In the course of critiquing in-vitro fertilization (IVF) in my lectures, I am often confronted with a deeply personal question: “Do you think that children born through IVF are human beings?”
The question typically comes from a parent or grandparent of a child born through IVF or surrogacy, and it carries an emotional weight far greater than the theoretical debates of a classroom seminar. It’s no longer an abstract issue — it’s about a child with a name and a face, a beloved individual.
On the surface, the answer is straightforward: of course, children conceived through IVF or surrogacy are human beings. Disagreeing with the method by which life is conceived does not diminish the humanity of the resulting child. Just as children conceived through casual, loveless encounters are no less human, a fertilized egg leading to birth is indisputably a human person.
But the question has a deeper complexity. While I affirm the humanity of children born through these means, the technologies themselves often fail to do so. IVF and surrogacy inherently treat the child as a product rather than a person — as an object to be designed, selected, or discarded, rather than a subject of inherent worth.
This perspective is often overlooked, even by Christians. For many, the moral concerns surrounding IVF extend no further than the ethical dilemmas posed by surplus embryos, which are frozen or destroyed. Even that concern is uncommon, as the joy of a couple overcoming infertility tends to overshadow all other considerations. Few pause to ask how these technologies shape societal attitudes toward children and conception itself.
Our cultural context compounds the issue. Children are increasingly seen as burdens — costly, career-inhibiting, and risky in an uncertain world. Against this backdrop, the desire of young couples to have children is often celebrated uncritically. While the desire to have children is natural and good, our highly technological world can elevate this desire to a supreme moral justification, distorting our collective moral imagination.
This distortion is evident in the commercial and legal frameworks surrounding IVF and surrogacy. Laws treat embryos and children as objects of transaction, transforming the relationship between parent and child into one defined by contracts and consumer expectations. What happens when an embryo tests positive for Down syndrome? Is it a person with rights or a defective product to be discarded? And what of children born who do not meet parental expectations? Are they bound by natural obligations, or does a legal agreement dictate their fate? These unsettling questions highlight the commodification of human life inherent in these practices.
The paradox of IVF lies in its simultaneous affirmation and negation of human dignity. It arises from the most profound and beautiful human longing — the desire of a man and woman to create life together. Yet it relies on processes that reduce life to a product, a tragedy emblematic of our modern, technological age.
So, do I regard children born through IVF as human? Absolutely, without question. But tragically, the society that enables these technologies often fails to uphold the same truth. This is the ethical and existential dilemma we must confront in our age of reproductive innovation