"Evangelical tradition has built a public identity around being pro-family and pro-children, and many adherents are inclined to see I.V.F. positively..."

"... because it creates more children.... But the Alabama decision 'is a very morally honest opinion,' said Andrew T. Walker, associate professor of Christian ethics and public theology at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. The ruling, he said, shows the direct line of reasoning between belief that life begins at conception, and opposition to abortion and I.V.F. 'It’s going to force conservative Christians to reckon with potentially their own complicity in the in vitro fertilization industry,' he said. The Roman Catholic Church is perhaps the largest institution in the world that opposes I.V.F. Nearly all modern fertility interventions are morally forbidden. The I.V.F. process typically includes many elements that the Catholic Church opposes. There’s masturbation — an 'offense against chastity,' according to the catechism, or teaching — often required to collect sperm. There’s the fertilization of an egg and sperm outside a woman’s body — outside the sacramental 'conjugal act' of sex between a husband and wife. And there is the creation of multiple embryos that are often destroyed or not implanted — an 'abortive practice.'..."

From "What Christian Traditions Say About I.V.F. Treatments/While Catholic teaching expressly forbids in vitro fertilization, Protestants tend to be more open" (NYT).

ADDED: "IVF" is a new tag. I've added it to posts in the archive, which had previously just had the tag "pregnancy." I'm going to go back and read what's come up over the last 20 years that got my attention. I remember when this subject first emerged in the 1970s, when there was open puzzlement over whether Louise Brown was a human being like the rest of us. These days, it seems, most people take it for granted and feel empathy for people who want children and have fertility problems. In that light, we may lose track of the deep religious objection, which, we may like to forget, is premised on taking sexual intercourse extremely seriously. 

I was just listening to the episode of the podcast "Advisory Opinions" called "Alabama Against IVF," and, if I remember correctly, the discussion assumes that the Alabama court, interpreting the text of a statute, bumbled into making the IVF industry economically unfeasible. But I can see that it's important to realize that there is a religious understanding of it that sees it as genuinely evil, perhaps more evil than abortion.

ALSO: If a frozen embryo is a person — if — then how can those who contributed the genetic material stand in the way of those who would like to adopt the ungestated child — that is, who would like that embryo implanted in their womb and then raised as their own child? How can the agreement between the medical authorities and the genetic parents/"parents" bind the ungestated child?

AND: This question of the status of frozen embryos came up right after the Supreme Court overruled Roe. In July 2022, I had a blog post, "Will post-Roe legislation protect embryos left over from the process of in vitro fertilization?" That was based on a NYT article, "Infertility Patients and Doctors Fear Abortion Bans Could Restrict I.V.F./The new state bans don’t explicitly cover embryos created outside the womb, but legal experts say overturning Roe could make it easier to place controls on genetic testing, storage and disposal of them."