The Glory of Christian Fertility

Faithful Christians highly value marriage and children. We find in the Bible that marriage was designed by God for three purposes: 1. The mutual help and companionship of husband and wife (Gen. 2:18; Matt. 19:6). 2. The increase of the human race through lawful offspring (Gen. 1:28), and the growth of the Church through a godly seed (Mal. 2:15). And 3. the avoidance of sexual immorality (1 Cor. 7:2, 9).¹ And the Bible could not be more clear about the value and blessing of children: “Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate” (Psalm 127:3-5).

Having and raising children is a great blessing! And so when Christians find out that they are unable to conceive, it can be very depressing and painful. Some may try many different methods, through much prayer and tears, and yet still cannot get pregnant. While adoption is also a great blessing and a mercy to many orphaned children, Christian couples often still want to conceive their own children. In these cases Christians may turn to In Vitro Fertilization in order to help conceive children of their own.

What is IVF?

In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) is “a procedure in which eggs are removed from a woman’s ovary and combined with sperm outside the body to form embryos. The embryos are grown in the laboratory for several days and then either placed in a woman’s uterus or cryopreserved (frozen) for future use.”² Only when the embryo implants itself into the uterine wall does pregnancy occur.³ “IVF can be done using a couple’s own eggs and sperm. Or it may involve eggs, sperm, or embryos from a known or unknown donor. In some cases, a gestational carrier… might be used.”⁴ That is, a woman who carries another’s baby until birth and then permanently gives the baby to someone else to raise. “In vitro” is Latin for “in glass,” that is, in a test tube or petri dish.

IVF is becoming more widely used every year. In 2023, there were 95,860 births of children conceived by IVF, accounting for 2.6% of births in the United States.⁵ A 2024 Pew Research Center survey finds that Americans overwhelmingly support IVF. “Seven-in-ten adults say IVF access is a good thing. Just 8% say it is a bad thing, while 22% are unsure.” IVF support among Christians does not differ widely from the national percentages.⁶ And in 2025 President Trump “promised to increase access to IVF and lower the associated costs so American families can have more babies, building on his record of supporting family formation and stability.”⁷

IVF may seem like a miracle of modern medicine, but when we analyze it in light of Biblical truth, we will see that it is not without serious ethical and theological problems.

Problems with IVF

Before getting into the problems with IVF, I hope that readers will give this article a fair consideration. It is written in humility, not seeking to bind consciences with a man-made opinion nor to condemn people, but rather to be a faithful presentation of what the Word of God says. For Christians who have used IVF or were conceived from it, I am not saying that you are unholy, malicious, or sub-Christian. All human beings are made in the image of God, whether he made you through natural sexual intercourse, or Assisted Reproductive Technology like IVF, or any other way. My prayer is that readers will take this article in the spirit intended, as a brotherly correction of a dangerous and unbiblical activity.

1. IVF kills unborn children.

Human life begins at conception. Or more precisely, at the moment the father’s sperm fertilizes the mother’s egg—the two literally become “one flesh,” and a child is “conceived” (Genesis 2:24; 4:1). The Psalmist praises the Lord for his creation of children: “For thou hast formed my inward parts; thou knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made… Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.” (Psalm 139:13-14a, 16). God’s words to the prophet are just as applicable to every person: “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee” (Jeremiah 1:5a). Israel’s civil laws required the death penalty for killing an unborn child (Exodus 21:22-23), just as much as for the unlawful killing of anyone else made in the image of God (Gen. 9:6). This proves that unborn babies likewise have souls. John the Baptist leapt for joy in his mother’s womb when the virgin Mary approached with the Lord Jesus in her womb (Luke 1:41-44). “I was cast upon thee from the womb: thou art my God from my mother’s belly” (Psalm 22:10). Biological science confirms this:

“The predominance of human biological research confirms that human life begins at conception—fertilization. At fertilization, the human being emerges as a whole, genetically distinct, individuated zygotic living human organism, a member of the species Homo sapiens, needing only the proper environment in order to grow and develop. The difference between the individual in its adult stage and in its zygotic stage is one of form, not nature.”⁸

A fertilized embryo is a human life. “Fetus” is the Latin word for baby. You reading this are likely an adult, you were once a child, and before that you were a baby, a fetus, an embryo. You were no less human at those stages of development than you are now. So every time an embryo or a fetus dies, a human being dies. This is why Christians are opposed to abortion. And it is the same reason we ought to be opposed to IVF.

