The Case Concerning IVF
If the conceived child is under God's protection, that is true in the laboratory too — the case concerning IVF, with its tender word on infertility.
DRAFT — awaiting editorial review.
Selection presupposes rejection
The same principle that governs abortifacient contraception governs IVF: if the conceived child is a living human being under the protection of God, that is true of the child conceived in a laboratory no less than in a marriage bed. And the moral difficulty is built into how the technique works. Standard practice creates more embryos than the parents intend to carry, precisely so the “best” may be selected; the remainder are discarded, frozen indefinitely, donated to research, or allowed to perish. Selection presupposes rejection.
The embryos set aside are valuable for the same reason as every life in this series — not size, stage or wantedness, but that each is a distinct living human bearing God’s image. The treatise honours couples who resolve to create only as many embryos as they will carry; its sharpest words are for the industry’s ordinary practice, and for the church’s incuriosity about it.
The scale, from the official record
This is not marginal. Around 77,000 IVF cycles were carried out in the UK in 2022, up from roughly 69,000 in 2019, under the regulation of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. Behind the cycles lies a far larger number: official figures given to Parliament record that between 1991 and 2005 more than two million embryos (2,137,924) were created, of which some 1.2 million were never used; later HFEA-derived figures indicate more than 3.5 million created by the end of 2012, with only a small fraction resulting in a birth.
The treatise states these carefully — cumulative totals over stated periods, with today’s true figures necessarily higher. However reckoned, the conclusion is unavoidable: well over a million human embryos created and then discarded or left in indefinite storage, and as things stand no one will name them for what they are.
The practices, and the same movement
The church has been strangely incurious about how these clinics operate. IVF ordinarily begins with practices no one warns the Christian couple about — clinics commonly keep rooms stocked with pornography on their own premises (Matthew 5:28). More serious still is the trade in donor sperm and eggs, inserting a third party into what God joined (Hebrews 13:4) and deliberately manufacturing children severed from a biological mother or father. The child so conceived bears no guilt and is no less an image-bearer — the treatise says so plainly — but the industry should be named for what it is.
And IVF did not arrive from nowhere. It is the technological flower of the same root this series examines throughout: procreation as a process to be managed and optimised rather than received as gift. The birth-control movement severed the marriage act from the giving of children; the fertility industry completes the severance from the other side — and both, followed far enough, arrive at the same place: the small and the unchosen are discarded.
A tender word — and the conclusion the series cannot avoid
These paragraphs are felt most keenly by couples who have wanted a child for years and been told IVF is the compassionate option, while the fate of the surplus children is passed over in silence. To them the treatise speaks no reproach and much tenderness: Scripture treats the ache of childlessness as a real and serious grief (1 Samuel 1:5–8); it is God alone who opens and closes the womb, and He is not deaf to the cry of His people (Psalm 34:17). The plea is that the church not send grieving members into an industry that profits from their sorrow — and that it press adoption not as second-best but as positive obedience and gospel-shaped joy, for we ourselves were adopted (Ephesians 1:5; James 1:27).
The logic is finally simple: if we speak against the killing of the pre-born child in the abortion clinic, we cannot in consistency stay silent about the destruction of the pre-born child in the fertility clinic. “The location of a child’s conception changes nothing about the child.”
Questions to sit with
- The treatise argues the church has been “strangely incurious” about how fertility clinics operate. What had you never been told, and how does it change your view?
- How would you speak about this with a couple you love who are considering, or have used, IVF — leading with tenderness as the treatise does?
Go deeper
Further material on this subject from allied abolitionist ministries (these links open external sites):
- Abolitionists Rising — on IVF (Abolitionists Rising)
- Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform UK — on IVF (CBR UK)
Check yourself
5 questions on what you have just read. Answering is what makes it stick.
1Why does the treatise say the moral difficulty with IVF is not incidental to the technique?
- Because clinics are poorly regulated
- Because standard practice creates more embryos than will be carried, precisely so the "best" may be selected — and selection presupposes rejection — correct
- Because the success rate is low
- Because it is expensive
To choose among embryos for the ones most likely to succeed is, in the same act, to set aside the ones not chosen — and those set aside are destroyed, frozen indefinitely, donated to research, or allowed to perish. This is built into how the technique works, not an unfortunate side effect.
2What does the treatise say about couples who resolve to create only as many embryos as they will carry?
- It condemns them equally with the industry
- It honours that resolve as a real moral difference — its sharpest words are for the industry's ordinary practice and the church's incuriosity, not the grieving couple — correct
- It says such restraint is impossible
- It does not address them
The treatise adds, with care, that even there the process carries risks the couple should understand, and clinics' defaults press hard against such restraint — but the target of its critique is the industry and the church's silence.
3What do the official figures given to Parliament record for 1991–2005?
- Around 77,000 embryos created
- More than two million embryos created (2,137,924), of which some 1.2 million were never used — correct
- Exactly 3.5 million embryos created
- No figures were collected before 2008
Later HFEA-derived figures indicate more than 3.5 million embryos created by the end of 2012. The treatise states these carefully — cumulative totals over stated periods, with present-day figures necessarily higher, since treatment has only increased (around 77,000 IVF cycles in 2022 alone).
4How does the treatise describe donor conception?
- As an unqualified good for childless couples
- As inserting a third party into what God joined, deliberately manufacturing children severed from a biological parent — while insisting the child so conceived bears no guilt and is no less an image-bearer — correct
- As acceptable when anonymised
- It takes no position
The treatise names the industry for what it does (Hebrews 13:4; Matthew 19:5–6) — and says plainly, "lest anyone conceived by these means read a word of self-reproach into this page where none is intended," that the child is no less an image-bearer than any other.
5What does the treatise press upon the church for those walking the road of infertility?
- Resignation to childlessness
- Referral to the fertility industry
- Tenderness, support, trust in the God who alone gives life — and adoption, pressed not as second-best but as positive obedience and gospel-shaped joy (Ephesians 1:5; James 1:27) — correct
- Silence, to avoid causing pain
Scripture treats childlessness as a real and serious grief (1 Samuel 1:5–8), never a small thing. "To receive a child who already exists and needs a home is not a lesser way of building a family. It is one of the most Christ-shaped ways there is" — for we ourselves were adopted (Ephesians 1:5).