[00:00:00] Hi everybody, welcome along to another episode of the Dispatchers podcast. My name is Brendan Malone. It is great to be back with you again and today's topic of conversation. What does Christianity teach about ivf?
[00:00:15] Hi, my name is Brendan Malone and you're listening to the Dispatchers, the podcast that strives to cut through all the noise in order to challenge the popular narratives of the day with some good old fashioned contrarian thinking. You might not always agree, but at least you'll be taking a deeper look at the world around you.
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[email protected] leftfootmedia the link is in today's show notes. And last but not least, a huge thank you to all of our patrons. It's thanks to you that today's episode is made possible. Alrighty, thanks for bearing with me. Let's jump into today's topic of conversation. What does Christianity teach about ivf? And before I say anything more at all about this topic, I want to make a couple of important, very important statements up front. Number one, because we are going to be talking today about the ethical issues and problems associated with in vitro fertilization, but I think it's very important to make a distinction between this technology, IVF technology, and the human beings who are conceived using this technology.
[00:03:56] So this is very, very important. The Christian moral teaching on this particular technology should never, ever be seen as a condemnation of the children who might have been conceived using this technology. They are still fully persons. They are made in the image of God. They have equal dignity with the rest of us. There is nothing at all that deficient about them as persons. And so I think it's really, really important to make that particular statement right up front. And I think it's also important that we start by acknowledging the immense suffering and pain that is commonly felt by infertile husbands and wives. It is a massive cross to bear. My wife Katie and I, early on in our marriage we had just assumed, oh well, you just start having kids and everything works as it should. But it didn't work as it should for us. And in fact, we were a couple of years in and we were really starting to get worried and we started to think maybe we were actually a couple who was going to have to grapple with infertility. And in actual fact, we consider the birth of our eldest daughter, Lucy, to be quite miraculous. There's a whole other story there, and some very special prayers went into that. But I remember that period and I remember wondering, and I know my wife and I really felt this sense of sort of impending dread about what this could possibly mean. We have other friends who have been grappling with, have been carrying this particular cross for many years. And so it is a very difficult thing. And I want to acknowledge that up front. At the same time, I think it's important that we actually tell the truth about issues that matter. It is not compassionate to hide the truth or to pretend that the truth doesn't exist. We should just do that in a very compassionate and caring kind of way. So that's what I want to do today. And I want to be honest and upfront as well about what the ethical issues are. The reason I'm talking about this is because several weeks ago, Donald Trump announced a massive federal expansion of ivf. And this was touted at the time as being a pro family policy. But in actual fact, from a Christian perspective, there are some grave moral problems with ivf, which is why it is something that the church has opposed from the very beginning of this actually relatively new technology. It has not existed long. We'll get into that point in just a minute. But it's only been with us for a number of decades. It's not been around that long at all. And from the very beginning, the church has stood in opposition to this because of some very clear ethical issues. And on that particular point, I think it's probably important to highlight that this is not some Luddite thing either. It's not like the church is stuck in the Dark Ages or a group of cardinals and bishops and church leaders got together in some dark basement and they dread the future and they dread modern technology. And so they thought, we need to oppose this thing and we need to condemn it because it's modern and we don't like modern things. Now, that's not what's going on at all here. As far as the Christian Church is concerned, any technology which is at the service of human dignity, which enables and aids human flourishing in any of its many wonderful and varied ways, is a good technology. But technology which actually impinges upon human dignity, technology which does immoral things to try and achieve its outcomes, technology which actually diminishes human flourishing, is not good. And so that's the important distinction that's being made here. Now, firstly, ivf, which obviously stands for in vitro fertilization, means fertilization in the dish or in the glass, as opposed to in vivo fertilization, which is the natural method, which is fertilization in the body. So what we are talking about here is the artificial creation of a new human life outside of and away from the sexual act outside of the womb. And then those created human beings are implanted back into the womb by those very same technicians who created, who fused the sperm and the egg together and created that new human life outside of the womb. Now, another important starting point, I think, is one of the foundational principles of Christian morality, and that is the fact that the end does not justify the means. So in the Christian moral vision of reality, we consider both the outcome and the method, the action that we are using to try and achieve that outcome. And so you could look at IVF and it could be very tempting to think, oh, what's the problem? You get a good outcome, you get the creation of a new human life, right? So what's the problem? It's not simply the good outcome. And as I said earlier, the human beings who are conceived by IVF are absolutely the imago dei, just like the rest of us. No differences, no inequalities there at all. They're equally human. They have the same equal dignity and worth and value and everything else of that kind. And there is something profoundly good and wondrous about the creation of a new human life. But the problem is the method, the methodology, the means that we used to achieve that outcome. And so it's not enough to just simply say, well, we achieved a good outcome. So doesn't that justify how we got there? No, you must consider both the outcome and the