Speaking Against IVF

In vitro-fertilization, commonly known as IVF, is the process in which an egg is fertilized by the sperm outside of the body (in vitro) and after being carefully monitored and placed in utero. Unfortunately, there are many steps which are not disclosed clearly or are disregarded by medical professionals, leading to the dehumanization of the embryos created.

As my husband and I have exhaustingly walked through infertility in the last few years, we took many MANY hours reading through IVF as a potential option to grow our family. We quickly discovered the horrors that this procedure brings forth, and as abolitionists of abortion we found the surprising aspects that correlate between abortion and intentionally attempting to grow a family through IVF. How could this be? How could desiring a baby so much to result in spending thousands of dollars to conceive one in a test lab, be such an evil act? Why do we abhor this act of scientifically creating a family?

All of these are great questions. We have even asked ourselves these questions. However, before we discuss this procedure in depth we should first make note- our own strong desire to start a family, or emotional response to the lack of children should not influence our judgment of whether or not this procedure is acceptable and right.

Step 1- Preparation and Extraction

The first step through the IVF process (in humble terms) is preparing to obtain some eggs and attempt to fertilize. In order to do this, you are prescribed an amount of hormones that are administered by injection for 4-6 weeks. These hormones convince the woman's body to ovulate and prepare mature follicles, and open the ovaries so eggs may be extracted easily. As the potential parents, you may choose the amount of eggs to extract if multiple eggs are ready. However, many facilities recommend extracting and fertilizing all available eggs to have the highest chance of success.

Step 2- Conception

Once all eggs have been extracted they are then placed in what is similar to a petri dish and manually fertilized with the man's sperm. They are then monitored, stimulated with steroids, and cultured anywhere from a few days to a week. So if we talk humanely, the child is grown in a cold hard petri dish for the first week of its life. Sadly, this is probably the most humane and peaceful this process will result in as it continues. This is where my feelings and speech begin to become not only more harsh but more honest as well.Once this phase is complete your babies will be then investigated until a microscope, graded on its development to determine which should live and which should be thrown away, and those who are chosen to live have a 50/50 chance of being thrown into cryogenic ice prison for years until they are discarded into a biohazard bin to die.. it is simply gut wrenching.

Step 3- Grading

As the embryos continue to grow, they will be graded to determine which embryos qualify to be transferred. All fertility clinics may follow a different grading system such as 1234, ABCD, etc, but all measuring development to likelihood of success. If your embryos are graded lower on the grading scale (i.e C and D embryos or level 3 and 4 embryos) these are typically determined to statuses as "not likely to survive". Meaning your baby is still alive, maybe the are smaller or not developing as quickly as the others (can you blame them, they have been frozen for a week) but they are still children that are alive, yet your doctor states it won't be able to live and recommends abandoning them to attempt to carry a stronger one. I cannot speak for every clinic, but typically embryos graded below a "B" or a level "2" will be discarded aka thrown away so you can implant the bigger and "better" ones. Quite often if there are not many embryos that are graded highly, the clinic will even recommend throwing out all of your currently created children and harvesting more eggs to create more humans in petri dishes, to try the whole process over again. Imagine if these embryos who are being judged for slaughter and life were out of the womb and easily identified as children, how evil it would be to send the smaller sized children who are stunted slightly to die because of a fear they will not be as successful as another child. This entire process of grading your children shines a spotlight on the evils of IVF and its lack of personhood for those embryos… for those babies.

Step 4- Procedure

At this point the child is 1 week old and ready to do a "transfer". This is where they manually place the embryos into the uterus in their own fluid sack, at this point the parents pray their children stick to the result of a positive pregnancy test. Leading up to the procedure is weeks of more injectable hormones to prepare the womens body. This tricks the body to think it's pregnant and creates a hospitable uterus that is suitable to carry the embryos in a full term pregnancy. This procedure is fairly painless, and more than anything begins the emotional taxing efforts of waiting for the parents. This is when most parents will begin the excitement of having a baby- although they have had children for weeks-months already. While the children begin to grow and find nourishment from their mother, the remaining embryos who were not chosen move on to what I feel is one of the most heart breaking act a parent could do to their child.

Step 5- Freezing

Freezing the embryos is the final step of this process, this happens when the the family has remaining embryos that they anticipate using in the future. When these embryos are frozen they are placed in a cryogenic freezer, that stunts them from continuing to grow without fully killing them. This is so apparent to the dehumanization of these children. Can you see the negligence and abuse when you replace the word "embryo" with " baby"? For parents to find the idea of placing their baby in a freezer for years just in case they want more kids… is abhorrent. The idea of mothers and fathers paying thousands of dollars to create their babies in a petri-dish and say they have too many, and result to sending them to be imprisoned in an icebox is utterly terrifying. And majority of the time, it is a death sentence for those little ones. Not all, but most fertility clinics have a timeframe in which they will hold frozen embryos- 10 years typically being the max. Once a family has hit that timeframe or has decided their family is complete there is 3 different ways that frozen babies life could go. First, would simply be discarding them. Where those children have spent years frozen and cold beyond what we could comprehend, where their mother and father should be protecting them from all harm, is choosing to thaw them out and be tossed into a biohazard bag and thrown away to die. They are forgotten in that moment, with no mourning, no memory, and no family. The second, would be donating that child to science. I encourage you to read that statement again, to donate your living child to science. By doing this there has been great scientific achievements, but at what cost? Once donated these children are injected with chemicals, and torn apart and murdered in torturous manner. We don't see memorials of their honor in our scientific achievements though, as they are not looked at as more than a cell used to test vaccinations on. In reality that child just experienced a death we pray we never witness or experience, yet we volunteer our children to experience it on our behalf. The last option would be embryo donation. Most often the people who participate in this option do look at these embryos as babies, and when them to experience life. To do embryo donation can by anonymous or known and you donate those embryos to another family to try to transfer, carry, and deliver, raising them as their own children. So yes, you get to carry and deliver your adopted children who could quite possibly be many years older than just their gestational age! As this is what my family is currently pursuing we appreciate our donor family and their recognition in their children's humanity, and lament over the idea of how long these children have experienced cold frozen winters.

As I've explained this process, you may identify some clear aspects of this that are angering, heart breaking, and simply ignorant. Mothers, if you are looking into IVF, I encourage you to please recognize the humanity of these children. I too have felt such a strong desire to have a family, but there is not desire strong enough to neglect and murder my children who have yet to develope features. Please have consistency in your view of humanity. Mothers, if you have done IVF, please repent of your apathy, repent of the sinful dehumanization that you so ignorantly pursued. Advocate for those frozen children, all 1.1 million that are currently in freezers waiting to no longer be abandoned. If you currently have embryos frozen, please save them. Carry them, donate them, talk to me- as myself and many others have connections to families who want to rescue these children from their winter.

This was not a sweet message, nor is it encouraging. But it is necessary and urgent. My husband and I are actively and currently pursuing Snowflake Adoption, and I will continue to write, where you can learn more about this process. But this is not a light hearted topic we are dealing with, I believe these babies are truly the most forgotten of all children, and I encourage you all to pray and help us bring this to light.