Embryo Survival Rates: Multiple Points of Failure

What people may not know is that many fertilized embryos die in the process of IVF. Since collecting a woman’s eggs is very expensive and highly intrusive, and since there are multiple points of failure in the IVF process, clinics will commonly retrieve and fertilize many more eggs than necessary for one birth. Dr. Craig Turczynski writes:

“The success rates of current IVF methods demand the creation of excess embryos, most of which will ultimately be indefinitely frozen, discarded, experimented on, or die. It can be estimated that only 4-8% of embryos created in IVF clinics in 2019 were ultimately born from transfers conducted within 12 months of cycle initiation.”⁹

That is shocking. 92-96% of babies created by IVF will either die or be indefinitely frozen. There are multiple stages of the IVF process where the baby can die. After fertilization,¹⁰ embryos must survive three main stages: 1. Development to a stage suitable for transfer into the uterus. 2. Then those that are transferred must survive and implant into the uterus, which is considered a pregnancy. 3. Lastly, they must survive and not miscarry until birth. Embryo survival rates are dismally low, implantation rates are similarly poor, and miscarriages are high.

According to the Cleveland Clinic, of the eggs that are successfully fertilized, only about half will survive the embryo development stage:

“Your embryo must overcome significant hurdles to become an embryo suitable for transfer to your uterus. On average, 50% of fertilized embryos progress to the blastocyst stage. This is the stage most suitable for transfer to your uterus. For example, if seven eggs were fertilized, three or four of them might develop to the blastocyst stage. The remaining 50% typically fail to progress and are discarded.”¹¹

Second, after the embryo development stage, embryos are injected into the woman’s uterus. This is another point of failure resulting in the deaths of many embryos. If an embryo implants itself into the uterine wall, then the woman becomes pregnant. If it does not, then the embryo dies. Sometimes clinics will use a technique called “assisted hatching,” where a hole is punctured in the embryo’s outer shell to help it attach to the uterine lining and increase the probability of success. “Assisted hatching is used primarily for those who’ve had several failed IVF cycles.”¹²

Survival rates in this embryo transfer stage are very low; “for women less than 35 years of age” only about half that are transferred will survive until birth,¹³ and even fewer will survive if the mother is older than 35. Lastly, of successful IVF pregnancies, 15-50% will miscarry, according to the Mayo Clinic; the older the woman, the higher probability of miscarriage.¹⁴

In a study on preimplantation loss, “25 to 31%” was used “as a reasonable range for the probability that an in vitro fertilized ovum will lead to a live birth,”¹⁵ in other words, 25-31% of embryos will survive all three stages: development, implantation, and pregnancy until birth. The study notes that the estimated 31% figure “is inflated by including cycles with more than one embryo transferred.” And the 25% figure is from half of embryos surviving development to transferal, and then half of those surviving from transferal to birth (“for women less than 35 years of age”). So from the Pro-Life point of view, the 25% overall IVF survival rate is more accurate, but the rate is even lower for women over the age of 35.¹⁶

IVF also “raises the chances of certain health problems” such as, stress, complications from the procedure to retrieve eggs, ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome, ectopic pregnancy, birth defects, premature delivery and low birth weight, and cancer.¹⁷ A 2017 study found that “there was a higher incidence of gestational diabetes, hypertension, placenta previa, premature membrane rupture, anemia, pre-term birth, low birth weight, perinatal mortality, and congenital malformations in IVF pregnancies resulting in singleton live birth compared to the pregnancies of fertile couples resulting in live birth.”¹⁸

What about natural miscarriage?

