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Welcome to breakpoint, a daily look at an ever changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth. For the Colson Center, I'm John Stonestreet. According to Ryan Anderson, President of the Ethics and Public Policy center, the Trump administration's IVF policy unveiled on Thursday is perhaps the least bad that we could have hoped for. But least bad is still bad. With his long awaited or dreaded follow up to his earlier executive order, the President announced a plan to dramatically reduce the cost of Nvidia in vitro fertilization, provide insurance coverage for fertility treatments including in vitro fertilization, and increase access to it. According to the President, you can't get more pro life than this, But IVF is not pro life. Despite what was said during the President's press conference on Thursday, IVF is not even pro fertility. Yes, born children do result from ivf, but the way it's overwhelmingly and almost universally practiced means that far more lives are lost in the process than survive as students for life. President Kristen Hawkins posted on X in response to the announcement. The IVF industry kills more preborn babies than the abortion industry doesn't cure infertility and practices eugenics. The embryos that are produced by IVF are subjected to screening prior to implantation, which checks for everything from the desired sex of the embryo to potential genetic and health conditions. Any embryo that's deemed not viable is destroyed. Advocates of IVF can call this widely accepted and practiced step in the process whatever they want. The best word for it is eugenics. After the screening process, the viable embryos are then prioritized for implantation. If pregnancy is achieved, the remaining embryos are considered to be excess, a population that numbers in the millions and exceeds the number of embryos that are born. Most of these are stored and frozen, literally suspended in time. Many are just destroyed. Some are donated to medical research. A small number of these little image bearers might be given up for adoption, something known as snowflake adoption. And the ethical problems with IVF do not end there. Legally, embryos created through IVF are considered property and therefore without rights. They are frequently fought over in custody battles. Even more significant is the dramatic lack of oversight and regulation of the industry. During ivf, embryos are thoroughly screened, but the adults involved are not. So virtually anyone can choose to participate in creating more embryonic image bearers for any reason. Now, many of course, operate from the good God given desire to have children, but some are more nefarious. Also, any individual or relational arrangement can choose to participate in ivf, which will rob a child of his or her own mother or father. As Ryan Anderson summarized in an article at First Things the bulk of the Trump IVF policy entails two main lowering the prices on IVF and other fertility treatments by lowering the cost of key drugs through most favored nation pricing and creating a new optional employer fertility insurance benefit. In other words, the goal is to make IVF cheaper and more accessible. But making IVF cheaper and more accessible, while expanding insurance coverage for the practice only, will increase the number of children that are discarded or frozen or orphaned from their mother or father. IVF in America is not in fact about fertility. It's an industry a radically under regulated selling of goods and services. And in the vast majority of cases, what's being sold as goods and services are people. The good intentions of some who participate cannot change what this under regulated, unethical and dehumanizing industry has truly become. Now, to be fair, there are four positive aspects to the President's plan that was announced on Thursday. First, there is no IVF mandate for employers or insurance policies to cover ivf. Nothing like what President Obama attempted to do with contraception and his contraceptive mandate. Second, nothing in the plan is to be paid for by taxes. Each of these first two things protect conscience rights. Third, there was no aspersion cast on people of conscience who oppose IVF on ethical grounds. Too often, that's how these kinds of things go forward, by ridiculing, mocking or dismissing consciousness the real concerns that American citizens have. Fourth, the new employer fertility benefit can be customized to not include ivf, but to instead include ethical fertility treatments like restorative reproductive medicine. That's good news. Still, at heart, the President's plan is really about making this industry cheaper and more efficient. And that demonstrates that this administration did not listen to the critics of ivf. It is far more efficient to collect as many eggs and create as many embryos as possible, but that's led to more lives lost annually through IVF than in all the Planned Parenthood abortion clinics combined. A far more ethical approach would be to create and implant one embryo at a time. But that would not be efficient, nor would it be cost effective. But whenever that kind of language is applied to a person to begin with, something has gone seriously wrong. A former professor of mine would often say that whenever you put a price tag on something that's priceless, you immediately cheapen it. Every single human life is priceless, including every single life that's created through ivf. Every human being is made in the image and likeness of God as one couple who've allowed two children a chance to live and thrive through Snowflake adoption told me children should never be made and then sacrificed so adults can just get what they want. For the Colson Center, I'm John Stonestreet with Breakpoint. If you're a fan of Breakpoint, please leave us a review wherever you download your podcast. And for a version of this commentary that you can download and share with others, go to breakpoint.org.
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If you listen to Breakpoint, I trust it's because it provides you with clarity about what's going on in culture today. That's the goal. To help Christians view our ever changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth so they can live like Christians today. It takes ongoing work for the Breakpoint team to make this happen day in and day out, and this requires ongoing support. Our Cornerstone Monthly Partners offer the most consistent level of support by giving monthly at whatever amount they choose. Before the end of October, we're asking the Lord to provide 220 more cornerstone monthly Partners to support the ongoing production of Breakpoint. In return, they receive exclusive benefits from us to help us continue bringing clarity to Christians everywhere. Become a Cornerstone Monthly partner today@colsoncenter.org October.