In addition to encouraging employers to provide IVF benefits, the Trump administration included natural options as a possibility. This is how some pro-life groups and people behind the scenes have worked to mitigate the damage to innocent human life that the promised/threatened IVF policy would do.
I wrote in The Lifeline newsletter earlier this year about a New York Times attack on restorative reproductive medicine.
The New York Times doesn’t even take the time to get into its article on restorative reproductive medicine before suggesting it is just another wacky/dangerous RFK Jr. fake-medicine pet project (fringe is in the subhead, not to mention scary quotes throughout once you get into the supposed piece). In truth, restorative reproductive medicine is something most of women’s medicine isn’t: actual medical care. It’s a doctor, looking at a patient and her needs and obstacles, and working toward actual solutions for the sake of her health and that of a potential child (who she might want to be having, but can’t on her own, without resorting to IVF or surrogacy).
It’s called: following the science.
It’s a maddening piece from the Times. Women, men, families — all deserve better.
For a little honesty about IVF, watch my recent interview with Ericka Andersen about her experience with it here.
And this was in another edition:
A Journey to Life for Our Times
Allow me a minute of personal privilege — of pure delight. Last week, as some of you know, Maddy Kearns and Nicholas Tomaino met their daughter for the first time. First of all, Maddy and Nick met at National Review. So that’s a pursuit of happiness that is the stuff of family. Monsignor Roger Landry celebrated their wedding Mass. He’s actually become over the years an unofficial chaplain to NR; he’s done wedding prep and the big day for many a young couple, one at least of whom came through the House that William F. Buckley Jr. built.
You may know a little about Maddy’s motherhood because of her piece in the Free Press over the weekend. If you haven’t, please do read it. And not only read it, but reread it and share it. It’s both an authoritative reporting piece on alternatives to in vitro fertilization and a deeply personal reflection on her own navigation of the scandal of women’s health care today. As she signed off, she gave us marching orders by example: We need more of this — information, truth about medicine, courageous young people and doctors. And more reporting on beacons of a culture of life and civilization of love in our midst.
Can We Please Be Honest About IVF?
This item is not about judging parents or looking down on children because of how they came into the world. It is about informed consent. Couples struggling with infertility deserve to know what they are getting into when they consider assisted reproductive technologies.
People who vote pro-life have been horrified to learn what they didn’t know, when it was too late to make different decisions.
Have you ever gotten a monthly payment reminder on your frozen unborn children? That’s not something Ericka Andersen and her husband thought about when they decided to pursue in vitro fertilization. Ericka doesn’t want others to suffer what they are — determining what to do. They are going to have the embryos adopted.
Ericka is quick to say embryo adoption should not be a plan going in; it’s how they are making the best of the situation they’re all in.
The Andersens have benefitted from IVF, grateful for their children. But they also know now there are other ways to deal with and treat infertility.
Ericka has written for the Wall Street Journal, First Things, Christianity Today, and her own Substack about IVF, informed by her experience and the extensive research she’s done since embarking on the journey. She talked with me about what needs to be more widely known when it comes to infertility and options — and what IVF involves and means practically, scientifically, and morally — here.
By the way, just to underscore something critical: Going back to Maddy and Nick — their Catholic faith is not the only reason to oppose IVF. Being pro-life is not the only reason. It’s false hope in all too many cases. And there are alternatives that work better, don’t have the same moral concerns, and even cost less. As we wait for the Trump administration’s promised boon to IVF, Republicans pay attention. We need more of the alternatives, more stories like Maddy and Nick’s, more informed consent — more actual, honest hope.
As the New York Times mentioned earlier in the day, the president did not mention restorative reproductive medicine, but this was included in a White House release, regarding encouragements to employers:
These benefit packages can address the continuum of fertility-related services, from those that address the root causes of infertility to IVF.
For some further non-MAGA fertility reading:
Emma Waters wrote for Heritage: Why the IVF Industry Must Be Regulated
The Ethics and Public Policy Institute published this: Treating Infertility: The New Frontier of Reproductive Medicine.