President Donald Trump’s recent executive order directing the federal government to expand access to in vitro fertilization (IVF) conception techniques claims to push social conservative goals “so American families can have more babies.” The president’s EO further recognizes “the importance of family formation and that our Nation’s public policy must make it easier for loving and longing mothers and fathers to have children. … As many as one in seven couples trying to have a baby are unable to conceive, and many face significant financial hurdles to accessing IVF.”

But the answer he proposes is not, unfortunately, poised to solve the problem. There’s a danger that America will be pushed into a political shotgun marriage with a predatory industry that, in fact, kills many more babies than it creates, costs more than much more effective restorative reproduction health approaches, and results in more adverse medical-health complications for the pregnant mother and her IVF-conceived child.

Two of the largest American Christian denominations are very clear on IVF. Catholic teaching on IVF was plainly spelled out in 1986 by then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in Donum Vitae, or “The Gift of Life.” In a nutshell, Donum Vitae does not teach that the use of technology is wrong in itself. “Donum Vitae teaches that if a given medical intervention helps or assists the marriage act to achieve pregnancy, it may be considered moral; if the intervention replaces the marriage act in order to engender life, it is not moral.”

In June 2024, The Southern Baptist Convention passed a resolution that states in part: “All children are a gift from the Lord regardless of the circumstances of their conception. … Though all children are to be fully respected and protected, not all technological means of assisting human reproduction are equally God-honoring or morally justified. … In Vitro Fertilization most often participates in the destruction of embryonic human life and increasingly engages in dehumanizing methods for determining suitability for life and genetic sorting, based on notions of genetic fitness and parental preferences. … Southern Baptists [should] only utilize reproductive technologies consistent with that affirmation especially in the number of embryos generated in the IVF process.”

While most other Christian denominations have not yet issued formal statements on IVF (Emma Waters, writing in 2024, notes, “Most Protestant denominations in our country still lack a biblically informed stance on childbearing, infertility, and the most basic reproductive technology”), Catholics and Southern Baptists have taken such strong stances on IVF because of the harms this process does to the human person.

Even the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) acknowledges this. The CDC has as one of its functions the development, collection, retrieval, and cataloging of public health data. This latter function is conducted and implemented by the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) which, “is the federal statistical agency responsible for the collection and dissemination of the nation’s vital and health statistics.”

One of the NCHS reporting forms is the U.S. Standard Certificate of Live Birth most recently revised in 2003, (previously revised in 1989). Of significant consequence regarding the IVF issue promoted by President Trump’s IVF EO is Box 41 of the U.S. Standard Certificate of Live Birth Form:

“41. RISK FACTORS IN THIS PREGNANCY. … Pregnancy resulted from infertility treatment — If yes, check all that apply ... Fertility-enhancing drugs, Artificial insemination or Intrauterine insemination ... Assisted reproductive technology (e.g., in vitro fertilization (IVF), gamete intrafallopian transfer (GIFT))”

Prior to 2003 no questions on the U.S. Standard Certificate of Live Birth addressed Artificial Reproductive Technology (ART) (which should not be confused with a birth certificate parents receive). However, by 2003 the practice of ART was so prevalent, and the complications so widespread and frequent compared to non-ART childbirth, that the NCHS added Box 41 to capture this information.

To learn some of the problems with ART, examine what the CDC published in February 2022.

• “In 2018, a total of 203,119 ART procedures … were performed in 456 U.S. fertility clinics. … These procedures resulted in 73,831 live-birth deliveries. … In 2018, ART contributed to 2.0% of all infants born in the United States.”

• “[I]nfants conceived with ART contributed to 4.2% of all low birthweight (<2,500 g) infants. Among ART-conceived infants, 18.3% were low birthweight compared with 8.3% among all infants. ART-conceived infants contributed to 5.1% of all preterm (gestational age

• “The percentage of low birthweight among singletons was 8.3% among ART-conceived infants and 6.6% among all infants born. The percentage of preterm births among ART-conceived singleton infants was 14.9% compared with 8.3% among all singleton infants.”

