WASHINGTON (BP) – Evangelical ethicists are urging policymakers to tap the brakes on in vitro fertilization (IVF) expansion despite an executive order by President Donald Trump and widespread enthusiasm for the practice.
Instead of rushing to expand or subsidize these technologies, our leaders need to ask better questions about this entire field of medicine. For example, does this truly build a culture of life, or undermine it? How is it that an entire industry has been allowed to spring up without oversight and regulation?
Brent Leatherwood
“Instead of rushing to expand or subsidize these technologies, our leaders need to ask better questions about this entire field of medicine,” said Brent Leatherwood, president of the SBC’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. “For example, does this truly build a culture of life, or undermine it? How is it that an entire industry has been allowed to spring up without oversight and regulation? Are we plodding down a path towards designer babies and disposable lives? Some estimates show there are over 1 million preborn lives frozen in clinics across the country; is there a pathway for these children to live? Are there ways to bring all of this into alignment with God’s design for procreation and the family?”
Leatherwood’s comments followed a Feb. 18 executive order by Trump directing his administration to submit a list of policy recommendations “on protecting IVF access and aggressively reducing out-of-pocket and health plan costs for IVF treatment.” The administration’s goal, Trump stated, includes “easing unnecessary statutory or regulatory burdens to make IVF treatment drastically more affordable.”
Polling shows IVF popular among the American public, including Christians. Seventy percent of Americans say IVF is a good thing, according to a 2024 survey by the Pew Research Center. Majorities of white evangelicals (63 percent), black Protestants (69 percent) and Catholics (65 percent) agree.
An SBC resolution last summer urged thoughtfulness in the use of IVF. It “call[ed] on Southern Baptists to reaffirm the unconditional value and right to life of every human being, including those in an embryonic stage, and to only utilize reproductive technologies consistent with that affirmation especially in the number of embryos generated in the IVF process.”
An ERLC research paper cited by Leatherwood in his comments to Baptist Press seems to go further. It notes concerns about “the way IVF is routinely conducted now, which includes over fertilization of eggs without a clear plan for implantation, freezing of leftover embryos, and even the destruction of these human embryos once a couple has succeeded in getting pregnant or no longer desires to keep them.”
The research paper states, “Christians should in general oppose IVF because by its very nature it separates procreation from sex and treats children as products rather than people. Though we should be hesitant to call it sin, it is morally ambiguous enough to be problematic and should be discouraged as a matter of wisdom and prudence.”
Read the full Baptist Press article here.
