In vitro fertilization is the most popular type of assisted reproductive technology, a medical procedure women undergo to become pregnant. In vitro means “in glass.” In the IVF process, a woman’s ovaries are typically hyper-stimulated to yield multiple eggs, which are then harvested and fertilized with sperm in a laboratory. Some of the embryos created are transferred into her womb with the intention that at least one of the embryos will grow to full term. Many of the embryos that are transferred do not survive, though, and most of the remaining embryos are either killed in the process (some intentionally, some unintentionally) or are frozen in cryopreservation. Often, the process involves a couple’s own egg and sperm cells. Sometimes, however, they come from third parties. In either case, this process frequently incorporates a form of eugenics in which only certain embryonic children are chosen for implantation based on desirable characteristics, health outcomes, or both, and those who fail the quality control checks are killed.

Why is IVF wrong?

Even though IVF can help create new life, there are multiple factors that make it contrary to God’s plan for marriage and children, therefore rendering it morally wrong. For example, as mentioned above, it often includes the death or freezing of embryonic children. And although preserving embryos by freezing them does not kill them, it could be compared to placing innocent children in prison. Creating embryonic children to be frozen and participating in their deaths are both profound violations of their dignity. As another example of why IVF is wrong, it also often includes immoral behavior by the man to obtain sperm.

Furthermore, according to God’s plan, marriage is an exclusive, lifelong union between a man and a woman that reflects the absolute and unfailing love with which God loves us. Sexual intimacy has two aspects—the power to unite (unitive) and the potential to create new life (procreative). These aspects belong together and should not be separated. And every child, as a human being, has the right to be conceived through a natural act of mutual, self-giving love within marital intercourse. But IVF separates conception from the spouses’ intimate, sexual union, and the children conceived through IVF are instead created through technological manipulation. IVF also intrudes on the exclusive nature of the couple’s union by introducing other people into the act of conception itself (as opposed to other treatments, discussed below, which may help conception to occur within marital intercourse).

Additionally, every human being is a gift made in God’s image with infinite dignity, so people should not be treated like objects or property. No matter how sincerely the children are loved and wanted, the process still treats them like products that can be bought and ordered. And in cases where a third party’s eggs or sperm are used, or where a woman acts as a gestational surrogate and carries the child, these people are also treated like property in a transaction and as means to an end, rather than as people to be respected.

But isn’t it good to help bring more children into loving families?

The powerful desire to procreate children is natural and good. Children themselves are among the greatest goods and are a blessing from God. Like all human beings, they are also a gift. In marriage, we are called to be open to receiving such a beautiful gift. But no one has an absolute “right” to obtain a child, just like we do not have a “right” to demand any other gift, no matter how deeply and sincerely we desire it. Even though children are a great good, this does not make IVF (with all its problems as discussed above) morally acceptable.