(LifeSiteNews) — The in vitro fertilization business has likely directly killed 270 million unborn children or more since the beginning of the process in 1978, LifeSiteNews has estimated.
A new academic paper in Fertility and Sterility estimates there were around 13 million babies born through “Assisted Reproductive Technology,” or ART, between 1978 to 2018. While there are other forms of ART that do not necessarily involve the creation of extra embryos, IVF is used 99 percent of the time when referring to “reproductive technology.” The first person was born from IVF in England in 1978.
The authors estimated that another four million or so babies have been born through IVF between 2018 to 2024. The authors acknowledge their data is not complete, due to spottiness in record keeping across different countries. However, their final number is “13–17 million infants” born via IVF since 1978.
“This large number of infants born from both conventional and innovative applications of ART confirms that ART has helped millions of people realize parenthood, is now mainstream medicine, has had a significant societal impact, including novel family formation, and highlighted inequities regarding [so-called] reproductive rights and access to care,” the researchers claim.
While some factions of the pro-life or conservative movement would view this as a positive sign, because, they argue, these are people who had children, the truth is much grimmer.
This is because a low estimate is that IVF requires the intentional killing of at least 16 human embryonic children for every baby born.
270+ million embryos destroyed through IVF
Every IVF cycle typically involves the direct killing of at least three embryos, although the number could be larger. For example, Reproductive Medicine Associates, an IVF facility, says a typical cycle of 19 eggs will yield about 12 embryos. About six of these will develop far enough to be considered for implantation. The facility whitewashes over this, but it says that of these six, three will be considered “normal” and thus viable for implantation.
Left unsaid is that the other three are often discarded. A study in the United Kingdom similarly found “almost half of embryos used to help a women conceive through in vitro fertilization were thrown away during or after the process.”
According to pro-abortion, pro-IVF MedPage Today, “discarding embryos is inherent to the IVF process.” Indeed, even a “normal” embryo that is implanted may still lead to an abortion if the embryo develops into a twin.
“Additionally, if IVF results in a multifetal pregnancy, professional guidance recommends reducing [killing] the number of fetuses to have a safer pregnancy,” MedPage Today reports.
“Extra” embryos are often discarded, according to a “fertility clinic director” who told MedPage “99% of the time, when people are done with family building and have no need for any remaining embryos, they opt to have them discarded.”
However, even this underestimates the problem, because it can take six or more cycles of IVF to get one born-alive baby. So the discarded embryos come after multiple cycles. “On average, research has shown that about 65.3% of patients, or two-thirds, have a successful outcome after six or more IVF cycles,” Pinnacle Fertility states.
For this estimate, LifeSiteNews erred on the side of caution and assumed that a woman used five cycles of IVF. The real number is likely much higher, although we do not know the average number of cycles used throughout the years in every country.
But a couple that wanted one child from IVF would end up directly killing 16 human embryonic children. They would use five cycles (as a low estimate) to get one healthy, born-alive baby. In the first four cycles, we assume they end up with six potentially viable embryos but kill three due to perceived “defects.” The other three are not carried to term. In the fifth cycle, they successfully implant and give birth to one baby and may have one or two “viable” embryos left, which they then discard. They have also already discarded three embryos deemed not “viable” in this cycle.
The truth: IVF is no better than abortion
There is then no real difference between aborting a baby growing in his mother’s womb because of prenatal genetic testing and discarding a frozen embryo because a lab predicts he might be predisposed to cancer or diabetes or the parents are done with the humans they created.
Unfortunately, segments of the conservative movement do not see the clear eugenics and pro-abortion angle to the IVF industry.
President Donald Trump, for example, ordered his administration to come up with a way to expand “access” to this embryo-destroying procedure in a February executive order. The good news is that the changes may have been killed – a May due date came and went without much fanfare. Reportedly, the plan to mandate IVF coverage is dead due to legal constraints.
This is great news, as “free” IVF would intentionally kill 2.4 million babies per year, twice that killed through legal abortion.
Still, there are elements of the Republican Party, even those generally considered pro-life, who are either blind to the moral problems or are intentionally looking the other way as a matter of political expediency.
Soon after the Alabama Supreme Court affirmed the basic pro-life principle that babies are worthy of legal protection inside and outside of the womb, Senator Ted Cruz and Senator Katie Britt rushed to declare a “right” to IVF.”
Cruz, a Texas Republican, teamed up with Britt, an Alabama Republican, to push failed legislation that would strip all Medicaid health insurance funds from states that restricted access to the procedure.
However, it is clear that every pro-life individual should be opposed to IVF. We rightly weep for the millions of innocent human babies who are mercilessly killed through abortion.
We should do the same for the millions of humans killed through in vitro fertilization.
