Southern Baptist Convention passes resolution opposing IVF

RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) -- The Southern Baptist Convention passed a resolution during its annual meeting this week expressing its opposition to in-vitro fertilization.

"These are human beings even in the embryonic stage," said Jason Thacker, a Fellow in Christian Ethics and Director of the Research Institute at The Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Thacker served as an advisor to the Committee on Resolutions and said the resolution "overwhelmingly and resoundingly passed." The resolution states in part that the IVF process "routinely creates more embryos than can reasonably be implanted, thus resulting in the continued freezing, stockpiling, and ultimate destruction of human embryos, some of which may also be subjected to medical experimentation".

"There are many people in our churches and in our pews, in our communities, even our own families, who are navigating the devastating realities of infertility. We hope this not only encourages, gives kind of insight and helps to push people to say, 'let's have a conversation about this,' but also reaffirms what Southern Baptists have long held and long believed, that life begins at fertilization and should be honored and cherished all the way through natural death," said Thacker.

Nationally, about 2% of births each year involve IVF, a medical procedure that involves fertilizing an egg with sperm in hopes of creating an embryo.

"What we see is that most patients don't leave behind embryos. They use all of their embryos, and they need all of those embryos just to get to one baby. If they're lucky enough to have even additional embryos left, most of those patients go on to use those embryos to build their family, to have a second child," said Dr. Meaghan Bowling, the Medical Director of IVF at Carolina Conceptions.

CDC data from 2021 states that less than half of all embryo transfers resulted in a live birth.

"It takes so many embryos to get just one baby out of it. There's so much heartbreak and those failed embryo transfers, there's so much hope riding on every embryo that we wish it would make a baby. But so many of them just don't," said Bowling.

Infertility affects 1 in 6 people, with Carolina Conceptions working with 1,500 to 2,000 patients each year.

"(IVF is) a pro-family medical procedure," said Bowling.

"It is creating life, it is helping to bring about biological children for many couples, but at what cost? And what we're trying to say is we have to think not only can we do something, but should we," said Thacker.

Yale Medicine reports that IVF is responsible for more than half a million births globally each year.

The Southern Baptist Convention, which has nearly 13 million members, is the country's largest Protestant group. Thacker said the resolution was spurred in part by both the Dobbs decision and the Alabama Supreme Court decision which recognized frozen embryos as children. The latter's ruling led to closures of IVF clinics in the state and sparked lawmakers there to quickly pass legislation to protect the procedure.

"This may not be a politically popular issue right now, but at the end of the day, Southern Baptists are going to be principled people," said Thacker.

A Pew Research Center Poll in April found that 70% of Americans said people having access to IVF is a good thing, while just 8% said it was bad.

"I think this and a number of other related issues, even the contraception discussions, are really a minority view, even within Republican circles. I think most political strategists will probably say stay away from all these issues in an election year or even otherwise," said Dr. David McLennan, a Political Science Professor at Meredith College.

Last month, Rep. Lindsey Prather was a sponsor of HB 1000, legislation that would protect access to IVF and designate that a "fertilized human egg or human embryo that exists in any form outside the human body" is not a human being.

"Married couples who are having trouble conceiving for all sorts of reasons, in addition, of course, to LGBTQ couples, single women who are looking to become parents, they're across the spectrum. All types of people use IVF in order to start and build their family," said Prather, a Democrat who represents Buncombe County.

House Speaker Tim Moore, who expressed his support for IVF, said earlier this year that there will be no legislation regarding IVF brought up during the session. He further stated that any assertion that access to IVF is in jeopardy is "entirely false."