The Patriot Post® · What to Do About IVF?
Pro-abortion leftists want to have their cake and eat it too. They want the license to kill babies in the womb through all nine months of pregnancy. Meanwhile, they have hijacked the conversation about protecting embryonic children by blowing it up into an assertion that conservatives want to take away in vitro fertilization (IVF). Case in point comes via Vice President Kamala Harris, who brayed: “On the one hand, these extremists [read: pro-lifers] tell women they do not have the freedom to end an unwanted pregnancy. And on the other hand, these extremists tell women they do not have the freedom to start a family.”
Disclaimer: In general, couples who pursue IVF as a way to start their families have had difficulty conceiving naturally — and this will always remain true on this topic. Infertility is a difficult and heart-rending journey, and sometimes, medical intervention seems like the only viable solution. Parents in this situation deserve sympathy. However, the perceived good of IVF is outweighed by the bad.
As Madeline Kearns accurately states in National Review, Alabama’s ruling shielding embryos has forced Republicans to face some ideological inconsistencies. Is IVF, as it is currently practiced, pro-life? Kearns and this author would argue that it is not. As she writes:
The political strategy is obvious. With abortion, the only children are dead ones. With IVF, the dark side is obscured in that for every dozen or so embryos killed or frozen, there is often at least one who makes it to birth. Focusing on him, instead of his destroyed or abandoned siblings, is not only politically palatable but seems — if you ignore the million or so embryos on ice, the millions more thrown in medical waste bins, as well as the argument that life is a gift to be received not a product to be manufactured — sort of “pro-life.”
On the other hand, pro-abortion leftists are quick to defend IVF on the grounds that it is another instance of conservatives taking away people’s rights. They are also quick to defend IFV’s practice of eliminating non-optimal embryos because selective reproduction is already a tenet of abortion. IVF and abortion both hold that preborn babies are only human life if they’re wanted or convenient.
Some otherwise pro-life conservatives are quick to defend IVF on the grounds that it brings babies into the world when there was little hope of success before. That’s why Alabama’s state legislature was quick to pass a bill giving legal immunity to IFV clinics that happened to lose an embryo on their watch.
In other words, Alabama’s state lawmakers fell into the same moral equivalence claptrap and are siding with a fertility clinic against grieving parents. Parents whose children were killed because of negligence on the part of said clinic.
That really is the heart of the whole Alabama debate. Can parents who have spent time, an exorbitant amount of money, and emotional capital on this IVF journey hold their clinic responsible if something terrible happens to their unborn children on the clinic’s watch? Guess who just sided with the clinic over the families? Alabama’s legislature and Governor Kay Ivey, who said IVF clinics provide a greater good to society.
The fact that this is an issue now for Alabama is purely political. Democrats want to run on anything and everything abortion. This is reinforced by who was invited to the State of the Union Address last night. First Lady Jill Biden brought Kate Cox, who sued Texas to abort her unborn child because that child was diagnosed with trisomy 18 (meaning the child’s life expectancy was going to be precious and short as it was). Also notable, the first person to be born via IVF, Elizabeth Carr, was the guest of Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA).
Pro-abortion Democrats have a much easier time defending their mass-child-sacrifice campaign. They don’t have to have moral clarity; they are consistent in the notion that children should be sacrificed whenever they prove inconvenient. They are happy to use any and every victory and pro-life inconsistency, which can sometimes be difficult to navigate morally, to prove their point that killing babies should be a right.
Pro-lifers would do well to remove that ammunition and to constantly keep the real victims and the real treasure at the forefront: defenseless babies.
Footnote: One thing that also must be mentioned is that IVF isn’t the only method for moms and dads struggling to start their families. There are other clinics available that treat the underlying issues that impede fertility that should be explored. Adoption is also a wonderful alternative that not only addresses a horrible brokenness in the world but also provides a child with a loving family.