If you are new to this series, I recommend starting at the beginning: Open to Life Series: What is Openness to Life?
In Marriage: Love and Life in the Divine Plan, the Bishops remind us that when using technology to “create” human beings, the “[c]hildren begin to be seen less as gifts received in a personal communion of mutual self-giving, and increasingly as a lifestyle choice, a commodity to which all consumers are entitled.”
In vitro fertilization (IVF) in particular is a gravely immoral, dehumanizing, and even a medically risky procedure. “This procedure [IVF] is so far from a loving act of the spouses that it can even be used to conceive a child if neither of them is alive, for the body of neither one is involved in the act of generating this life once sperm and egg are obtained and stored” (Life-Giving Love in an Age of Technology). The medical problems range from the extremely high death rate of embryos to the increased risk of birth defects to human error resulting in the doctor implanting someone else’s child in the woman’s uterus.
Death Rate
The death rate for lab-created embryos is very high. “Researchers at the Yale School of Medicine reported in 2005 that 85% of embryos transferred to a womb in IVF are never born alive.” [Emphasis mine] This does not even account for the embryos not implanted – which include those that are lost, thrown away, die during freezing or thawing, or are killed for research. “The European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology, reporting annually on IVF clinics across Europe that provide preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) to screen out genetically impaired embryos, concludes that in 2004, out of 24,371 embryos fertilized, only 749 (3%) survived to produce a fetal heartbeat.” – Note that is a 97% death rate and this does not even encompass the whole pregnancy through a live-birth! Compare these numbers to the estimated 50-75% of all natural pregnancies that end in miscarriage. (This number includes those who miscarry within the first two weeks of implantation and do not miss a period.) (Quotes from Life-Giving Love in an Age of Technology)
Another form of death for embryos that are implanted is through selective reduction (the medical term for the abortion that takes place when too many children grow in their mother’s uterus). Sometimes it is the embryos or fetuses that are not developing as well that get aborted, but other times all look healthy and just the “conveniently positioned” children are chosen to die. This is done to give a better chance of live-birth for the remaining children or because the couple/mother only want one or two children.
Birth defects
Birth defects are also a concern for both intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) and IVF. In In Vitro Fertilization: The Human Cost states, “A 2005 study following children conceived at multiple IVF centers up to age 5 found: ‘A higher proportion of ICSI and IVF children required surgery (24% ICSI, 22% IVF, 14% natural conceptions) particularly genitourinary surgery other than circumcision.’ After adjusting for age and country, risks of major malformation were 2.8 times higher for ICSI children and 1.8 times higher for IVF children. Even in the neonatal period, minor malformations had been more common in IVF and ICSI children (15%) than in naturally conceived children (8%).”
Also, in November [2008] the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published a paper reporting that "babies conceived with IVF or with a technique in which sperm are injected directly into eggs [ICSI], have a slightly increased risk of several birth defects, including a hole between the two chambers of the heart, a cleft lip or palate, an improperly developed esophagus and a malformed rectum” (In Vitro Fertilization: The Human Cost).
Up Next on Friday: What is Wrong with IVF? (II)
For full texts of the documents used, see my Open to Life Series: Introduction
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