No, Funding IVF Won’t Help the Nation’s Population Problem

The lack of babies being born today is one of the world’s most pressing problems.

It’s been in the news that fully funding in vitro fertilization (IVF) by the federal government or private insurance companies for any citizen who desires it will boost our nation’s flagging population.

This is unwise public policy. Research shows this exorbitantly expensive procedure will not boost national fertility.

There are many concerns with this policy proposal.

Focus on the Family has long held serious ethical concerns about in vitro fertilization. We hold that “In vitro fertilization has implications for the sanctity of human life and the institution of marriage between one man and one woman.” We are also concerned it “presents identity concerns for the children conceived.”

There are measures that married couples can take to lessen these moral concerns, but most IVF practices violate essential values of human life and far too many violate the sanctity of marriage and family.

First, IVF as an industry, routinely destroys more human life than the abortion industry itself. As the Colson Center’s John Stonestreet has pointed out, quoting Katy Faust at Them Before Us, “abortion and IVF are, as currently practiced, two sides of the same child-commodifying coin.”

Second, IVF functionally disembodies the procreative process from the marital and familial norm. As Dr. Albert Mohler, President of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, explained recently,

[W]hen you look at IVF, first of all, abstracting the process of human reproduction from the conjugal relationship of marriage, you realize not only do you have married couples, [meaning] a man and a woman, a husband and a wife, able to take and make use of that technology. You also have single persons, you have same-sex male couples, you have same-sex female couples, you have an entire market of surrogacy that comes out of that. And this gets back to a Christian moral principle of abstraction.

He warns, “The more you abstract from the organic ontological unit, the more ethical danger you bring in.” He is rightly saying there is something special and divinely created about embodied husband and wife procreation which IVF cannot replicate. In fact, it takes us further away from it.

Mohler also finds fault with “those who are Christian saying, ‘Look, what we need to move for is only producing enough embryos that those embryos will all be transferred.’” He responds, “I will say, ‘Well, you’re lowering a little bit the moral risk there, but you still have the abstraction, you still have the moral risk.’” Dr. Mohler is speaking of the moral question about creating human life outside of the physical, conjugal union of husband and wife.

Will IVF Boost National Fertility?

Beyond these serious concerns, will requiring insurance companies and government entities to fully fund IVF services for any- and every one help us recover the fertility levels needed to sustain national growth? Lyman Stone, senior fellow and director of the Pronatalism Initiative at the Institute for Family Studies (IFS), says it will not.

Why?

Because “such policies overwhelmingly help older women have a first birth” and typically that birth only. He adds, “This is a laudable outcome, but older women facing fertility challenges are implausible candidates to help propel society-wide fertility higher.”

Stone explains in detail,

In 2022, just 0.5% of births to women ages 25-29 involved IVF, compared to 55% of births to women ages 50 or older. And whereas just 4% of non-IVF births were to women aged 40 or older, 23% of IVF births occurred among women in their forties or older.

Importantly, Stone adds,

Most IVF users do not have high odds of going on to have more children: whereas 2.3% of first births in 2022 involved IVF, just 1.8% of second births and 0.9% of third births did.

He states flat out, “Society-wide fertility is unlikely to be increased by interventions aimed at 40-something women having a first child.”

Stone goes on to explain that the other group – most impacted by IVF – are same-sex couples who are very selective in their desire for children. A large but yet-to-be released survey conducted by IFS shows a full 36% of gay and lesbian individuals report desiring no children, while only 14% of heterosexual individuals communicated the same wish.

Stone also notes recent research has proven, “IVF not only helps older people have kids, but it also makes it easier for younger people to delay kids.”

So no, those most likely to make use of IVF won’t be ushering in our nation’s much needed baby boom, much less a modest baby bump. And the financial costs for gaining so few children would be remarkably high, given IVF’s stunningly expensive nature.

Dr. Stone concludes,

If the goal is to boost births, subsidies for IVF are a peculiar kind of policy. They disproportionately go to people unlikely to have additional births beyond the first birth, and only subsidize very specific subsets of individuals and families with specific values (i.e., people without ethical objections to IVF), and they may incentivize fertility delay among younger couples.

The best way to boost national fertility is to promote the value of married families as a national importance and encourage husbands and wives to have, at least, more than two children, for that is what is required to simply replace our population, much less spur essential growth.

Economists and demographers tell us that God’s first command to humanity is still very much in effect in order to sustain human progress. Requiring taxpayers and our insurance premiums to pay for IVF will not solve this dire problem.

Related articles and resources:

Population Concerns

Discarding Genesis 1, U.S. Population Set to Decline This Century Amid World Population Collapse

Death of the West? U.S. Fertility Rate Falls to Record Low

Why Americans Over and Under 50 Say They Don’t Have Kids

Pro-Life and Pro-Family Policies are Essential for Conservatives

Why Women Are Not Having the Babies They Say They Want

No, The World Does Not Have Too Many People. It Has Too Few.

IVF

IVF: Moral and Ethical Considerations

Christians Must Consider the Moral and Ethical Hazards of IVF

Concerns Over Alabama Bill Providing Immunity for IVF Providers