One might object that even outside IVF natural miscarriage is common, so even though some embryos are lost in IVF it is not morally different from natural conception. But while it is true that in a fallen world the unborn may perish through miscarriage, to equate this with the death of the unborn in IVF is a confusion of natural evil with moral evil. Scripture consistently distinguishes between suffering and death that God sovereignly permits and that which humans intentionally cause (John 9:1-3; Job 2:10; Isa. 45:7; Lam. 3:38-39). The death of a child through miscarriage is a tragedy under God’s providence, but it carries no human guilt or culpability. By contrast, the destruction or abandonment of embryos in IVF is a direct consequence of human choice, and it is a violation of the 6th commandment, “thou shalt not kill” (Ex. 20:13). When embryos are “selectively reduced” or “discarded,” that is an intentional killing of a human being. When embryos are “lost” due to the low survival rates of IVF, it may not be considered willful or intentional, yet it is still an unjust and reckless killing of a human being.

2. IVF imprisons unborn children in liquid nitrogen.

As noted above, many fertilized embryos are “cryopreserved” or frozen in liquid nitrogen and stored.¹⁹ These unborn children are referred to as “snowflake babies.” Some will be thawed, and if they survive, will be transferred into a woman’s uterus (and from there subject to the survival rates discussed above), but some will die, and some will be neglected indefinitely.

“Extra embryos can be frozen and stored for future use for many years. Not all embryos will survive the freezing and thawing process, but most will. Having frozen embryos can make future cycles of IVF less expensive and less invasive. Or you might be able to donate unused frozen embryos to another couple or a research facility. You also might choose to discard unused embryos.”²⁰

“Discard” is a euphemism for killing the snowflake baby and throwing him in the garbage. Sometimes research experiments are conducted on these babies before they are destroyed and disposed of. In 2012, The Telegraph reported, “More than 1.7 million human embryos created for IVF pregnancies have been discarded without being used.”²¹ And this number can only have risen since then as IVF has become more widely used.

Even when snowflake babies are not killed, it is still a moral travesty to lock them up in a freezer indefinitely. Each embryo is not potential life, but life with potential; known by God and fearfully and wonderfully made (Ps. 139:13-16). These precious children deserve to be in the loving care of their mother and father, not incarcerated in frozen limbo. And the scale is enormous. One researcher writes:

“It has been estimated that, in 2016, between 400,000 and 1.4 million frozen embryos were stored in the USA. According to the Spanish Fertility Society, as of 2023, there were more than 600,000 cryopreserved embryos in Spain, of which ~60,000 were estimated to be “abandoned”. The UK apparently freezes around 100,000 embryos per year, with IVF providers raising the alarm that they are running out of room. These are formidable numbers that keep growing every year with currently no clear ethical or legal means to reach a practical solution.”²²

A later 2022 estimate found that “embryo freezing is an essential and routine, if not recommended, part of ART [Assisted Reproductive Technology]. Estimates place the number of frozen embryos at greater than 1.5 million. Compounding the practical management of these numbers are the variable response rates from patients regarding disposition and long-term storage of embryos. Patients simply are unsure of what to do or ambivalent about taking steps to destroy their unused embryos.”²³

3. IVF undermines God’s design for procreation.

IVF severs the procreative end of marriage (Gen. 1:28) from the unitive end (Gen. 2:18; Matt. 19:6). These ends are united together by God’s design; neither is incidental to marital union, nor can one be severed from the other without disordering God’s creational design for marriage. The “one flesh” union of man and wife “alludes to their physical union in marital cohabitation, their sexual union as husband and wife, and to their procreative union that results in the birth of a child as the foundation of a new family.”²⁴ These facets of marital union are not meant to be divorced from one another. “God bound sex and procreation together in creation, and what God has joined together, no evangelical should separate… Scripture is unambiguous about the inextricable normative union of procreation and sex. What God has established in creation should be respected.”²⁵ Abraham attempted to circumvent God’s design by using Hagar as a surrogate to obtain an heir (Gen. 16). In doing so, he introduced a third party into his marriage instead of trusting the means God had ordained and promised to bless (Gen. 15:4-5). IVF involving laboratory techniques instead of fornication²⁶ does not change the fact that it likewise is a circumvention of God’s design for marital union by means of human artifice.

