IVF and Human Dignity

In February of 2024, the Supreme Court of the state of Alabama ruled that embryos in the process of in vitro fertilization, or IVF, are children and are entitled to the rights and protections usually accorded to children. The decision stemmed from legal action against a fertility clinic, in which, in late 2020, some embryos that had been frozen and stored were destroyed in an accident. The parents of the embryos sued for wrongful death, but the trial court dismissed the action. On appeal, however, the Supreme Court agreed with their contention and upheld the personhood of the embryos. The Supreme Court held that the deceased children were covered by Alabama’s “Wrongful Death of a Minor” law.

The decision touched off quite a bit of controversy. Some fertility clinics put a moratorium on the practice of in vitro fertilization, fearing higher liability expenses. Some people expressed concern about repercussions for abortion and other issues concerning “reproductive rights.” Politicians carefully staked out their positions on the ruling (and it’s probably reasonable to expect the issue to come up again during this election year). Overall, much of the discussion surrounding this issue was more emotional or political than anything else.

There are two issues here. First, the Church agrees that embryos are human persons deserving of their proper rights and protections. We uphold those rights for babies in the womb at all stages, and likewise for babies in this case. The parents of the embryos who were lost in the clinic accident must have had a real sense of loss; perhaps they had hoped to have some of those embryos implanted someday in the future, to be brought to birth.

The second issue, however, is in vitro fertilization itself. The Church holds that the practice is “morally unacceptable” because it removes the begetting of new life from the marital act, in which a husband and wife give themselves to each other. The begetting of new life through IVF replaces the marital act with a technical process and “establishes the domination of technology over the origin and destiny of the human person” (CCC 2377). 

To be sure, a child that comes into being through IVF is a human person created in the image and likeness of God, and each child is definitely a gift from God. However, the fact that a child is a gift from God is even more reason that IVF is problematic.

Since children are gifts from God, they cannot be considered as something owed to anyone or as something to which anyone has an absolute right. Children have rights, even at conception and before birth, including the right to be conceived within the conjugal love of their parents and the right to be respected as human persons from the moment of conception (CCC 2378). Married couples who believe their children are gifts from God will accept them with gratitude and give them all proper respect, attention, and protection.

The technical process of in vitro fertilization is a serious moral concern since it replaces the marital act, but it is not the only concern with IVF. The standard procedure is that several eggs are harvested and fertilized, and then only the number of embryos desired by the parents at the time are implanted. The rest are put in the deep freeze. Parents who want more children can have them implanted later, but sometimes embryos might be used for research or experimentation, which indeed are offenses against their human dignity. 

However, many times, the embryos are left indefinitely. In other words, there are numerous human souls in these clinics whose futures are uncertain and may have been forgotten by their parents. Pope John Paul II once wrote that the use of embryos in research “in fact reduces human life to the level of simple ‘biological material’ to be freely disposed of.” (Evangelium Vitae #14)

The many moral problems presented by in vitro fertilization (including the problem of the embryos that were destroyed in the incident in Alabama) serve to make us aware of the great wisdom of God’s plan for human life and of the dangers of deviating from it. God created us in love and planned for all human life to come into being in love, specifically through the loving union of a husband and wife. 

Infertility can certainly be a challenge, but there are ways of treating it that do not violate Church teaching. For these and other bioethical matters, one can look to the National Catholic Bioethics Center (ncbcenter.org), which has an ethics consultation service, and My Catholic Doctor (mycatholicdoctor.com).