On June 10, the Trump administration’s Department of Health and Human Services issued a notice of funding opportunity (NOFO) to encourage the adoption of frozen embryos. The history of in vitro fertilization (IVF) in the second Trump administration has been a winding road, with broad commitments by President Trump to promote expanded insurance coverage of the practice mixed with widespread resistance by pro-life advocates concerned about IVF practices that lead to the killing of embryonic human beings in the freezing process or by genetic selection. The June 10 notice was received warmly by pro-life groups because of its focus on respect for the life of every human embryo and its stated intention to ensure that each of these children has “the opportunity for life within a stable and loving family.”

Federal policy on IVF and related issues has been passive over the years, with the practice relatively unregulated. Even at the state level, policymaking has been sparse. The first significant federal action came in 2002, under the George W. Bush administration, when the potential exploitation of embryonic humans to harvest their stem cells for research became the focus of intense public debate. In his first presidential address to the nation the previous summer, Bush had sided with pro-life advocates on the core question of federal funding of stem cell research using newly obtained cells derived from frozen embryos created via IVF. In 2002, President Bush asked Congress to formalize this policy as well as enact a ban on all human cloning. Bush also created the President’s Council on Bioethics under the direction of Dr. Leon Kass from the University of Chicago to provide ongoing expert insight into this raft of unprecedented ethical challenges.

Reacting to these developments, former Senator Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), a pro-choice champion and supporter of embryonic stem cell research using frozen embryos, sought to soften the policy debate by proposing a $1,000,000 federal appropriation to promote awareness of the option of embryo adoption. Then as now, a fundamental debate raged over whether “excess” embryos created and cryopreserved in this manner were human persons or mere property. It was known that children had been conceived and carried to term after being thawed, that the number of frozen embryos in existence was already large, and that many of them did not survive the process of thawing and implantation. The Specter funding proposal was adopted, leading to the expansion of a number of embryo agencies such as Nightlight Christian Adoption, a nonprofit that traces its roots back to the late 1950s under the leadership of the National Association of Evangelicals and Dr. James C. Dobson.

Now, more than two decades later, several developments have clarified public thinking, while other issues remain a struggle. First, the much-vaunted promise of, and alleged need for, human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) for curing disease has been proven an empty vessel. This avenue has been shown to be ineffective, even counterproductive, in any therapeutic context, even as ethical sources of such cells like adult stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) have been successful in treating more than two million patients worldwide for a range of conditions.

Second, changes in the law governing abortion via the 2022 Dobbs decision have raised, but not resolved, the prospect for legal recognition of nascent human beings, whether in their mothers’ womb or in frozen storage, as legal persons worthy of equal protection under the law. The February 2024 Alabama Supreme Court decision, which required recognition of frozen embryos created by IVF as children under the law, sparked a backlash that continues to reverberate politically. Finally, the nation is beginning to hear directly from once-frozen embryos who have now been born and are lending their voices to a fight for recognition as full members of the human family.

Hannah Strege might be the most prominent advocate on this growing front. The daughter of John and Marlene Strege, Hannah was the first frozen embryo ever adopted in the United States. She had spent two years and nine months in storage when the parents who had used IVF to conceive her and 19 other embryos completed an adoption process that included all the hallmarks of infant adoption — including home visits with the Streges. She was the only one of the 20 embryos to survive. She was thawed on Good Friday 1998 and implanted in Marlene Strege’s womb on Easter Saturday. Today, Hannah is a licensed social worker in Colorado and the founding president of Wonderfully Made Adoption Services International. Dr. Dobson, who passed away in 2025, was her godfather.

Noah Markham offers a similarly dramatic story. He was one of 1,400 frozen embryos trapped in a fertility clinic threatened by the floodwaters of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. First responders traveled in flat-bottomed boats to rescue the doomed canisters and floated Noah to safety. Two years later, he was implanted and then born on January 17, 2007. He has a “twin brother” who is three years older than he is due to being implanted prior to the hurricane. People magazine and other outlets have carried the story of following in the footsteps of his twin, his father, and his grandfather, joining the U.S. Army as a mechanic. His name just had to be Noah.

Estimates now range between one million to 1.5 million embryos in frozen storage. Some are affected by legal contests between their parents. While accurate data is hard to find (a task federal agencies could still be charged to address), finding qualified families for each of these children will be a huge challenge. A recent article posted at the site of the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity at LeTourneau University in Texas describes one couple’s unexpected pathway to embryo adoption. They planned to proceed via what they call “Plan A” — to “have their own kids first” and then adopt afterward. What ensued was an experience of unfixable infertility, followed by embryo adoption — “Plan B,” which author Matt Yocum says was God’s plan all along. But like Hannah’s story, it was no easy voyage. The Yocums agreed to adopt 20 frozen embryos from another couple, with the intent to value each life as a unique creation and attempt to bring them all to birth. He writes:

“Each workup for a transfer had all the right conditions for a successful transfer and pregnancy, including hormone levels, endometrial lining, and bloodwork. For almost a decade we tried. Some did not survive the thaw. Some did survive but failed to implant after the transfer. And one young one survived but died early in the second trimester during the pregnancy. Each time, God reminded us we were his vessel either to bring these little ones into our home or to be home with him. We await the day we can greet them all.”

Two boys ultimately did make it through the gauntlet to the Yocum home — a way station to their heavenly haven.

What these events, and more like them to come, teach us is the reality — not sentimentality, guesswork, or pseudoscience — that the entities in liquid nitrogen across our land are our brothers and sisters. They are now old enough to show us, and in their own words tell us, that they are truly human and worthy of protecting and nurturing. The new funding notice from the White House does not speak in grandiose terms of reversing our collapsing birth rate or colonizing planets. It speaks instead of the infinite value of each child conceived in this world. For this reason, the notice is a landmark action from the administration that has potential application to a range of public policies. Emma Waters, a senior policy analyst at the Center for Technology and the Human Person at the Heritage Foundation, praised the HHS action for “reframing embryo adoption not as a treatment for infertility, but as an act of charity toward a child already in existence who is in need of a loving home.”

Filling that need is a sine qua non for a true restoration of America in this its 250th year.