method, the means that you used to get to that outcome. And obviously, I think what commonly happens with IVF is people simply look at the outcome and maybe also they might include the intention. The intention here. But generally speaking, the means is not actually considered. So we have to consider the intention, the means, the method we use to get there, and also the outcome. All three must be considered in Christian moral philosophy. So with ivf, what are the grave moral problems then? Well, there's actually more than one, so let's just work our way through them. First of all, IVF involves the destruction of human embryos. So what we're talking about here is a process that involves the destruction of human beings in the embryonic stage of development. And it is never good to deliberately destroy human life. It's not just the fact that we are destroying an individual human life. Every time we do that, we are taking life. But also there are very serious societal flow on effects when we actually create for ourselves a culture where it becomes normative to actually deliberately end the life of another human being. But it's not simply the destruction of human beings in the embryonic stage of development which creates a moral problem for ivf. There are other issues as well. Another one is the separation of procreation from the sexual act. Now this might not seem particularly significant, but it is actually quite profound. The change here and what actually happens it is a very substantial change. Because what's happening now is when you separate the creation of a new human life from the sexual act, the child is no longer received as a gift, a fruit from the bodily love shared between its mother and its father. It is now engineered by technicians away from separate to the sexual act. And the sexual act typically plays no part at all in this procedure. So what you have is the engineering of a human person. And as a result of this, the child becomes commodified. They have become a commodity in someone else's desires, someone else's schemes or plans. Now it's really important to note that this happens regardless of the parents intention. Because it's not like most parents are sitting there thinking to themselves, oh, we want to treat our child like a commodity. That's not how this happens. And in fact, some of the biggest problems we have in regards to objectifying or commodifying other people, we often don't even realize that it's happening. It's very subtle. It can seem good, or it can seem like there's nothing really amiss, but in actual fact there is. And in this case, this is very clearly one of those examples whereby the parents desire the good of new human life. They desire the good of being family, of having children. These are all profoundly wondrous goods that it is very healthy and beautiful to actually desire and want to have and to pursue. But the problem is the process they use to get there to that outcome is what commodifies the child. So it's not necessarily what the parents intend at all, but it's the process itself. And it's inescapable because the process reduces the creation of that new human life to that of the production of a commodity. And so as I said, it's not what the parents necessarily think or feel about this, because I can guarantee you, most IVF parents do not think or feel, oh, we are going to commodify our children, or we want a commodity or a product. No, that's not what's going through the head. But the process itself does that. And that is a serious moral issue. Thirdly, IVF can commonly involve third parties. So what you have now is the sexual union of a husband and wife is no longer the actual sexual union of that couple, because what you've got now is a sperm donor or an egg donor, or maybe in some cases even both, who are actually brought into the scenario now. And just as you wouldn't bring a third party into your marriage bed using natural procreation, so you wouldn't have your spouse sleep with someone else in order to achieve pregnancy, the same principle, the same moral issues arise here in this particular scenario, because that sexual union of the husband and the wife is supposed to be full and faithful. And it's no longer that, when you have third parties who have now entered the marriage bed in any capacity, even if the creation of that new human life is happening away from the sexual act. And that brings us to the next problem with ivf, and that is the wellbeing and the natural rights of the children who are involved in all of this. And I really think this is a woefully underappreciated moral issue. You very rarely hear people talking about this, but it is a very, very serious issue. And it really lies at the heart of the IVF problem. You see, first of all, there is the experimental nature of this technology. Ultimately, these children, these human beings who have been conceived, who have been created, who have been engineered through the IVF process, their lives are the long term experiment. The eldest IVF baby, Louise Brown from the United Kingdom, was only born in 1978. She is younger than I am now. There's no indication that this will be the case. But we don't know, for example, if all of a sudden IVF conceived people suddenly get into their 50s or their 60s and they die very prematurely compared to the rest of the population, or they start to experience serious illnesses and diseases at a much higher rate than the general population does. Now, there's no indication of that. So please be clear. I'm not saying this will happen. I'm saying we just don't know. Because their lives have been the experiment right from the very beginning, the creation of these children was an experiment. And so we don't think about this. I think this is a woefully underappreciated moral issue. But it's not just that. It's also the fact of the implications of what IVF does in the life of a child in a lot of cases. So, for example, about 10 or 11 years ago, a group of IVF conceived people began identifying themselves as genetic orphans. And these people who identify themselves as genetic orphans would say, look, I don't know who half or even sometimes both of my natural parents are because I've never been allowed to actually meet them and have a relationship with them. And it's not just the relational aspect of this, but it also has implications when you think about perhaps genetic traits that might get passed on or health issues that can be passed on from one generation to the next. And so someone doesn't actually know at least half of their genetic lineage. And that is profoundly important. And I remember reading some articles a few