From a holistically biblical perspective of bioethics, medicine rightly practiced does not contradict God’s teleological design of creation. Rather, it works in conjunction with it to restore normative and good biological functions. Medicine fixes or mitigates bodily dysfunction. IVF, on the other hand, replaces and contravenes a natural bodily function and the teleological purpose of the marital act by severing procreation from its God ordained context. It is “against nature” (Rom. 1:26) in the sense that it is contrary to God’s creational design for marital union. This brings us to the next criticism.

4. IVF is an audacious attempt to play as God.

IVF is not a procedure to heal or repair infertility, thus it is not a righteous medical practice. Rather, it circumvents and hacks the biological faculties and marital union that God designed in order to produce an outcome. IVF is a first commandment violation by omission because the would-be parents are neglecting to trust in God and wait on his providence (Ps. 27:14; 31:24; Prov. 3:5-6). It is a first commandment violation by commission because the would-be parents are trusting and hoping in scientists rather than in God and the means he designed for procreation (Ps. 146:3; Jer. 17:5; Rom. 3:8).

God “giveth to all life, and breath, and all things” and “in him we live, and move, and have our being” (Acts 17:25, 28). God designed the marriage bed for procreation. When we divorce procreation from the marriage bed, we make ourselves out to be greater than God, who alone has the prerogative to make suitable means for his designed ends. God is the creator of human life (Ps. 127:3; 139:13) and he alone opens and closes the womb (Isaiah 66:9; Gen. 18:14). By seeking to reproduce outside of God’s design, we tacitly deny God’s unique position and attempt to usurp His glory and authority. The act of IVF is an audacious attempt to challenge God’s rightful position as the creator of life. It is a challenge to his lordship, majesty, and his royal prerogative and sovereign right to ordain the means and context for procreation.

5. IVF dishonors God’s image and treats people as commodities.

IVF treats people as commodities rather than as human beings made in God’s image deserving of dignity and God given rights. The father is reduced to a donor, the mother to a vessel, and the child to a product to be manufactured, stored, or discarded. In such a process, human life is handled as though it were livestock or bespoke merchandise. Every child has the God given right to be conceived through the loving conjugal act of his father and mother and to be embraced and raised by them.

In some cases embryos are willfully selected for transferal and birth based on physical and genetic factors, and undesirable embryos are destroyed. The Guardian reports that “a US startup company is offering to help wealthy couples screen their embryos for IQ using controversial technology that raises questions about the ethics of genetic enhancement.” Using this technology, IVF clients can screen embryos not just for IQ, but also “sex, height, risk of obesity, and risk of mental illness… or acne… depending on personal preferences.” And in the future they hope to be able to screen for personality types, depression, creativity, and beauty. The company’s CEO boasted of a bright future where, “everyone can have all the children they want and they can have children that are basically disease-free, smart, healthy; it’s going to be great.” The company distinguishes between their utopia of “liberal eugenics” vs “coercive state-sponsored eugenics.”²⁷ 

Gilbert Meilaender writes, in IVF “we make of our body an instrument to be used in the pursuit of our goals. We do not simply give ourselves bodily in the act of love, but we instrumentalize the body and use it in order to produce a child… in so instrumentalizing the body we are tempted to think of ourselves as only [a] free spirit detached from the body. The real ‘I’ becomes that free and unconstrained will that now exercises dominion even over the body it uses. What we risk here is a separation of person and body that demeans the body and makes of it a ‘thing.’ It is not surprising, then, if we also come to think of the child who results from this process as a product—as made, not begotten.”²⁸

