IVF, or in vitro fertilization, is the practice of harvesting eggs from a woman and sperm from a man, fertilizing the egg, and implanting the lucky few that survive the procedure. President Donald Trump supports IVF and has even signed an executive order expanding access to it.
This practice is revolutionary for couples struggling with infertility — and, as I note below, I say that with all compassion. Yet, it is rife with all sorts of ethical dilemmas for conservatives.
Quandary #1: If you are pro-life, you believe that life begins at conception, i.e., when a sperm and egg fertilize. With IVF, doctors typically fertilize lots of embryos (pre-born babies at their tiniest), which most of the time creates more children than the couple is planning on having. The couple then selects the embryo they want, and the rest are either put on ice or discarded.
Quandary #2: Embryos are sometimes switched in the lab. Though rare, parents have been implanted with children not genetically their own and have had to sort out the ethical and emotional aftermath.
Quandary #3: Embryos on ice have been killed due to negligence on the part of IVF centers.
Quandary #4: Then there is the practice of surrogacy and all the potential horrors that occur when that route is taken.
The main topic of discussion today, however, involves Quandary #5: The ethical question of genetically screening embryos. It’s been pretty standard practice for IVF couples to be offered genetic screening of some sort for potential disorders. However, what is being offered now goes far beyond that.
The New York Times recently published an opinion piece by journalist Anna Louie Sussman on a new IVF genetic screening company called Orchid. This company not only screens for common genetic disorders but also provides a risk analysis on a litany of diseases that a child could develop over the course of his or her life. A parent could potentially see that their baby is genetically predisposed to Alzheimer’s, decide that he or she isn’t perfect enough, and discard the embryo.
This company is not offering to rewrite the genetic code and cure babies of illness before they are even implanted. No, babies deemed “unfit” or “too high risk” for certain diseases are simply discarded. While it’s already ethically questionable to choose what gender baby you’d prefer or their eye color or other such things, this goes far beyond that eugenic fever dream.
This is a disingenuous attempt to create a perfectly health child. As Daily Wire podcaster Reagan Conrad put it, “We’re trying to cure all suffering.”
Is there an ethical difference between this sort of genetic risk analysis and what couples sometimes undergo before they decide to start a family? Absolutely. Couples who undergo genetic screening for potential disorders that could be passed on to their children and choose not to have children are taking a far more ethical position. While sad, no human life has been literally ended. On the other hand, creating children whom you then screen to weed out the “less fit” or “less genetically desirable” in favor of those who are deemed better is eugenics, plain and simple. It is literally killing the “undesirables” based on the best scientific guess of someone in a lab coat.
These “perfect children” are now only available to the elite. As Louie Sussman noted: “Today it is an expensive procedure offered to patients undergoing I.V.F., who are often but not always infertile couples seeking treatment. But [Noor] Siddiqui — and others in Silicon Valley, where investors in and users of this technology abound — envision such comprehensive screening eventually replacing the old-fashioned way of having children altogether. ‘Sex is for fun, and embryo screening is for babies,’ she said in a video she shared on X. ‘It’s going to become insane not to screen for these things.’”
Here is the video in question:
SO INCREDIBLY PROUD to share 2 HUGE updates:
1) The first baby was born using @OrchidInc technology — and he’s super cute 🥰
2) I tested my own embryos with Orchid — we got SO much information & l feel confident now 🚀
This is the future of how babies will be born! pic.twitter.com/cKkO3byVuv
— Noor Siddiqui (@noorsiddiqui) April 22, 2024
This sort of screening would kill a lot of children who were predisposed for stuff like autism, obesity, or Down syndrome. Orchid is advocating for getting rid of kids and selling the idea that this is the future of procreation. It’s dystopian and so shortsighted.
There is ample evidence that people who live with varying diseases or genetic disorders aren’t less human because they have them. We need all sorts of people in this world. We need neurodivergent people like Elon Musk or Temple Grandin to help us prepare to explore Mars or invent a better way of handling animals on the farm. We need deaf or blind people like Ludwig van Beethoven, Ray Charles, or Stevie Wonder — the “undesirables,” under some people’s definition, who might never have given their music to the world. We need people who come in all sorts of different shapes, sizes, colors, and abilities. All lives have meaning and purpose, and no life should be discounted or disregarded because he or she is small, defenseless, or genetically “unfit.”
Closing Note
For those couples who are struggling with infertility, my heart goes out to you. Wanting to have and raise children of your own is a beautiful and noble desire, and not being able to do so without serious medical intervention is incredibly difficult. However, it is also important to be informed and consider all the ethical dilemmas before pursuing IVF. There are ways to pursue fertility ethically, such as only harvesting embryos equal to the number of children you intend to have. There are also other beautiful ways to have a family, such as adoption. This information is given to you not so that you give up all hope but so that you can best honor the lives put in your care. God bless you.
