People, Not Products

Jan. 1, 2026

In severing the communion of persons from the gift of life, IVF reduces the child to something made, not someone received

By Stephanie Gray Connors

Jan. 1, 2026

In vitro fertilization is performed to produce human embryos. — In vitro fertilization — the combination of a woman’s eggs and a man’s sperm in a laboratory — is performed to produce human embryos. (yacobchuk / iStockphoto via Getty Images)

In vitro fertilization is increasingly in the news. Sometimes, the headlines are shocking: registered sex offenders becoming fathers through IVF and surrogacy, or fertility clinic mix-ups in which a baby is implanted in the wrong woman.

But for the average couple who considers IVF, their story isn’t a sensational one. It is about a deep-seated desire for a child, coupled with profound heartache when that longing is unmet.

Such stories weigh heavily on the hearts of people we may know — family members, friends or colleagues. These are often the stories of devoted married couples who love each other and God, and who want to fulfill the first command God gave man: “Be fruitful and multiply” (Gn 1:28).

IVF is commonly presented as a hopeful solution. President Trump framed it that way in October 2025, when he announced new policies to lower costs and expand access to IVF. “We want to make it easier for all couples to have babies, raise children, and have the families they have always dreamed about,” he said.

On the surface, it can appear that IVF is good. If abortion is anti-life because it destroys a baby, wouldn’t IVF be pro-life because it makes a baby? If abortion is disordered because it rejects one’s fertility and maternity, wouldn’t IVF be rightly ordered because it aims to bring about fertility and maternity?

And yet, the Church teaches that IVF is immoral. To understand why, it can be helpful to consider several questions, beginning with: Does the end justify the means?

THE MEANS MATTER

First, it must be affirmed: Children are good. Regardless of how someone was conceived, a human person is always made in God’s image; that is why we must never call into question the dignity of a child conceived through IVF. And yet, what we can question is the means used to achieve the good end of a child.

By way of analogy, my friend and fellow pro-life speaker Ryan Bomberger is a wonderful human being who was conceived as a result of rape. We can rightly recognize that the circumstances of his conception were not good — even though he is. Similarly, if a child is conceived through a one-night stand or by way of reproductive technologies such as IVF, we can value who was created without validating how he or she was conceived.

Some may ask, “But why is using technology an immoral way to conceive? If IVF uses a husband’s sperm and wife’s egg, and does not involve hiring a surrogate, aren’t you just using modern medicine to help a married couple have children their bodies can’t produce on their own? After all, we consider pacemakers and kidney dialysis ethical.” The answer leads to the next question: Is it ethical to manufacture humans?

There is a difference between human parts and a whole human. It can be very good to use technology to aid a person’s ability to live or live well. We rightly celebrate pacemakers, kidney dialysis and other instances in which medical technology helps to repair a person’s body so it can work as it is supposed to.

But IVF isn’t repairing a body part that is broken or working to restore health and proper functioning to a body that is failing. IVF isn’t about correcting a pathology in someone’s body. Instead, it is about making a whole new body — a whole human person. It mimics in a lab what happens through sexual intimacy, attempting to manufacture someone. Of course, IVF does not truly create life; it only makes fertilization more probable. But in mechanizing human reproduction, it fosters the illusion that the child is a manufactured product — the result of a technical process.

Human persons, however, are subjects and not objects. Objects — like television sets, toasters or cars — are manufactured. They are made by trained people who put parts together.

Subjects are very different and, as such, ought to be treated differently. Subjects are body and soul. Subjects are made in God’s image, and there should be a profound posture of reverence regarding how the sacred comes into being. We ought not come into being the way objects do.

As the Church teaches in Donum Vitae (The Gift of Life), “Human procreation requires on the part of the spouses responsible collaboration with the fruitful love of God; the gift of human life must be actualized in marriage through the specific and exclusive acts of husband and wife, in accordance with the laws inscribed in their persons and in their union” (21-22).

This leads to another question: What happens when these laws of life and love are broken?

Dr. Patrick Yeung, a leading surgeon specializing in the excision of endometriosis — Dr. Patrick Yeung — a leading surgeon specializing in the excision of endometriosis and a member of Divine Mercy Council 13823 in Sunset Hills, Mo. — stands before photos of children conceived thanks to restorative reproductive medicine. Among the patients whose fertility he has helped restore is his wife, Dorothy, who, after several years of infertility, gave birth to four children. (Photo by Sid Hastings)

THE COST OF CONTROL

More than four decades of IVF have revealed the tragic harm that manufacturing persons brings about. When objects are manufactured, they are subject to quality control, and buyers can typically return them for refund or exchange. This thinking has crept into the IVF industry: The rate of pre-implantation genetic testing, sometimes done in order to reject genetically unfit embryos, has significantly increased in recent years. And there have been cases in which people have aborted their IVF-made children when they found out, later in pregnancy, that the child had Down syndrome.