years ago about this and hearing these genetic orphans talk. And they would often say things like, well, I don't condemn anyone for using ivf, but I would definitely advise other people if they asked me, not to go down this path. And it's certainly not something that I would ever use myself. And a big factor here is their own experience of what it means to be a child of ivf. It's also very common with IVF to intentionally deprive a child of a mother or a father or in some cases even both. And basically, what's going on here is, again, the child is now being turned into a commodity. They are being reduced to an object in the schemes of other adults. It places the desires of the adults above the best interests of the child. And secondly, what it also does is it falsely treats mothers and fathers as if they are interchangeable or even meaningless, like, what's the big deal? We often hear that in our culture as long as they've got two loving parents. But even in some situations with ivf, it's not even two parents at all of any kind. Sometimes single people will use ivf. And there are all sorts of other ethical issues that go on around older people, much older people who are utilizing this technology, even though, and I'm not talking here about people in their 30s and 40s and 50s, I'm talking even older than that who have utilized this technology. And what are the implications for those children who are created as a result of this and might have a very, very short period of time with an elderly mother, for example, or a very brief period of time before they, as still young children, have to become perhaps carer for a much more older and infirmed parent? And so these are very real and serious issues, and they do matter. As I said, the big issue here is what we've done is we've sacrificed the best interests, the natural rights, and the wellbeing of children, and we've placed them second to the desires of adults. And that's never a good thing. Which brings us to another problem with this technology. It involves, and it fuels eugenics.
[00:18:52] So, first of all, it is common to have embryo selection processes involved in ivf, where those IVF embryos that are deemed to be unfit or inferior in any way are rejected or even destroyed and discarded. And so you've got there a eugenic selection process that is happening now. There's also an increasing conversation amongst technocrats about IVF as a state tool for desired societal outcomes. Like, couldn't we produce better outcomes if we actually controlled the. I guess they would call it the production, but the creation of new human beings all the way through, so we wouldn't need to take risks or enter into the typical lottery that is the human experience. We could control it, we could engineer it, we could engineer better outcomes. You have people even talking about things like IVF and restrictions on children for climate change, all sorts of variations of this idea. But technocrats who consider IVF as a state tool for desired societal outcomes and for the, I guess, the. The resolution, the achieving of their particular schemes and plans. On top of that, we have things like the freezing of human beings who are still in the embryonic stage of development. Now, the exact number of human beings who are currently in a state of frozen stasis around the world is not known, but in the United States alone, there are experts in the field who estimate that hundreds of thousands and probably even more human beings have been abandoned to frozen stasis. It is a very serious moral crisis. In fact, some are now calling this an invisible crisis and will only get worse, this particular invisible crisis, if Trump's expansion actually results in even greater use of ivf. And these are all very, very serious issues, and they are so intertwined with the technology. Like I often hear people suggesting, maybe in an ideal scenario, you could use it if you met the following conditions, X, Y and Z. But what we are increasingly seeing is that you can't really, I don't think, extricate these particular problems and outcomes from the actual use of the technology itself. It actually creates and leads to societal harms, even if people are using it in a way that is really refined and narrow and very strict in scope. So, for example, they used it, for example, and somehow didn't destroy any embryos at all in the process. There are still these other societal harms that come off the back of this. And one other thing I think to note about ivf, and this is not a moral issue, but it is a practical consideration because it's often touted in this way where people just think, well, you use IVF and barring some sort of extreme scenario, you will get pregnant. Because our scientists are amazing and we know so much more now, et cetera, et cetera. Well, in actual fact, IVF is not a particularly effective fertility method and it is also extremely wasteful in its levels of destruction of new human life. So, according to the United States cdc, which is the Centers for Disease Control and data that they published in 2020, IVF success rates for women during their first IVF cycle. If you're a woman who's over the age of 35, you only have about a 50% chance of the IVF actually being successful. It's about 55% the success rate at 35. And what's interesting is you note that as you get older, that success rate for IVF decreases dramatically. And so what's. I think at the heart of all of this that people don't really talk about is the fact that it seems that the actual female body, when it's in a more younger and fertile capable state, is actually doing a lot of the heavy lifting here. So, yeah, sure, the technology is being used, but when this technology is not delivering a consistent outcome and the drop off is really marked, and quite quickly, as you'll see in just a second, as you get older, you start to realise that in actual fact, it's not a particularly effective technology at all. So, as I said, the bodies of those females who go through this process are almost certainly doing the bulk of the heavy lifting. So what do I mean by that? Well, if you're 35 or under, you have about a 55% chance. So it's about 50% chance of actually having a successful outcome from IVF once you get to 35 to 37. So that's only the next two years, that success rate drops to just 40%. That's a 15% drop off only within the next 18 to 24 months. It's crazy how quickly this happens. If you are 38 to 40, remember, we started at about 55% for anyone who is 35 years and younger. By the time you get to 38, which is only three years later, 38 to 40 years of age, the success rate drops to just 26.
