Federal IVF Mandate Would Be Dangerous, Arlington’s Catholic Bishop Warns

A federal mandate around in vitro fertilization (IVF) would be dangerous, cautioned Catholic Bishop Michael Burbidge in a new letter released Wednesday.

Burbidge, who oversees Virginia’s Arlington diocese just across the river from Washington, D.C., did not mention President Donald Trump by name, but he warned against Trump’s recent support for the assisted reproductive technology.

IVF is a procedure used by couples with infertility where embryos are created in a medical lab setting, and then an attempt is made to manually implant the embryo into a woman’s uterus to kickstart a pregnancy.

The Catholic Church opposes IVF because of the ethical concerns around the many additional embryos who are created but do not survive the process or are frozen indefinitely and also because IVF separates the procreative act from conception.

“In recent months, some in the public square have advocated a greater role of government in providing IVF as an entitlement, either by means of direct funding or by compelling health insurance companies to do so,” Burbidge wrote in his letter.

“In a misguided attempt to respond to challenges surrounding marriage, family formation, falling birth rates, and fertility, elected 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,” the bishop said. “Some even claim that mandating or promoting IVF is pro-life because the process may produce children, but this 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.”

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During his campaign, President Donald Trump embraced IVF, clashing with Republican judges on Alabama’s state Supreme Court, who ruled early last year that embryos created via IVF were to be considered people. The ruling left the state’s fertility clinics and IVF patients scrambling as it meant a person could potentially be sued for destroying embryos.

Trump referred to himself as the “father of IVF” after announcing his administration would preserve access to the fertility procedure and even have it covered by the government or insurance companies.

“We want more babies,” Trump said.

Burbidge cautioned that a federal IVF entitlement or mandate would be “an illegitimate handing over to Caesar the things of God” and compared it to the contraception mandate in the Affordable Care Act, warning it would inevitably infringe on health care workers’ conscience rights.

Instead, the bishop said, the federal government can do other things to support Americans having families, including encouraging earlier marriage and helping with pregnancy and fertility expenses.

“It is simply wrong that federal healthcare policy socializes the cost of sterility while privatizing the basic costs of pregnancy and childbirth or the cost of restorative fertility treatments for conditions like endometriosis,” Burbidge said.

As far as IVF goes, the bishop urged elected officials to ensure IVF clinics follow “basic health and safety regulations that would minimize the harms associated with their industry.”

He also suggested mandating “straightforward informed consent disclosures for prospective parents that clearly convey the ethical and medical consequences of the IVF process and effective life-affirming alternatives.”

Burbidge noted that European countries regulate IVF and surrogacy more strictly than the U.S. does.

“In our time, I have observed with pastoral concern the growing acceptance of IVF as an apparent solution to the heartache of infertility,” Burbidge wrote.

“I recognize that what the Church teaches about IVF represents a ‘hard saying’ that is convenient for many to ignore,” Burbidge said, citing John’s Gospel, “and that many Catholics and others of goodwill may have never encountered the Church’s teaching on this issue.”

The bishop acknowledged that fertility and IVF are “incredibly sensitive” topics that affect many people and deserve to be treated with “compassion” and emphasized that “every person has immeasurable value regardless of how he or she was conceived.”