Pray for an end to IVF and the protection of human embryos: Join our prayer pledge
(LifeSiteNews) — Supposedly pro-life political people have come out strongly in favor of IVF because it makes babies, and we need babies. Babies are good, right? Yes. No matter how a baby comes about, every baby is a gift from God. No matter the circumstance of conception, even IVF, every baby’s soul is directly created by God at the moment of conception. But there is more to the IVF issue than that, including serious problems that many do not want to confront.
I will not address the moral evil or physical harms that IVF causes to mothers and to the children who come to birth from it. You can find many articles explaining why and how IVF is intrinsically evil and the biological harms it causes. I am, instead, going to raise some questions about how IVF affects all of us.
First the situation. Out of almost two million embryos frozen in one ten-year period, only about a third were implanted, leaving over a million embryos in suspended animation. There are still over a million frozen. Couples have a decision to make: should they give their embryos to research? Discard them? Donate them to another woman? Or just leave them in cold storage in case they are wanted later? Just listing these options gives us chills.
Most parents put off the decision. Even after they have all the children they want, half of parents don’t make a final decision about their embryos. They are conflicted. That fact tells us something. It reflects a deep reality that they avoid as much as they can, even as they, and we, rejoice in the children that God allows to come through the immoral IVF process. Deep down, we know that the embryos are children also.
We all know of some. The parents know. The grandparents know. Relatives and friends know. The birth of the child brings great joy, and it should. But every time we see that child, we are reminded of his or her silent, frozen brothers and sisters. How does this awareness affect us? How does it affect our relationships?
First, the parents, even as they are exhausted by the process, are profoundly affected by it. Remember, the child born has been selected and often genetically screened. A technician selects six to eight “good” eggs out of 20 or so. They are inseminated, and the resulting embryos are actually graded and also screened for sex. The child is thus a choice and a product. The child is not only a unique person to be welcomed, he or she is also a reflection of the parents’ preference and the result of technology. A project and a product. He or she is given permission to exist.
Thinking of the child as a project doesn’t go away. Over-parenting, hyper care, and high expectations can follow. Performance anxiety, perfectionism, and doubt. And the question lingers – what if? What if we had chosen the other sex? A different embryo? The child was an option among several, and an alternate child can be imagined. Because that alternate actually exists. What does this fact do to parents’ psyches? To the child’s own awareness later? To siblings’ awareness? How do the grandparents relate to the parents? How do they ignore the other grandchildren, the ones in suspended animation? How does extended family?
We rejoice, but have to be silent. How does this silence affect us?
Parents may implant more embryos, but rarely all. How do the rest of the sleeping children lie on the hearts of parents? I imagine that before the birth of the first child, these issues are academic. But once you know motherhood and fatherhood, they become real, and the parents must feel some preconscious primal instinct to protect their other embryos. Why else would they delay disposing? As they do.
If parents don’t feel a bond, at what cost? What part of the maternal and paternal instinct must be repressed to block out the thought of those waiting? To block out the thought of those lost in the process? To block out the thought of those discarded for imperfection? How does this suppression affect their attitude toward the children born?
We know that abortion results in massive denial and restriction of emotional life. But even abortion is a one-time and often one-child trauma. IVF is more subtle. Arguably less traumatic, more complex in its choices, less definite. Not repressed. Always there… needing to be ignored. But just ignoring it saps our souls, blunting our whole mind and heart.
While abortion is typically a family secret, IVF is often public, and everyone has to suppress this awareness. Friends and family may try to suppress awareness of the “surplus” embryos, but anyone who is pro-life feels a natural urge to somehow rescue them from surrogacy or experimentation or death. When we can’t, we are left with a vague sense of failure and guilt. See how subtle the effects are? And what of the children? Siblings of aborted children have been found to be aware of their brothers and sisters, and they feel not only their absence but the shadow on their parents’ hearts. Would that not be true for children born of IVF?
Or perhaps they absorb the cheery denial and the sense that they are specially chosen. Left unsaid is that they are chosen at the expense of others. We haven’t seen the end of the emotional effects on the children.
As for being a product of choice, a story might help. Once in a talk I mentioned that everyone born after Roe v. Wade was here by choice, not by right. Allowed, not welcomed. A man spoke up in great distress. He said that as a child of eight he had overheard his mother speaking on the phone of the pill and he realized he was either an accident or had been chosen. Either way, he said, he felt the ground give way beneath him. He felt he lost his standing. His natural right to exist from God. He went from carefree to anxious, and stayed that way all his life, until the moment of this realization.
How can we respond? First, welcome the child. God worked amid that IVF circumstance to create this immortal unique blessing. Respond with unconditional love.
Second, love the parents. They have suffered much in their quest for a child, and may still suffer. They are dealing with unspoken conflicts, and often stressed with twins or triplets. Be open to their questions, and be ready with compassion and good answers.
Third, don’t be like the lady who told me her Catholic IVF doctor was pro-life because he never threw away embryos, he always froze them. Science says we are human individuals from the moment of conception, no matter how the conception occurs. Don’t block out those suspended humans that you know of, and all those who await life – or eternal life. They are real. Be truly pro-life.
Fourth, act. Pray for the un-implanted embryonic children. Advocate for their humanity. Pray for their parents. Educate ignorant politicians.
Finally, if you know of someone considering IVF, don’t be afraid to give them truth in love. One truth is that natural reproductive technology has a high success rate, is much less expensive, and is completely moral. Unfortunately, doctors have a financial incentive to use assisted reproductive technology rather than natural interventions.
If you do all these things, you will be on the path of recovery. You will have faced the truths of IVF with love for both parents and children and God’s plan. Facing and accepting truth sets us free.
Pray for an end to IVF and the protection of human embryos: Join our prayer pledge