Last week, former President Donald Trump sent shockwaves through the pro-life movement when he indicated that he would vote in favor of Florida’s Amendment 4, which would not only overturn Florida’s ban on abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, but would also legalize abortion on demand through all nine months of pregnancy. The backlash from pro-life leaders was swift, and by the next day, Trump had retracted (or clarified) that he would not vote in favor of Amendment 4.
But Trump made another statement that also caused a stir in the pro-life movement and that he has not retracted (nor has he given any indication that he would). On Thursday, Trump told NBC News that if elected, he would either have the government fund in vitro fertilization treatments or force insurance companies to fund them.
He made this promise in the midst of a presidential campaign in which he found himself on the defensive when it comes to “reproductive rights.” While the Democratic candidate is campaigning on a promise to restore Roe contra Wade Through federal law, Trump has been skirting the issue, arguing that it is a matter best left to the states and that the federal government should not intervene one way or another.
He seems to have calculated that this strategy alone is not working, so he has been making statements to counter his Democratic opponent, who falsely claims that Trump wants to ban all abortions and also wants to ban IVF. What better way for Trump to debunk that false claim than to announce not only that he is to IVF but also to
Force taxpayers or insurance companies to pay for it?
Reactions to the former president’s new policy proposal have been mixed, even among Republicans. While Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., told NBC News Meet the Press Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who supports the president’s proposal, poured cold water on the idea, saying the federal government had no business being involved in requiring citizens to pay for IVF treatments. But neither Cotton nor Graham opposed IVF on moral grounds. Their only disagreement concerned the appropriateness of requiring taxpayers or insurance companies to pay for it.
Unfortunately, neither Trump nor these senators have paid much attention to the moral dimensions of IVF. Neither has the media coverage. Instead, the attention of commentators, journalists, and politicians has focused on how the issue affects the presidential race. Who is up, who is down, and how might the candidates’ views on IVF affect the race?
IVF is morally dangerous for the same reasons as abortion. Both procedures involve human lives and together they have destroyed countless millions of human beings.
I am concerned that many pro-lifers and Christians may also be tempted to view the issue solely from a political perspective, without giving due consideration to basic principles. The fundamental question is not who pays for IVF, but whether IVF is a morally permissible procedure. Very few Republican voters seem to have considered this more basic question, and for that reason they are not faithfully evaluating policy proposals such as the former president’s regarding IVF.
From start to finish, IVF is a morally dangerous procedure. It unnaturally separates the procreative act from marriage. It involves the collection of eggs and sperm and their union for fertilization in a laboratory. Once fertilization occurs, a new human being is formed – one at the earliest stage of development, but a human being nonetheless. Everyone sympathizes with the anguish of infertility, but basic human compassion must never be manipulated to produce an “ends justify the means” approach to fertility treatments.
Ryan Anderson has written that doctors often fail to convince couples of the human costs of IVF. “Doctors may create ten to twenty embryos, transfer several of the ‘most promising’ ones, freeze the rest, and, if more than one is implanted, abort the others,” he writes. “Thus, the typical IVF cycle results in multiple dead, frozen embryos. And unlike in European countries, in the United States there are almost no laws regulating how many embryos can be created or destroyed, or how frozen embryonic human beings can be treated.”
Surplus human embryos are either destroyed or frozen indefinitely. By some estimates, there are more than a million unborn human beings in their earliest stages of development stored in freezers across the country. IVF is morally problematic for the same reasons as abortion. Human lives are at stake in both procedures, and together they have destroyed countless millions of human beings.
This routine destruction of human life is the main moral problem with IVF, even though many people don’t realize it. It’s time for Christians to get up to speed on what IVF entails. While we should have compassion for those suffering from infertility and genuinely want to help them find alternative ways to raise a family, we must not allow compassion to be an excuse to turn a blind eye to the moral problems of IVF. We must not do evil that good may come (Romans 3:8), much less demand that taxpayers or insurance companies pay for it. This is the moral reality that Christians must accept no matter the consequences, political or otherwise.
