Podcast Summary: The Isabel Brown Show

Episode Title: Millions of IVF Babies Are Never Born: They’re Frozen, Experimented On, or Thrown Away
Host: Isabel Brown (The Daily Wire)
Guest: Katy Faust, Founder of Them Before Us
Date: November 18, 2025

Brief Overview

This episode, one of the most-requested by Isabel Brown’s audience, takes a deep dive into the ethical, societal, and personal implications of IVF (in vitro fertilization) and related bio-technologies. The discussion centers on the mass creation and destruction, freezing, or experimentation on embryos—framed by the hosts as human beings—analyzing both the moral and policy controversies facing society. Isabel is joined by Katy Faust, noted child rights advocate and founder of Them Before Us, for a critical exploration of "big fertility," the evolution of reproductive technology (including designer babies and IVG), parental rights, and the pressing need for a child-first perspective in reproductive ethics.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Human Cost and Ethics of IVF

• Embryo Creation & Disposal:
  • IVF creates numerous embryos, very few of which become live births. Most are frozen, destroyed, experimented upon, or discarded.
  • Quote (Isabel, 04:21): “The general estimate… is that 93% of all embryos—translation babies, translation human beings—that we create through IVF are never born.”
  • Based on international data and estimates, around 114 million embryos have been created for IVF over 40 years; ~8 million were born, leaving ~106 million not brought to term.
• Legal Precedent:
  • Cites the Alabama Supreme Court’s landmark ruling declaring embryos legal people (06:45), sparking questions about personhood, abortion, IVF policy, and human rights.
• Framing:
  • Isabel and Katy stress using “human beings” rather than “embryos” to emphasize the moral gravity.

2. The Machine of ‘Big Fertility’ and Child Rights

• Katy Faust’s Perspective (13:38-16:26):
  • “IVF just means you're making little lives in a laboratory. That’s what it means.”
  • IVF, according to Katy, is a leading offender in violating children’s rights to life and their mother and father.
  • Children’s rights are often lost in favor of adult desires; mass production and selection of embryos commodifies children.
  • “IVF destroys maybe four times the number of embryos every year than Planned Parenthood does.” (Heritage Foundation report)
  • Embryos are selected, graded, filtered for traits, and most are never born—a process Katy calls mass targeting of children’s rights.

3. Advancements & Slippery Slopes: IVG and Designer Babies

• Emergence of IVG (In Vitro Gametogenesis):
  • Allows egg cells to be created from other body cells, meaning adults (including same-sex couples or a single individual) could “manufacture” children.
  • Katy (19:10-20:11): “You could take the skin cell from one man and the sperm from that same man, and he would be mother and father to a child... You have another terrible aspect called generational compression... in essence create great, great grandchildren from one embryo in the course of like two weeks. We are talking about tinkering with humanity in a way that we have never been able to dream before.”
• Eugenics and Gene Editing:
  • Embryo selection already includes sex, appearance, and health traits; new ventures aim to allow gene editing (CRISPR) to design children or “eradicate disease”—which the hosts liken to eugenics.
  • Katy (31:03): “You want Gattaca? Yeah, you got Gattaca. Baby Gattaca on steroids... This is about a super race.”

4. Societal, Cultural, and Feminist Implications

• Erasure of Womanhood:
  • Technologies aim to eliminate female biological involvement via artificial eggs/wombs; Isabel notes “we’re never seeing men erased” but women reduced to egg providers or “rental units.” (21:00-22:00)
• Feminist & LGBT Lobbies:
  • Some feminists fight surrogacy, but their influence is waning compared to the push for “adult equality” by LGBT advocates.
  • Faust’s framing: “All of these things ultimately need to come down to child protection... There is always a child victim. The child is always being forced to lose something that they have a natural right to.”

5. The ‘Right’ to Children vs. Children’s Rights

• Ethical Framing:
  • The assertion is that adults don’t have a “right” to children; children have rights to life and to their parents.
  • Katy (26:46): “Do adults have a right to a child? ...That doesn’t mean you have a right to any child, and it doesn’t mean you have a right to a child at any cost. Children have rights. They have a right to life. And just like you have a right to the children born to you, children have a right to the people to whom they are born.”
• Policy Proposals:
  • Frame fertility and family policy from the perspective of the child as the victim, with adult desires subordinate to child rights (28:00-29:00).

