nefarious, and still others more trivial, such as celebrities wishing to avoid the stretch marks and other inconveniences of pregnancy. Also, any individual or relational arrangement can participate, which often intentionally robs a child of a mother or father. The executive order was disturbingly vague on that point.
In the end, IVF in America is not about fertility. It’s an industry, a radically under-regulated selling of goods and services. In the vast majority of cases, what is being sold as goods and services are people. The good intentions of some who participate cannot change what this underregulated, unethical, and dehumanizing industry has become.
When the President calls for IVF to be more available and affordable, he’s asking for increased efficiency and decreased cost. But it’s efficiency that corrupts the practice in the first place and treats kids as commodities. It’s far more efficient to collect as many eggs and create as many embryos as possible. And that leads to more lives lost annually than in all the Planned Parenthood abortion clinics combined. A far more ethical way to practice IVF is to create and implant one embryo at a time, but to borrow the language of the executive order, it’s simply not efficient or cost-effective to do it one at a time.
A former professor of mine often said that whenever you put a price tag on something priceless, you cheapen it immediately. Every single life created through IVF is priceless, made in the image and likeness of God. As one couple who’ve allowed two children a chance to live and thrive through snowflake adoption told me, children should never be made and sacrificed so adults can get what they want.
It remains to be seen what will come of this executive order. Perhaps the President has merely followed up on a campaign promise and doesn’t intend anything more. Or perhaps he is laying the legal groundwork to expand this under-regulated industry. Either way, the genie is already way out of the bottle. Many of us have found much to support and celebrate in the President’s slew of executive orders. Not in this one.
Photo Courtesy:©iStock/Getty Images Plus/abezikus
Published Date: February 25, 2025
John Stonestreet is President of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview, and radio host of BreakPoint, a daily national radio program providing thought-provoking commentaries on current events and life issues from a biblical worldview. John holds degrees from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (IL) and Bryan College (TN), and is the co-author of Making Sense of Your World: A Biblical Worldview.
The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of CrosswalkHeadlines.
BreakPoint is a program of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. BreakPoint commentaries offer incisive content people can't find anywhere else; content that cuts through the fog of relativism and the news cycle with truth and compassion. Founded by Chuck Colson (1931 – 2012) in 1991 as a daily radio broadcast, BreakPoint provides a Christian perspective on today's news and trends. Today, you can get it in written and a variety of audio formats: on the web, the radio, or your favorite podcast app on the go.
