The following is an excerpt from The Kristan Hawkins Show. Subscribe to The Kristan Hawkins Show HERE and opt-in to Kristan’s daily text update by texting “KRISTAN” to 53445 so you never miss breaking pro-life news!

Recently, President Trump announced efforts to expand IVF in the United States. This is really not good for anyone.  Let’s review some sobering data. 

IVF Is Bad for Babies:

The average age of a woman doing IVF is 36. At that age, she has only a 32% chance of having a live birth after one cycle, 44% after two cycles, and 50% after 3 cycles. That means that after three cycles – which would take months and up to $90,000 or more – she only has a 50/50 chance of ever holding a baby in her arms. 

And more than 20 of her children, on average, would have been lost in the process, either by being intentionally discarded in the embryo selection process, not surviving the thaw after being frozen, not surviving the transfer to her womb, being miscarried after implanting, or being intentionally aborted to reduce the number of babies if “too many” survive the transfer (for instance, reducing quadruplets down to twins). 

IVF Is Bad for Women:

IVF doesn’t TREAT the underlying condition preventing her from conceiving naturally – even though women often have very treatable conditions that simply never get diagnosed because their doctors push them into IVF clinics and wash their hands of the problem.

If the Administration and “pro-life” legislators understood this issue better – and it really is on them to know the issue they purport to champion – they would be taking actions to get to the bottom of the infertility crisis in America. Our nation’s skyrocketing infertility rates are still a mystery that the medical community does not fully understand. This NEEDS to be studied – money needs to be invested into finding answers for these couples. For instance, there are legitimate questions around how the abortion chemicals in our water supply might be affecting women’s fertility.

IVF Is Bad for Families:

IVF facilitates unnatural and sometimes abusive scenarios where babies are being created for buyers. This can include same-sex couples and there are even documented cases of sexual offenders buying children created in IVF and carried by surrogates (see Episode 35 where we talk about this). Let me say this louder for the people in the back: Adults are not entitled to children. But children are entitled to a mother and a father if they are brought into this world.

More babies is a GOOD thing. We love babies and we need babies. But unfortunately, many more babies are killed in IVF than are ever born. We do have a fertility rate problem in the U.S., and we have a medical infertility problem among women, but IVF is simply not the solution to either problem. 

This series of events in the federal government is a perfect example of misguided compassion. One of the most disturbing parts of this story is that these IVF efforts were spearheaded by legislators who consider themselves to be pro-life (Sen. Katie Britt and Sen. Ted Cruz). This suggests a profound lack of education on their part about what it really means to protect humans from abortion, and a complete misunderstanding of human dignity.

Thankfully, the worst case scenario did not happen. That would have been President Trump forcing insurance providers to cover IVF. Ultimately what he did was make a deal with Big Pharma to sell some fertility drugs at reduced prices and offered official “guidance” to employers, encouraging them to cover IVF as an employee benefit. 

We have a lot of work to do, and I’m going to tell you where we need to start. It’s not with a petition. It’s not with the next election.

We need to educate our peers. 

If you asked 10 Americans who identify as Christian and pro-life, I would bet nine of them would tell you that IVF is a good thing because it brings more babies into the world and creates families. Intentions are often good. But this is a narrative that ignores the fact that IVF kills way more children than elective abortion every year, that IVF gives doctors an excuse NOT to diagnose and treat the underlying causes of women’s infertility, and that IVF puts the nuclear family in jeopardy. 

We desperately need those who claim to be Christian and pro-life to know how and why IVF destroys children’s lives and violates their dignity as well as the dignity of their parents and families. 

Do your part! Encourage your church to host a bioethics series (this could be as simple as watching videos from experts and discussing them). Talk about infertility with your friends. This should not be a taboo topic – especially when doctors are not telling their patients that they may have a diagnosable, treatable condition. 

Tell your friends and share on social media about the more ethical and affordable options for couples facing infertility that actually cure and don’t end human life, including:

• NaPro Technology 
• Pelvioplasty
• FertilityCare System
• Billings Ovulation Method
• Marquette Method
• FEMM App
• FactsAboutFertility.org 
• SaintPaulVI.com 

Having a lack of information, misinformation, and taboos around the subject of infertility and IVF only helps the IVF industry – it does not help women, babies, families, or the nation.

Kristan Hawkins is the President of Students for Life of America and Students for Life Action. Subscribe to The Kristan Hawkins Show HERE.