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IVF now killing more babies annually than abortion, alarming report shows
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Latest IVF numbers reveal procedure now responsible for more fetal deaths than abortion
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Report: embryos destroyed by IVF now outpacing even abortion
(LifeSiteNews) – The annual number of embryonic human beings killed in the in vitro fertilization (IVF) process now substantially exceeds the number of babies killed yearly by abortion, according to an alarming report.
According to the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology’s (SART’s) most recent annual report on the use of IVF and similar technologies, 2023 saw the number of babies born through IVF rise to 95,860 in the United States (2.6% of all births) and the total number of reported IVF cycles performed rise to 432,641.
SART and its sister entity American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) hail the news as a positive development for infertile couples, but Live Action ran the numbers based on the averages of “excess” embryos created and discarded by the process, and estimated that a staggering “1,946,884 embryos did not survive to be implanted, and another 1,759,664 were either frozen, destroyed, donated to research, or released for embryo adoption.”
By contrast, the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute puts the number of abortions in 2023 at 1,037,880 (the true number would be higher due to deficiencies in abortion data collection, but not to an extent that would close the gap between it and the IVF numbers.
“The mere fact that half of the IVF embryos won’t make it beyond the initial first steps after fertilization, including the health screening, should be enough to prove that IVF is not about creating life but about controlling it, determining which lives are accepted as valuable and worthy and which are automatically destroyed for being deemed ‘subpar,’” Live Action’s Nancy Flanders opined.
The IVF process is gravely unethical, as it entails the conscious creation of scores of “excess” embryonic humans only to be killed and human lives being treated like commodities to be bartered over. It has been estimated that more than a million embryos are frozen in storage in the United States after IVF, and that as many as 93% of all embryos created through IVF are eventually destroyed. A 2019 NBC News profile of Florida fertility doctor Craig Sweet acknowledged that his practice has discarded or abandoned approximately a third of the embryos it places in cold storage.
Yet the political lines of the issue were blurred last year after the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos qualified as children in a wrongful death suit, thrusting the issue into the national spotlight. Most national Republicans rushed to declare their support for IVF (with just a handful of exceptions). Leading the charge was President Donald Trump, who cast himself as a “leader on fertilization” and even promised to enact a new federal entitlement to IVF, whether through direct subsidy or insurance mandate (though he also suggested he would support religious exemptions to the latter).
Shortly after his return to the presidency, Trump signed an executive order directing his administration to brainstorm administrative action and policy recommendations to strengthen IVF “access” and “affordability,” though not yet committing to a specific policy. In May, the White House was preparing a report on ways to combat infertility, and as part of those discussions is weighing a slate of policy ideas, including adding IVF coverage to U.S. military health insurance, declaring IVF an “essential health benefit” that must be covered under the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), and calling on Congress to enact a federal mandate for private insurance companies to cover IVF.
The White House eventually backed away from the idea of mandating IVF but said it still wanted to find a way to deliver on Trump’s campaign pledge. Last month, Trump announced he had struck a deal to reduce IVF costs and increase IVF “access” by (among other actions on lower prices for fertility drugs) by creating a new benefit option specifically covering IVF and other fertility treatments for employers to offer their employees.
U.S. Secretary of Health & Human Services (HHS) Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told Trump that he would “get into heaven” thanks to the move.