Some embryos are donated for Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research.²⁹ These snowflake babies will be experimented on and eventually destroyed. IVF is also regularly used by sodomites and lesbians who cannot have their own children.³⁰ In these cases it is a form of human trafficking and is clearly abominable. Many IVF clients never end up deciding what to do with their leftover snowflake babies, and so they are indefinitely abandoned.³¹

6. IVF has been abused in several heinous ways.

There are cases of tragic mistakes or unintended consequences of IVF. For instance, NBC News reports that a woman gave birth to another’s baby after an IVF clinic inadvertently transferred the wrong embryo into her womb. She only knew the boy wasn’t hers because he was a different race. As any mother can imagine, giving up a child you’ve nurtured in your womb for 9 months would be emotionally devastating. The woman testified, “The fertility clinic has come very close to destroying me, has left irreparable damage to my soul, and ultimately left me questioning whether I should be a mom or not.” The woman’s lawyer stated that her “situation is just one example of the crazy mishaps that can occur at a fertility center because they are largely unregulated.” His law firm has represented thousands of clients with similar cases against fertility clinics.³²

Similarly there are cases of either the sperm or the egg being mixed up, and the baby being related to only one parent.³³ In these cases the other biological parent may never be known. Besides the emotional and psychological trauma this can cause, it may also have health implications if one is unable to know one’s family health history.

Even more disturbing is the reality of “insemination fraud.” This is where “a healthcare provider fraudulently substitutes [his] own sperm for donor sperm, resulting in pregnancy and birth.” Note that “donor” could mean “husband” just as much as it could be a stranger who is a sperm donor. Wikipedia lists 12 notorious cases, some of these psychopathic doctors having done this to dozens or even hundreds of women.³⁴ In one well known case, “two of his offspring, both the result of insemination fraud, dated in high school, which is the first verified case of accidental half-siblings incest occurring as a consequence of insemination fraud. It has long been theorized that a large number of people with unrecognized very close genetic relationships living in the same community could result in accidental incest.”³⁵

Is there a Pro-Life IVF method?

A Pro-Life method of IVF may be proposed where only one embryo is made at a time to ensure that every embryo produced is transferred and no embryos are selectively reduced, discarded, or frozen. The argument is that this way, no human lives are intentionally destroyed, and every embryo is treated with dignity.³⁶

While this may seem like a lawful option for Christians, it is not without problems. First, it seems to be mainly theoretical and infeasible. This would be highly expensive, have a very low “success” rate, and does not seem to be an actual documented method.³⁷ Secondly, even if this were feasible to do, it would still result in the loss of human life. As we’ve seen, the survival rate of a fertilized embryo to develop, transfer, implant, and grow full term to birth is very low. And with this method, a woman would have to go through multiple successive iterations before one child would survive the whole process. So while infants are not intentionally destroyed, many of them will still needlessly die. When embryos are “lost” due to the low survival rates of IVF, it may not be considered willful or intentional, yet it is still an unjust and reckless killing of a human being. Would any parent intentionally place their born children in a situation where they have a 25-31% probability of survival? No. So why is it ok to do this with their unborn children? Lastly, this method does not escape the other problems noted above. It still undermines God’s design for procreation, subverts his sovereign prerogative and prescriptive will for human marital union, treats people as commodities, and is tantamount to blasphemously playing God.