[00:24:13] And if you are 40 or older, that is only five years from where we started. If you are 40 or older, the success rate is just 8%. It's slightly over about 8.2%. So what this points to is that this is not a particularly effective technology. And I think this is really key to understand because a lot of people think that IVF is a guarantee of actually conceiving a child, and in actual fact, it's not. And then on the question of its destructive wastefulness, let me quote from a very recent article on this issue. The CDC's 2021 Assisted Reproductive Technology Fertility Clinic and National Summary report estimated that 238,126 patients underwent 413,776 assisted reproductive technology cycles, around 99% of which would involve IVF. Considering that multiple embryos are usually transferred during each cycle, and that IVF involves the creation of a minimum of four to five embryos, and usually far more than that, the actual birth rate of children conceived in this fashion reveals the horrifying human attrition rate of this process. And as others have pointed out in other places, a mere 7% of human beings in the embryonic stage of development who are created by IVF will result in a live birth, while 93% of them will be frozen indefinitely or miscarried or aborted. So this is not only not particularly effective, but it is also extremely destructive and harmful to human life. So where does that leave infertile couples? While there are ethical alternatives, the Christian church doesn't say you're not allowed to use any technology at all to try and help you to achieve pregnancy. No, that's not the case. Instead, any technology which aids the fruitfulness of the sexual act of the married couple and only the married couple, so no other parties are brought into the marriage bed, that is actually good, and it is perfectly acceptable. And in fact, we really should be trying to encourage and see the development of more of that kind of technology. So, for example, you might have people using things like fertility tracking methods which enable them to pinpoint more precisely exactly when the wife is fertile. And so it's a much better window to try and achieve pregnancy. And this is important because every single female is different. It's not like you apply a template and every female has the exact same cycle. They don't. Everyone's fertility cycle is actually a little bit unique and sometimes wildly unique from other people. And so to be able to track that is really, really helpful for couples. There are also things like the introduction of medications or maybe hormone supplements or whatever it else it might be to try and aid in the natural fertility within the bodies of that husband and that wife. And so when they come together in the sexual act, they are able more successfully to achieve the outcome of new human life. And Then there's also the fact, and we've known this for many decades now, that stress is a serious problem upon human beings who are trying to conceive children. It's not a good thing to be under stress when you are trying to conceive a child. And it's not uncommon, actually, to hear stories of people who get themselves caught up into the stressful nature of IVF and then once they're through the process, when the pressure comes off, they actually end up conceiving children naturally. It's not uncommon to hear that story. There's something fundamentally important here. I think that we need to understand that IVF is actually part of an industry, the fertility industry, and a lot of money is being made in this industry. And so there is an incentive to actually encourage couples to go towards this as opposed to exploring other options which are not big money makers and they are not a massive financial industry in and of themselves. And so there's an incentivisation. And I think also I've heard stories about couples where it seems quite clearly they were put on the pathway to IVF probably far too prematurely, and other options and even things like just giving them a little bit more time was not really considered seriously. And it's not uncommon. I've met people who have stories about this where they were in the IVF queue or they looked at the cost and they were trying to save up money and then in the process of waiting, they actually ended up conceiving naturally. So quite clearly something's amiss there. If you're someone who's been told you have to use IVF and then it turns out that you don't actually have to use ivf. There's something else that's going on that I think we need to consider and that is the. The, I guess, the imposition of technology into the human experience and an over and increasingly over reliance, I think, upon technology and increasingly unhealthy sort of dependence upon technology. And it's not just this area, it's lots of areas. Think about your mobile phone. If you want something that's probably totally non controversial, everyone can agree and understand. Yeah, we've actually got a problem with an over reliance and an intrusion into our lives of that particular technology. And I think this is something we need to consider in relation to IVF as well. So let me finish now by reading to you the section of the Catechism of the Catholic Church which addresses specifically this issue, because I think it's just a beautiful summation of all of this and it clearly lays out the issue in a very succinct and relatively short kind of way. So this is from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Article 2373 to Article 2379. Sacred Scripture and the Church's traditional practice. See in large families a sign of God's blessing and the parents generosity. Couples who discover that they are infertile suffer greatly. What will you give me? Asks Abraham of God, for I continue childless. And Rachel cries to her husband Jacob, give me children or I shall die.
