Last Thursday, the White House announced President Trump’s plan to expand access to In vitro fertilization (IVF). Although the administration will no longer require an executive mandate for employers to provide this coverage – akin to the notorious Obamacare “contraceptive mandate” – President Trump’s promotion of this morally illicit practice does little to assuage pro-lifers. Indeed, his policy is decidedly anti-life. The president rightly acknowledges the pain that many couples experience with infertility and hopes to provide the best possible means to remedy their inability to conceive. That intention — like the intention of almost all couples who struggle with infertility — is good. Indeed, the Church wishes to promote every morally licit means available to couples to help them conceive. But IVF cannot be the way. Not only does IVF divorce the procreative aspect of marriage from its unitive aspect, but the procedure often entails the production of several embryos – real human persons – which are either discarded or frozen indefinitely. According to the 1987 instruction from the Holy See, Donum Vitae, “The gift of human life must be actualized in marriage through the specific and exclusive acts of husband and wife, in accordance with the laws inscribed in their persons and in their union … [IVF] treats the human person not as a gift but rather as an object to be created and that can be subjected to quality control and discarded.” Although President Trump called this policy “one of the most pro-life things” he could do, he is incorrect. Catholics should stand against this policy as an affront to human dignity.
