The Dark Shadow of Eugenics

Proponents of in vitro fertilization invariably draw our attention to the ideal candidate for this procedure: a married woman who has tried to have children but can’t. How can one object? Aren’t children blessings? Isn’t a couple’s desire to bring a child into a loving household something beautiful, something to be encouraged? Yes, says Jemimah Wilson (“Approaching IVF By the Back Door,” Ad Fontes, Summer 2024). But we must not deceive ourselves about reproductive technology. It is fraught with seductions.

Wilson spells out the moral logic of IVF: It separates “the advent of new life from the one-flesh union of marriage” and replaces the sexual act with an enterprise of “technical creation.” By moving procreation into the technological realm, we’ve made it available for all kinds of uses, evaluations, and interventions. For example, unlike sex between spouses, IVF and other techniques cost money. They operate within markets.

Indeed, many advocates of IVF chastise those of us who object, pointing to the great expense borne by those who seek to have children in this way. Isn’t it a sign of their commitment to having children? But surely the introduction of price tags into procreation is morally troubling. And ripe with temptation. Some commercial sperm banks market the desirable traits of their sperm donors. IVF clinics vie for clients, touting their track records. This need not lead parents who use artificial means to think of their children as consumer products. But it certainly encourages them in this direction.

Wilson recognizes the role of economic thinking, but her emphasis falls on the therapeutic. Once we’ve separated sex from reproduction, why not ensure the best results? Wilson considers the practice of pre-implantation genetic testing (PGT). In Australia, where she lives, primary care physicians recommend that couples undergo genetic testing to screen for rare genetic diseases such as Fragile X Syndrome. If prospective parents are shown to have a propensity toward one or another of these diseases, they are encouraged to use IVF so that technicians can screen out embryos with bad genetic conditions. Note: These are fertile couples. In this setting, IVF is part of a eugenic therapy designed to prevent children with these diseases from being born.

Wilson observes that traditional thinking treats marriage as “the normative condition for bearing children.” Responsible mothers and fathers are those who marry before having children. The old-fashioned term “legitimate child” reflects this normative condition. The legitimacy flows from the marital bond, not from any quality or aspect of the child.

IVF encourages us to change our calculus. Because the embryo is outside the womb, it is available for “treatment.” Now, “responsible” parents are those who avail themselves of techniques to ensure good genes (the literal meaning of eugenics).

Wilson draws out the difference. “The condition under which the child is brought into the world through PGT and IVF is this: that the child does not bear in her genes a sign of the suffering she will bring to those around her. She is certified free from defect and is therefore admitted to life.” Put simply, the IVF industry signs off on the embryo. It has good genes. Thumbs up: The child is legitimate.

Nobody in Australia is required to get tested to discover whether he is at risk of passing on a genetic disease. No woman is forced to employ IVF. Autonomy is respected, which is a good thing. But evil can come under the sign of choice just as it can at the tip of a sword. Wilson notes that IVF, with or without PGT, requires culling embryos deemed less ideal for a successful pregnancy. Put bluntly: Unlike sexual intercourse, IVF requires deciding who shall receive the gift of life. Wilson quotes Oliver O’Donovan: “When we start making human beings, we necessarily stop loving them.” Wilson adds: “When we start making human beings, we start deciding that some human beings ought not to live at all.”

We can limit the reach of Mammon. The law can prevent children who are produced by IVF from being bought and sold. But the eugenic logic of IVF is inescapable. This dark reality haunts the technological promise of providing children to the infertile or forestalling the transmission of debilitating conditions and crippling diseases. Moreover, as Wilson recognizes, the therapeutic imperative drives us toward the ongoing expansion of IVF. In our free societies, we won’t be compelled to use IVF. But a changed conception of responsible parenting will place moral pressure on the next generation to avail themselves of the latest techniques to ensure the best outcomes. The pressure toward genetic testing and IVF will be especially strong among the well-educated, who already lavish attention and resources on the few children they end up having.

Wilson ends with a word of grace. The old-fashioned way of receiving children not of our own making entails risk. In a real sense, a newborn, though a powerful sign of life, is also an image of suffering, as parents of healthy, normal children know, to say nothing of those who raise children with grave genetic defects. So it was for the Virgin Mary. Wilson quotes Luke 2:24–25, which contains Simeon’s prophecy that the Christ child will be set for the fall, and that Mary, too, shall suffer: “Yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also.” As Wilson ponders the mystery of new life burdened with the weight of sin’s punishment, she expresses confidence that “Mary understood that it was her child, and not the sign of death, that would have the last word.”