6. The IVF Industry & Predatory Practices

• Infertility “Scam”:
  • Discussion of how doctors label many couples with “unexplained infertility,” pushing IVF over investigating treatable causes (PCOS, endometriosis, etc.)
  • Financial pressures mount, especially on young women.
  • Isabel (34:35): “I have to wonder how many families are being scammed the same way. We'll learn more from Katy...”
• Restorative Approaches:
  • Faust urges looking into “Restorative Reproductive Medicine” to diagnose and treat underlying fertility issues, emphasizing lifestyle changes and early marriage.

7. The Dilemma of Frozen Embryos

• Emotional Paralysis:
  • Many parents, often pro-life and Christian, are left with “frozen children” they cannot discard, donate, or implant, leading to lifelong guilt and anguish.
  • Katy (44:43): "I've been absolutely paralyzed for the last five, six years. I'm just agonized over this, but I don't know what to do. And the answer is, there is. There is no solution at that point where the child is not going to lose either their right to life or their right to their mother and father."
• Dehumanization & Commercialization:
  • Commercialization reaches new levels, with companies offering to turn embryos into “keepsake jewelry” (Blossom Keepsakes), which both host and guest find horrifying.

8. Policy and Cultural Recommendations

• Ban Embryo Freezing:
  • Katy argues for a policy ban on embryo freezing: “If you're going to use IVF, you immediately implant whatever child you currently make and there's none in frozen. Because the truth is kids go into the freezer and they very rarely come out again.” (48:41)
• Parental Responsibility:
  • Like unplanned pregnancies, the solution is “parenting”—parents should implant and raise their children rather than leave them frozen, destroy, or donate.
• Societal Shift:
  • Need for a cultural understanding that “we do not have a right to children—children have a right to life and their mother and father.” (50:30)

9. The Work of Them Before Us

• Current Initiatives:
  • State-by-state child rights database
  • Exposing Human Rights Campaign’s policies impacting children
  • Co-producing a documentary with Focus on the Family about child-centric ethics
  • Launching a coalition to challenge gay marriage, arguing that redefining marriage leads to acceptance of non-traditional parenthood, harming children’s rights

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “We are not talking about clumps of cells. We are... talking about embryos, which is a developmental stage of humanity, that we have intentionally created unique human beings with their own DNA.”
  — Isabel Brown (03:23)

• “IVF destroys maybe four times the number of embryos every year than Planned Parenthood does.”
  — Katy Faust (14:34)

• “What we're doing is we're mass producing little lives so that we can screen out the ones that don't fit what we want in terms of our specific child...”
  — Katy Faust (15:19)

• “What we're talking about is beyond Frankenstein. We are talking about tinkering with humanity in a way that we have never been able to dream before.”
  — Katy Faust (19:50)

• “Children are not commodities. You can't just create new human beings because you want to go out and purchase a designer item at the mall that day.”
  — Isabel Brown (25:40)

• “It is a society characterized by injustice if we expect the weak to sacrifice for the strong. But that is routinely what we've been doing in the world of big fertility...”
  — Katy Faust (50:34)

Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:30 – 04:21: Isabel sets the stage on the ethical conversation around IVF; staggering statistics on unimplanted embryos.
• 06:45 – 09:00: Discussion of the Alabama Supreme Court embryo personhood case.
• 13:38 – 16:26: Katy Faust outlines core ethical concerns: rights to life, mother, and father.
• 17:40 – 20:11: Faust explains IVG and its implications for humanity’s future.
• 22:11 – 23:57: The intersection of surrogacy, feminism, and LGBT parenthood rights.
• 26:46 – 29:15: The myth of the adult “right to children” versus children’s rights.
• 31:03 – 34:35: OpenAI’s Altman, gene editing, and “Gattaca on steroids.”
• 38:01 – 41:17: Underlying causes of infertility and restorative medicine alternatives.
• 44:43 – 48:04: The agonies facing families with frozen embryos, and the ethical dead ends they face.
• 48:41 – 51:09: Policy and cultural solutions to the ethical dilemmas of IVF.
• 51:26 – 53:10: Faust on her organization’s activism and upcoming projects.

Conclusion

This episode challenges listeners to reconsider the mainstream narratives on IVF, surrogacy, and the pursuit of parenthood at all costs. Both Isabel Brown and Katy Faust urge society to recognize and defend the inherent rights of children—especially their right to life and to know their biological parents—and to question the commodification and technological manipulation of human life. The show closes by highlighting practical policy steps and cultural shifts necessary to protect future generations.

For more on Katy Faust and Them Before Us, links and resources are provided in the episode’s notes.