Simply put, IVF is not a proper answer to infertility because it is unethical and does not actually cure infertility. According to Dr. Craig Turczynski, the dominance of IVF stifles “research into and development of alternative methods to diagnose and treat infertility.” In contrast, restorative reproductive medicine (RRM) focuses on diagnosing and correcting root health issues causing infertility, and has shown promising results, sometimes even outperforming IVF success rates at a fraction of the cost.³⁸

Closing Exhortation

This article is not intended to condemn infertile couples or those who have utilized IVF, but warn of IVF’s dangers, and to call all Christians to a deeper trust in God’s design. Those struggling with infertility can find hope and comfort in a loving God and in a Mediator who suffered and can sympathize with our pain and weaknesses (Heb. 4:15). God has given medicine as a means to restore the body, prayer and dependence on him to comfort the soul, and the covenant promises to work everything for the good of those who love him (Rom. 8:28). Cast yourself upon God and the lawful means he has provided and do not distrust him by seeking man’s inventions that violate God’s design. “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit” (Rom. 8:1). “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away” (Rev. 21:4).

---

1. Westminster Confession of Faith 24.2. ↩︎
2. NCI Dictionary of Cancer Terms, in vitro fertilization. ↩︎
3. Cleveland Clinic, IVF (In Vitro Fertilization), 02 March 2022. ↩︎
4. Mayo Clinic, In vitro fertilization (IVF), 01 Sep 2023. ↩︎
5. American Society for Reproductive Medicine, US IVF usage increases in 2023, leads to over 95,000 babies born, 23 April 2025. ↩︎
6. Pew Research Center, Americans overwhelmingly say access to IVF is a good thing, 13 May 2024. ↩︎
7. The White House, Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Announces Actions to Lower Costs and Expand Access to In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) and High-Quality Fertility Care, 16 Oct. 2025. ↩︎
8. American College of Pediatricians, When Human Life Begins, March 2017. ↩︎
9. Craig Turczynski, Ph.D., In Vitro Fertilization (IVF): A Comprehensive Primer, Charlotte Lozier Institute, 17 Dec 2024. ↩︎
10. Some eggs are not successfully fertilized, so these are not a loss of human life. ↩︎
11. Cleveland Clinic, IVF (In Vitro Fertilization), 02 March 2022. ↩︎
12. Cleveland Clinic, IVF (In Vitro Fertilization), 02 March 2022. ↩︎
13. Wilcox et. al., Preimplantation loss of fertilized human ova: estimating the unobservable, Human Reproduction 35(4):743–750, 16 April 2020. ↩︎
14. Mayo Clinic, In vitro fertilization (IVF), 01 Sep 2023. ↩︎
15. Wilcox et. al., Preimplantation loss of fertilized human ova: estimating the unobservable, Human Reproduction 35(4):743–750, 16 April 2020. The study goes on to say that “more fertilized ova are apparently lost in vitro than in vivo,” that is, more embryos die in IVF than in pregnancies from ordinary sexual intercourse. Another study found 27.8% of embryo transfers in 2013 led to a live birth (Ghazal, et. al., Embryo wastage rates remain high in assisted reproductive technology (ART): a look at the trends from 2004–2013 in the USA, Journal of Assisted Reproduction & Genetics 34(2):159–166, 27 Dec 2016). ↩︎
16. One may find statistics regarding the percentage of live births “per egg retrieval” that are higher than the percentage of live births “per fertilized embryo.” This is a crucial distinction. One egg retrieval “ideally” yields 10-14 eggs (more in some cases), and only one of these has to result in a live birth for the former statistic to be considered a “success” (Zhou, et. al., Association between the number of oocytes retrieved and cumulative live birth rate in women aged 35-40 years undergoing long GnRH agonist IVF/ICSI cycles, Archives of Gynecology and Obstetrics 296(5):1005-1012, 06 Sep 2017. Magnusson, et. al., The number of oocytes retrieved during IVF: a balance between efficacy and safety, Human Reproduction, Volume 33, Issue 1, pp. 58-64, Jan 2018). Whereas, from a Pro-Life point of view, we aren’t so much concerned with eggs, but rather with fertilized embryos (a human life), and how many of those survive to birth. The percentage of live births “per egg retrieval” does not directly tell us how many babies were sacrificed in the process. ↩︎