[00:30:32] Research aimed at reducing human infertility is to be encouraged on condition that it is placed at the service of the human person of their inalienable rights and their true and integral good according to the design and the will of God. Techniques that entail the disassociation of husband and wife by the intrusion of a person other than the couple. So this is the donation of sperm or ovum or a surrogate uterus are gravely immoral. These techniques infringe the child's right to be born of a father and mother known to him or her and bound to each other by marriage. They betray the spouse's right to become a father and a mother only through each other. Techniques involving only the married couple, like artificial insemination and fertilisation, are perhaps less reprehensible, yet remain morally unacceptable. They disassociate the sexual act from the procreative act. The act which brings the child into existence is no longer an act by which two persons give themselves to one another, but one that entrusts the life and identity of the embryo into the power of doctors and biologists and establishes the domination of technology over the origin and destiny of the human person. Such a relationship of domination is in itself contrary to the dignity and equality that must be common to parents and children.
[00:32:05] Under the moral aspect, procreation is deprived of its proper perfection when it is not willed as the fruit of the marital act, that is to say, of the specific act of the spouse's union. So that's the sexual act they're obviously talking about. Only respect for the link between the meanings of the marital act and respect for the unity of the human being make possible procreation in conformity with the dignity of the person.
[00:32:34] A child is not something owed to us, but it is a gift. The supreme gift of marriage is a human person. A child may not be considered a piece of property, an idea to which an alleged right to a child would lead. In this area, only the child possesses genuine rights. The right to be the fruit of the specific act of the marital love of their parents and the right to be respected as a person from the moment of their conception. The gospel shows that physical infertility is not an absolute evil. Spouses who still suffer from infertility after exhausting legitimate medical procedures should unite themselves with the Lord's cross, the source of all spiritual fruitfulness. They can give expression to their generosity by adopting abandoned children or performing demanding services for others who are in need. And I think that's a really beautiful little summation of the issues and the problems here with ivf. And as I said, these issues have only got a whole lot worse since those particular paragraphs were written. There is a massive crisis, the invisible crisis of human beings in a permanent state of frozen stasis in IVF clinics all around the world. Let me finish by reiterating two important points. That IVF conceived people are the image of God. They have full dignity. There is nothing different about them as persons made in the image of God. Our manner of conception, the way in which we are conceived, has no bearing upon our human dignity. They are absolutely one with us. And so any of the critiques you've heard here today should absolutely not be heard as an attack on or a suggestion that somehow people conceived by IVF are inferior to the rest of us. Secondly, I want to reiterate that point, that infertility is a very serious burden. And I have friends and I know the pain that it causes them to carry this particular cross. And so today, in this episode, it has not been my intention to try and make light of that or to ride roughshod over the pain that they carry with them constantly. Instead, it has been my intention here today to speak with some clarity about this issue, because I believe authentic compassion demands that we actually tell the truth about issues that really matter. And in this case, we are talking here about the well being of our children and the rights of innocent human beings at the very earliest and most vulnerable stages of their development. If you're listening to this and IVF is something that you've used in the past, and maybe this particular podcast is the first time you've ever heard the teachings of the Christian church explained and unpacked for you, and maybe that has caused you a sense of suffering and grief, I would just say to you, God's mercy is great. He loves you. He desires for you to be in full communion with him. And he is awaiting for you in his merciful arms of love. So please turn to him and bring that issue to Him. And please understand that it has absolutely not been my intention to engage in any sort of judgmentalism over people who might have this as part of their story. But this matter, as I said, is a very serious one, and so we must speak frankly and lovingly about it. Thanks again for tuning in. Don't forget, live by goodness, truth and beauty, not by lies. And I'll see you next time on the Dispatches.
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