Flora Watkins asked the question “Shouldn’t the Church reconsider IVF?” in the May 2024 issue of the <em>Catholic Herald</em>. Quite a few readers disagreed, <a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/letters-to-the-editor-please-pray-for-canada-as-it-slides-into-dystopia/?swcfpc=1"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">judging by the letters</mark></a> sent to the magazine editor.<br><br>Rather than the Church reconsidering IVF, we all need to reconsider the options. IVF is widely seen as the standard and most effective answer to infertility issues, despite the fact that the medical field of restorative reproductive medicine has higher rates of success without any of the health risks and ethical issues surrounding IVF.
Fundamentally, what I hope to do here is to present little-known good news to those struggling with infertility or miscarriages. That good news is that there is a healthy, scientific, cheaper and more effective alternative through fertility awareness-based methods and restorative reproductive medicine that respects every conceived life.
It is important to note that the Church has been the greatest promoter of this alternative. Fertility awareness-based methods (also known as natural family planning) can be used both to achieve and to avoid pregnancy.
I recently <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mI25x2Di99w&t=1030s"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">interviewed fertility specialist Dr. Phil Boyle on the subject</mark></a>. He is the president of the International Institute for Restorative Reproductive Medicine and has developed his own fertility awareness-based method, NeoFertility. He has helped over 3,500 couples have a baby, many of those couples after years of struggling with infertility, unsuccessful IVF and miscarriages.
I would like to present some of the key points, as well as relevant statistics pertaining to the issue.
It is important to emphasise that children conceived via IVF are of equal value and are just as much created in the image and likeness of God as any of us. Secondly, it is with great compassion that this delicate and painful topic should be addressed.
There are considerable health risks accompanying IVF. Former IVF doctor Tadeusz Wasilewski listed these in an interview: twice the risk of ectopic pregnancy, more miscarriages and premature deliveries, while the high dosages of oestrogen involved increase a woman’s risk for breast and ovarian cancer. Also, for children conceived via IVF there is a greater danger of some kind of abnormality.
The ethical implications are substantial as well. Many Christians believe that IVF is ethical when only one embryo is created. But a Christian-based IVF does not exist. According to an <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5306416/#:~:text=During%20the%20years%20of%20analysis,%25%2C%20p%20%3D%200.002"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">article</mark></a> published in the <em>Journal of Assisted Reproduction and Genetic</em>s, 80 per cent of embryos conceived via IVF and chosen for transfer do not result in a live birth.
This is problematic in and of itself. These human lives are placed in an environment where they are not supposed to be and this place is not safe for them, as the aforementioned statistic indicates. This also contributes to why the standard IVF practice is to create many embryos, which then results in so many embryos being placed in freezers and after a certain number of years they are discarded, as they can no longer be used. An unethical cycle perpetuates itself.
The statistics from Britain published in 2013 show that between 1996 and 2006, there were 122,000 children born via IVF, while in the same time frame 3.8 million embryos were created. Many might question whether these in fact are already human beings, but the science is also crystal clear on this front. A Chicago University survey found that 95 per cent of biologists agree that <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3211703"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">human life begins at fertilisation</mark></a>.
There are other ethical considerations that routinely emerge in the IVF industry, to list just a few: embryos being donated for research, and selective reduction abortions in the case of twins, triplets, etc., when one or more of the babies are targeted and killed.
The reality is that multiple pregnancies increase the risk of premature delivery while selective reductions often cause miscarriages.
In comparison, there is a healthy, scientific, cheaper and more effective alternative through fertility awareness-based methods and restorative reproductive medicine, and all of which respect every conceived life.
It is important to note that the Church's resistance to IVF comes against the backdrop of it being the greatest promoter of this alternative. Fertility awareness-based methods (also known as natural family planning) can be used both to achieve and to avoid pregnancy.
Based on one or several biological markers (cervical mucus, temperature, urinary hormones) a woman can identify when she is fertile. She puts this information in a chart or app, along with any other relevant information. In the case of certain health issues like endometriosis, infertility, irregular or painful periods, medical experts can then find the root cause and restore the woman’s health by treating the underlying cause.
This is at the heart of what is known as restorative reproductive medicine (RRM). Women who go the IVF route often do not have their issues properly investigated and so there is no attempt to heal the underlying issue.
So, in fact it is RRM that uses modern science to serve the best interests of patients. It can also help with preventing miscarriages and can even detect the risk of this with patients and intervene before any miscarriage occurs.
Dr. Boyle has developed a groundbreaking treatment for preventing miscarriages. What’s more, this route is more effective (with a higher success rate) and cheaper than IVF.
As Dr. Boyle explains: “We've shown that we can get a live birth rate [for] 40 per cent that contrasts with in vitro fertilisation [with] only 24 per cent live birth rate.” He notes that “this is for an average female age of 36” and that “20 per cent of our couples had tried and failed in vitro fertilisation, and it was a difficult group that we had treated".
He adds that "good ethics is good medicine". Indeed, in the case of a pregnancy, there are two patients: the mother and the unborn child, who both deserve what is best for them.
Dr. Boyle argues that 95 per cent of couples who go to IVF could achieve pregnancy via restorative reproductive medicine. What about the remaining 5 per cent you may ask? As seen, IVF is far from the definite route to success for having a child. But even if it was, we know that not all ways of achieving an end are ethical.
Infertility is a painful cross and it is natural for a family to want a child. As the Catholic Catechism says, however, there is no right to a child: “A child is not something <em>owed </em>to one, but is a <em>gift</em>…A child may not be considered a piece of property, an idea to which an alleged ‘right to a child’ would lead. In this area, only the child possesses genuine rights…‘the right to be respected as a person from the moment of his conception’.”
There are many painful crosses which stem from healthy desires. We all know wonderful single people who experience the pain of loneliness and the worry of running out of time to have children. Or the early widowed, whose dreams of sharing old age and grandparenthood with their spouse are gone forever. Not all crosses have a solution in this life. However, how we, the Church and Body of Christ, respond to one another and support one another can make a big difference.
I think that many will be surprised to discover the reality of IVF and that a scientific, risk-free, ethical, cheaper and more effective alternative exists in fertility awareness-based methods and restorative reproductive medicine.
We have a huge advantage in living today as so many of the most fundamental Catholic values now have scientific evidence to back them up (such as why the Church opposes contraception, abortion, etc.). I think there is a great need to present these to people, along with the theological arguments.
I have found this scientific approach to be very fruitful in my conversations with non-believers. These values are so rational and scientifically sound that they can reach people regardless of their faith or lack of it. I think a lot of Catholics would also be reassured and be helped to make the right choices in their lives when seeing that science is on their side. I believe that there is a great opportunity before us to arm ourselves with scientific facts and present our values in a new light to people.
For more information on the field of fertility awareness-based methods and restorative reproductive medicine as an alternative to IVF (and contraceptives, which similarly to IVF have serious health and ethical considerations – a topic for another article), I highly recommend watching my interview with Dr. Phil Boyle.
<em>Photo: Image of human embryos. (Credit: Andrii Vodolazhskyi/CNA.)</em><br><br><em>Sári Pontifex works for the Hungarian pro-life organization Együtt az Életért (Together for Life) and is the international correspondent of Egy Élet (One Life), interviewing prominent members of the pro-life movement.</em>