17. Mayo Clinic, In vitro fertilization (IVF), 01 Sep 2023. ↩︎
18. Craig Turczynski, Ph.D., In Vitro Fertilization (IVF): A Comprehensive Primer, Charlotte Lozier Institute, 17 Dec 2024. ↩︎
19. Note that this is different from freezing unfertilized eggs, which is a separate practice not involving a human life. ↩︎
20. Mayo Clinic, In vitro fertilization (IVF), 01 Sep 2023. ↩︎
21. Andrew Hough, 1.7 million human embryos created for IVF thrown away, The Telegraph, 31 Dec 2012. ↩︎
22. Shina Caroline Lynn Kamerlin, In vitro fertilization and the ethics of frozen embryos, EMBO Reports 25(7):2817–2818, 20 May 2024. ↩︎
23. Gerard Letterie M.D., In re: the disposition of frozen embryos: 2022, Fertility and Sterility, Volume 117, Issue 3, pp. 477-480, March 2022. ↩︎
24. John W. Kleinig, Wonderfully Made: A Protestant Theology of the Body, pp. 34-35. ↩︎
25. Matthew Lee Anderson, Andrew T. Walker, Breaking Evangelicalism’s Silence on IVF, The Gospel Coalition, 25 April 2019. ↩︎
26. Although, in most cases, sexual immorality is indeed integral to the process: “the man is solicited to supply a semen sample and encouraged to collect this by masturbation in specially designed rooms containing pornographic magazines and/or videos. If he objects, a sample can be brought to the lab before the egg retrieval, collected with a non-toxic condom during intercourse.” (Craig Turczynski, Ph.D., In Vitro Fertilization (IVF): A Comprehensive Primer, Charlotte Lozier Institute, 17 Dec 2024; cf. Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology, Collection of Semen). ↩︎
27. Devlin, et. al., US startup charging couples to ‘screen embryos for IQ’, The Guardian, 18 Oct 2024. ↩︎
28. Gilbert Meilaender, Bioethics: A Primer for Christians (3rd edition, 2013), pp. 19-20. ↩︎
29. Shady Grove Fertility, Your guide to embryo donation and other options after IVF, 03 April 2024. ↩︎
30. Reproductive Center of New Jersey, Reciprocal IVF for Lesbian Couples. RMA of New York, IVF (In Vitro Fertilization) for Gay Men. ↩︎
31. Ellen S. Glazer, Embryo donation: One possible path after IVF, 03 Dec 2021, Harvard Health Publishing. ↩︎
32. Woman sues fertility clinic after giving birth to another family’s baby, NBC News, 18 Feb 2025. Full lawyer press conference: Woman speaks out after filing lawsuit in IVF mix-up case, 18 Feb 2025. Here is another case of embryo mix-up: Shocking IVF mix up: Woman gives birth to someone else’s child | 60 Minutes Australia, 08 July 2019. ↩︎
33. For example: Family Discovers IVF Mix Up after Doing a DNA Test, 12 Oct 2021. ↩︎
34. Wikipedia, Fertility fraud. ↩︎
35. Kuznia, et. al., A DNA test turned her life upside down. She’s not alone, CNN, 14 Feb 2024, cited in Wikipedia, Fertility fraud. ↩︎
36. Note that this is different from the commonly practiced Single Embryo Transfer (SET) where multiple embryos are produced, but only one “high quality” embryo is transferred into the uterus at a time to avoid multiple pregnancies. With SET, multiple embryos are still selectively reduced, discarded, and frozen. (Single Embryo Transfer IVF: Why we recommend it, 23 Sep 2021, Pacific Fertility Center of Los Angeles). ↩︎
37. American Society for Reproductive Medicine, It Takes More Than One: Why IVF patients often need multiple embryos to have a baby. ↩︎
38. Craig Turczynski, Ph.D., In Vitro Fertilization (IVF): A Comprehensive Primer, Charlotte Lozier Institute, 17 Dec 2024. ↩︎