U.S. Bishops Defend Life Against Expanded IVF Coverage
They told the Labor Department that U.S. IVF practice kills or freezes at least as many preborn children as abortion—possibly over a million a year.
On July 13, 2026, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, joined by other Catholic organizations, urged the U.S. Department of Labor to reject any expansion of insurance coverage that would include in vitro fertilization.
In a formal comment on a proposed rule on excepted fertility benefits, the bishops warned that IVF destroys human embryonic life and called instead for coverage limited to treatments that respect the dignity of the unborn and the natural path of procreation.
“IVF, especially as practiced in the U.S., kills or freezes at least as many preborn children as abortion — at a magnitude of hundreds of thousands or perhaps over a million per year,” the bishops’ letter stated.
Embryos Treated as Products
The comment described how a typical IVF cycle produces multiple fertilized eggs or zygotes—human beings from the first moment of their existence. Most of those embryonic children die during the process, are discarded, or are frozen indefinitely, the bishops noted.
They warned that the technique “commodifies our fellow human beings and treats them like products and property.” They further held that IVF violates “the exclusivity of the marriage bond in its most unique context and unnaturally separates the procreative aspect from the unitive aspect of the marital act.”
That teaching is not new. The Church has long affirmed that a child is a gift arising within the marital embrace, not a product manufactured outside it. By placing that truth before federal regulators, the bishops sought to keep public policy from underwriting a practice that severs procreation from the unitive meaning of marriage and subjects the smallest human lives to selection, storage, and disposal.
Fertility Help Without Destroying Life
The filing did not oppose every expansion of fertility-related benefits. The bishops supported coverage that helps couples facing infertility through means that respect unborn life and the integrity of natural procreation. What they firmly rejected was any inclusion of IVF itself among covered benefits.
By drawing a clear line between restorative, life-affirming care and a technology that systematically generates surplus embryos destined for death or indefinite freezing, the bishops asked the Labor Department to refuse a policy that would normalize and subsidize the destruction of preborn children. Their intervention insists that genuine compassion for couples who suffer infertility cannot come at the cost of the lives of the unborn.