• “ART … treatment is associated with potential health risks for both mothers and infants. … Obstetric risks to the mothers from a multiple-birth pregnancy include higher rates of caesarean delivery, maternal hemorrhage, pregnancy-related hypertension, and gestational diabetes. … Risks to the infants include preterm birth, low birthweight, birth defects, developmental disability, and death. … [S]ingleton infants conceived with ART might have a higher risk for low birthweight and prematurity than singletons not conceived with ART. … [T]his higher risk might be associated with singleton births resulting from multiple-embryo transfers.”

Because of the physical and moral risks, having the government promote or mandate coverage of IVF would be a mistake. In January 2025, Catholic Bishop Michael F. Burbidge of the diocese of Arlington, Virginia wrote a pastoral letter regarding IVF and public policy. He notes:

“[E]lected officials are rushing to support an IVF industry that kills or freezes hundreds of thousands of embryonic children every year and facilitates the exploitative practice of surrogacy. … [T]his ignores the moral injustices at the core of the IVF process and the fatal consequences for so many of the embryonic children brought about through that process.

“The Church stands in solidarity with all those experiencing infertility and proclaims the dignity of all who come into existence as a result of IVF; however, she stands absolutely opposed to any federal or state governmental action that would involve every citizen with a grave moral injustice.

“A federal IVF entitlement or mandate would represent … an illegitimate handing over to Caesar the things of God (cf. Mk. 12:17). … Like the contraception mandate in the Affordable Care Act, such government action would also threaten religious liberty for the millions of Christians and others for whom both faith and reason make involvement with IVF impossible, and such a state mandate would inevitably result in the widespread coercion of healthcare workers and the evisceration of their professional right of conscience.”

Make no mistake, married couples need ethical, effective alternatives to IVF. Last week, the Catholic Medical Association petitioned President Trump to reject IVF and offered an actual solution to the infertility crisis in America:

“In contrast to IVF, Restorative Reproductive Medicine (RRM), provides a thorough evaluation of the cause of infertility and treatment to address it. RRM methods, including NaPro Technology, FEMM and NeoFertility, consistently lead to a higher rate of successful pregnancies with reduced risks and financial costs compared to IVF.”

President Trump’s main promise to the nation was to “make it easier for loving and longing mothers and fathers to have children.” Unless someone knows otherwise, it was not a guaranteed income contract to IVF clinic owners. IVF is only one means of helping couples conceive a child, and it is ineffective and unsafe.

President Trump’s EO directed his team to make recommendations regarding IVF policy within 90 days. Those recommendations, at the very least, should include:

• A review of the effectiveness and costs of IVF compared to restorative fertility approaches, including how many human embryos are destroyed, experimented upon, or stored indefinitely as opposed to the number born; the need for nationwide reporting by the IVF industry; the prevalence of “selecting” (i.e. aborting) embryonic unborn children based on sex, race, growth, disability, and even eye color.
• A review of informed consent practices within IVF and modification of these practices to include information regarding the likelihood of a woman achieving pregnancy; the risks of cryopreservation for embryos; a description of the facility’s practice regarding selecting some embryos as viable (and others as not) for transfer; a description of the known and potential risks to both the embryo and the mother; the likelihood of that individual patient carrying a child to term through IVF; a description of the treatments; a notice that if using anonymous gametes, those genes may have a negative impact on the child; the effect on treatment, embryos, and validity of informed consent should divorce, separation, inability to pay fee for storage, or death occur, and a total cost.
• A review of current public policies that adversely affect fertility (especially among persons aged 15-24).
• Research to discover the root causes of America’s infertility crisis.

All of this should be done prior to expanding IVF so that the president’s team can offer a solution that will help couples have children while making America healthy again.