Moreover, IVF typically involves making 10, 15 or even 20 embryos — unique, unrepeatable human persons equal in dignity to all of us. But they aren’t treated equally, because many are either destroyed in the lab or subjected to a freezer, killing or jeopardizing the lives of the youngest of our kind. For example, if 15 embryos are created, and two are implanted while six are frozen, nearly half will be destroyed outright. Even the six who are frozen may not survive the freezing and thawing process — if their parents return for them at all. The sad reality is that a couple who pursues IVF can be responsible for the deaths of more children than a woman who has had multiple abortions.

Beyond the physical consequences, a growing body of research testifies to the emotional toll that being technologically conceived can have on children. The work of nonprofit initiatives such as Them Before Us and the Anonymous Us Project reveals the stories of people who were conceived through means such as IVF, artificial insemination and surrogacy.

These stories bring us to a deeper and more fundamental question: What is God’s design for human reproduction?

In Dignitas Personae (The Dignity of a Person), a 2008 Vatican instruction on bioethics, the Church teaches: “The origin of human life has its authentic context in marriage and in the family, where it is generated through an act which expresses the reciprocal love between a man and a woman” (6).

IVF violates that expression because the marital act is no longer necessary; instead, the creation of a child is contracted out to a third party. Whereas sexual intimacy involves a communion of persons — the coming together of husband and wife and, subsequently, the being together of the child beneath her mother’s heart — IVF doesn’t require any of the parties to be physically present to one another. The man typically produces sperm through an act of masturbation — itself a sin — while the woman’s eggs may be retrieved with or without her husband present. Neither parent needs to be there when a technician combines their gametes in a laboratory.

In sum, IVF is a disunion of persons, whereas the one-flesh union is a communion of persons. And God designed man to be fruitful and multiply through a communion of persons that is a sacred and private act reserved exclusively for the spouses.

RESTORING REPRODUCTIVE HOPE

What hope is there for couples experiencing infertility who desire that their union produce children? Or, to put it another way: Are there ethical alternatives to IVF?

The answer is a resounding yes. A growing number of physicians and medical professionals seek to identify and correct underlying pathologies that may impact a couple’s ability to achieve and maintain a pregnancy. Using Restorative Reproductive Medicine (RRM), they treat parts in the body that aren’t functioning optimally so that when a couple comes together in a communion of persons, they are more likely to achieve pregnancy.

We must never call into question the dignity of a child conceived through IVF. And yet, what we can question is the means used to achieve the good end of a child.

For example, for women who have polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), ovarian wedge resection surgery can lead to successful pregnancies; a friend of mine with that very condition had the surgery and has since given birth to four children. For those who have endometriosis, surgery can also increase the chance of conception, as my friend who had Stage 4 endometriosis knows well; after years of infertility, a miscarriage, and multiple endometriosis surgeries, she recently gave birth to a baby girl.

Even something as noninvasive as taking hormones under the guidance of an RRM doctor before and during pregnancy can help lead to a live birth. I know this firsthand because I have lost four babies to miscarriage, and yet I also have a 1-year-old and a 4-year-old whose lives were saved because my RRM physician monitored my blood and prescribed supplements to increase progesterone — a necessary pregnancy hormone that occurs naturally in a woman’s body.

All too often, IVF is presented as a solution to infertility, when it doesn’t even address the underlying problems the way RRM does. Whereas IVF replaces the sexual act, RRM aids the sexual act, bringing the body to optimal health while still respecting the sacred, one-flesh union.

Many RRM practitioners in the United States and Canada are associated with the Creighton Model FertilityCare System and NaProTechnology, which works cooperatively with a woman’s fertility cycles to treat a range of underlying health issues. (Learn more at fertilitycare.org.)

Finally, it is worth remembering that, ultimately, no one has a right to a child. Rather, the human person is a gift to be received as the fruit of a communion of persons, not forced into existence through a technological process. Whether or not one’s understandable desire for a child is met in this broken world, the call to be mother or father can always be lived fruitfully in a spiritual way — as the witness of countless priests and religious sisters shows us.

*****

STEPHANIE GRAY CONNORS is an international pro-life speaker and author of On IVF (Word on Fire, 2025). Learn more at loveunleasheslife.com.

Chana Gaskins and her three children enjoy some time playing outside.

People, Not Products

THE MEANS MATTER

THE COST OF CONTROL

RESTORING REPRODUCTIVE HOPE

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