On Feb. 18, 2025, President Trump fulfilled a campaign promise by signing an executive order on in vitro fertilization (IVF). The order solicited policy recommendations that would “protect IVF access and aggressively reduce out-of-pocket and health play costs for such treatments.”
Reports indicate that Alabama Sen. Katie Britt has been advising Trump on his IVF stance. Britt called the order “the most pro-IVF executive order ever taken at the federal level.”
Britt is right, but “pro-IVF” isn’t the same as “pro-life.” It’s the opposite.
Pro-life policies are supposed to protect unborn children from conception onward. IVF, by contrast, destroys uncounted embryos. As Live Action’s Lila Rose says, “7% of embryos created via IVF will result in a live birth,” which means that 93% of the hundreds of thousands of embryos will likely be discarded.
The Alabama Supreme Court was correct in its 2024 decision about IVF. In an ideal world, their ruling would have opened serious consideration of the moral import of this technology. Instead, the Alabama Legislature quickly intervened, granting immunity to IVF clinics.
Instead of forging ahead, we should pause, reconsider, and modify American law regarding IVF. As Chief Justice Tom Parker said, it's an unregulated "Wild West," much more radical than many other countries.
The import of IVF is broader than the tragic fate of unused embryos. Its vision of motherhood and childhood is in perfect continuity with Roe v. Wade. As Jeff Shafer, Director of the Hale Institute in Moscow, Idaho, observes, Roe detached pregnancy from motherhood. After Roe, a pregnant woman was free to choose whether or not to give birth.
In other words, motherhood became a matter of consent, not a natural condition. Pregnancy has been reduced to a mere function. Legally, a pregnant person isn’t a mother but an incubator and life-support machine that can be turned off at will.
Reproductive technologies like IVF have widened the gap between pregnancy and motherhood. We now have “global babies,” assembled from a European embryo, an Indian surrogate, and an American buyer. All three share fragments of “motherness.” None is a mother in the traditional sense. And the child is no longer a child but a thing – manufactured, assembled, bought and sold.
IVF, as a driver of the international surrogacy industry, is a critical battle for pro-life Americans. Overturning Roe will count for little if Roe-era technologies are allowed to proliferate.
Peter J. Leithart is President of the Theopolis Institute, a Birmingham-based Christian think tank. He is author, most recently, of The Glory of Man (Athanasius Press, 2024).
The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News. To comment, please send an email with your name and contact information to Commentary@1819News.com.
Don't miss out! Subscribe to our newsletter and get our top stories every weekday morning.
