Since taking office, President Donald Trump has racked up many pro-life wins, including reinstating the Mexico City Policy, pardoning the 23 political pro-life prisoners, and signing an executive order reinstating the Hyde Amendment. Unfortunately, his executive order increasing access to in-vitro fertilization (IVF) isn’t one of those pro-life wins.  

READ: SIGNED, SEALED, DELIVERED: Trump’s Top Eight Pro-Life Wins in Under One Month 

It was only a few months ago when, on the campaign trail, Trump wanted universal IVF coverage to appeal to pro-lifers and conservatives. Just under a month into his presidency, Trump kept his word, signing an executive order expanding IVF access.  

White House Press Secretary, Karoline Leavitt wrote the following on X, formerly known as Twitter: “The Order directs policy recommendations to protect IVF access and aggressively reduce out-of-pocket and health plan costs for such treatments.” 

Whether Trump, his administration, and his allies realize it or not, it’s a way to see more babies die in the United States, not make more of them. Unfortunately, many well-meaning people who love Life will support and cheer on this initiative as pro-life, pro-baby, and pro-family by helping those who are infertile. However, if we take a deep dive, or even just dip our toes, into the business dealings, unethical practices of, and the loose safeguard around the IVF industry, the truth will quickly become clear: IVF may masquerade as pro-life, but it’s anti-life. In fact, IVF kills more children than abortion.  

Interested yet? Let’s take a better look at the facts.  

IVF for Dummies: What is it and What is the Cost?  

IVF is the process of fertilizing an egg and sperm in a lab, later to be implanted into a woman’s uterus. Often, the IVF procedure consists of taking multiple eggs and creating multiple embryos due to cost.  

“A single IVF cycle—defined as ovarian stimulation, egg retrieval and embryo transfer—can range from $15,000 to $30,000, depending on the center and the patient’s individual medication needs. Medications can account for up to 35% of those charges,” reports Forbes Magazine. 

 Other costs include:  

• Embryo cryopreservation: $1,000 to $2,000.  

• Embryo storage: $350 to $600 a year.  

• Genetic testing: $1,800 to $6,000. 

The important takeaway is the multiple embryonic children created by “stocking in bulk.”  

Make a Ton, Implant One: Death & Serious Health Issues 

But creating children “in bulk” isn’t the same as going to Costco instead of Walmart to get a better value for cases of shampoo or snacks. We’re talking about real children. In a recent analysis of the IVF industry, Vice President of Media and Policy Kristi Hamrick lays out the data for how many children get to see the light of day, the inside of a trash bag, or a laboratory freezer.  

“Because of the cost of IVF, and the fact that ‘the vast majority of embryos (80%) produced during IVF and chosen for transfer still fail to implant or to result in a liveborn infant,’ IVF businesses will attempt to create human embryos in volume,” Hamrick writes. “But those who are not selected may be frozen up to 10 years or ‘discarded or donated, either to others wanting to have children or to medical science,’ reports the Washington Post.” 

READ: What to Expect When You’re Expecting to Talk about Invitro Fertilization (IVF) – Students for Life of America 

Many of these embryonic children are created to die, whether it’s failed implantation or delivering stillborn. For children who do survive, a 2020 study examining IVF children in Denmark and Germany concluded “The risks of heart defects, musculoskeletal and central nervous system malformations, preterm birth, and low birth weight are increased in children conceived by vitro fertilization (IVF)” and “The risks seem to be based on maternal and paternal factors, but also on IVF itself.” (emphasis added) 

IVF Encourages Unethical Sex and Health Selection 

Additionally, IVF businesses create a ton of embryos and want to implant the “healthiest one,” or allow parents to pick which embryo is the sex they desire. The children who didn’t make the cut are called embryonic discards. This happens right here in the western world, not just in sex selective countries like China. Students for Life of America (SFLA) stands against sex and health discrimination, which is exactly what the IVF industry encourages parents to do.  

Just take a look at Paris Hilton who’s waiting for a girl while she has 20 sons on ice. Or, a case in California of a woman who paid top dollar for a girl, who has “my features, so I have my mini-me and Neil has his. So, I got what I wanted in the end.” 

