Why IVF is Wrong and Anti-Life

IVF is getting a lot of attention this past week because of the Alabama Supreme Court ruling. For those who do not know, IVF refers to "in vitro fertilization", and is a fertility procedure where multiple eggs are harvested from a woman, fertilized in a laboratory, and then one or more are selectively implanted back into her (or a surrogate's) uterus. And all of this matters because the basic pro-life position is that life begins at conception meaning that each of those harvested eggs that are fertilized deserve the same protection and life-honoring treatment that any other image-bearer of God should be afforded under His law. And that's really the heart of the discussion, because IVF is marketed as a this purely positive treatment for those who greatly desire to have a child, but not much attention is placed on the process itself, where in the Western world there are currently millions of frozen but fertilized embryos, many of which, no one has any plans to implant, and which will eventually, if nothing is done to prevent it, be destroyed.

So, in this episode, we want to talk through the issue. Our position is pretty straightforward. IVF has a lot of serious moral problems, and while a single IVF customer might be able to find a doctor and associated laboratory that is willing to limit its egg harvesting, fertilization, and implantation so that every egg harvested is implanted, there are still moral problems with that strictly controlled process, and there is no reason to believe that the doctor and laboratory are following this strict and limited protocol with their other patients.

In the end, this really does become an issue about God'