READ: JoJo Siwa’s Self-Serving Surrogacy: “Fertilize Three Eggs and Have Three Surrogates” 

Does America really need more embryonic children discarded so that parents can pick “the best one?” That’s hardly a pro-life position. 

It’s a Matter of Life and Death  

The Catholic News Agency estimates that more die from IVF than abortion, stating: 

“The CDC estimates that more than 238,000 patients attempted IVF in 2021. If clinics created between seven and eight embryos for every patient, that would yield about 1.6 million to 1.9 million over a year. Despite these high numbers, fewer than 100,000 embryos were brought to term, which suggests that somewhere between 1.5 million and 1.8 million embryos created through IVF were never born. 

Alternatively, the abortion industry claimed about 985,000 lives from July 2022 through June 2023 — suggesting that the IVF industry could be ending nearly twice as many human lives every year.” (emphasis added) 

Who’s to Blame? Tragic IVF Stories Thanks to Poor Regulation  

If those numbers aren’t alarming enough, we haven’t even reached the top of the iceberg when it comes to the heartbreak and devastation caused by IVF mix ups. This is largely in part thanks to the under regulation of and lack of monitoring of the IVF industry.  

LEARN MORE: A Closer Look at the Alabama IVF Case 

The Washington Post reported on a recent story out of Georgia, where a woman is suing an IVF clinic for implanting another couple’s embryo into her body.  

The New York Times reported a story on two California couples who underwent IVF, and due to mix up, ended up raising each other’s children. The piece details that one of the couples’ lawyers, Adam Wolf, “says he had encountered fewer than 10 cases in which an embryo was transferred to the wrong woman. But he estimates that over the past decade, he has represented more than 1,000 plaintiffs accusing clinics and their suppliers of misconduct or negligence, most commonly because embryos in their care have been accidentally lost, damaged or destroyed.” 

There’s an even more ghastly story from Newport, California, when allegedly an IVF worker put the embryos in hydrogen peroxide instead of sterile solution, killing the children. To make matters worse, they reportedly implanted the dead embryonic children anyway.  

If you don’t think IVF and abortion are connected, consider the story of a woman who aborted her IVF baby with a different woman’s egg and her husband’s sperm due to the urging of her husband.  

A few incidents that you may have missed include:  

• A couple sued a fertility clinic for allegedly using the wrong sperm.   

• Another couple from New Jersey claimed another fertility clinic used the wrong sperm.   

• A fertility doctor used the wrong sperm or even his own sperm and agreed to a $13 million dollar settlement with families.   

• A fertility clinic mixed up sperm in a botched IVF treatment and accuses the wife of cheating on her husband.   

• A fertility doctor used his own sperm and has 1,000 kids– an unthinkable reality for these children.   

Rethinking IVF as “Pro-Life” 

Remember, the debate around IVF isn’t about whether children conceived through the process have value—that’s undeniable. The real question is whether the millions of humans in the embryonic stage destroyed through IVF also have value, and, if they do, why they deserve protection rather than being discarded. 

IVF commoditizing children, and whether Trump realizes it or not, his executive order is a guaranteed recipe for disaster. 

“This is an issue in need of a lot of conversation,” said SFLA President Kristan Hawkins. “When people say they support IVF, we have to ask what does that mean? Support for the deregulated environment in which sloppy protocols lead to numerous mistakes? A willingness to violate the consciences of people with ethical concerns? No regard for the vast majority of human beings who are in the embryonic stage of life who will be discarded as trash, frozen, or experimented on and never be born (93%)?  

A caring concern for people who want a family can’t be the reason we turn a blind eye to an industry with a lot of issues. The GOP needs to slow down and take a look at what business as usual means when turning children and women’s bodies as surrogates into commodities.” 

Indeed, there may be good intentions behind making IVF more accessible, but just because the intentions are good doesn’t mean the results will be. And by what we’ve already presented, the GOP should reconsider.  

This isn’t pro-life; it’s anti-life, and as Hawkins says, it’s the “antithesis of Make America Healthy Again.’” 

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