For years now, the leading cause of death in the United States has been abortion. Of course, it’s not reported like that—if you look up “leading cause of death,” you’ll read that it’s heart disease (680,981 lives lost in 2023), followed by cancer (613,352) and then unintentional injuries (222,698). But that’s not actually true, considering that unborn persons are indeed persons and abortion takes around a million lives each year here in the US (1,037,000 in 2023).
But, according to an analysis of new data from the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology (SART), abortion is no longer the leading cause of death because the number of deaths of embryos as part of the typical IVF (in vitro fertilization) process now tops the staggering number of lives lost to abortion.
As more and more couples tragically struggle with infertility, the demand for IVF has increased. Reportedly, “in 2023, there were 432,641 IVF cycles at 371 reporting clinics, but only 95,860 babies were born.” When the numbers are broken down, this means in just one year, “an estimated 1,946,884 embryos did not survive to be implanted, and another 1,759,664 were either frozen, destroyed, donated to research, or released for embryo adoption.”
That’s a staggering number of babies, many of whom were intentionally destroyed. (Yes, embryos are persons. Everything that made you “you,” a person made in the image of God, was present right from fertilization—nothing new was added. And, of course, a human embryo can’t be anything but . . . a human! “Embryo” just refers to a specific developmental milestone in a person’s life.) But why are so many destroyed?
Well, as these breakdowns from the companies themselves show, IVF cycles create a large number of embryos, and these “embryos [are] graded and labeled during testing, and those not deemed healthy enough [are] automatically destroyed.” It’s eugenics—filtering out and destroying those deemed “not good enough” to be born.
IVF Attrition Example (Step-by-Step)
Scenario: 19 eggs retrieved
- 15 mature eggs → (after retrieval)
- 12 fertilized embryos → (after fertilization)
- 6 blastocysts → (after blastulation)
- 3 normal embryos → (after PGT-A testing)
With three normal embryos, chances of at least one successful pregnancy are about 95%!
Sample IVF “Funnel”
- 15 Follicles in both ovaries at time of retrieval
- 14 Eggs retrieved from follicles
- 13 Mature eggs
- 10 Mature eggs fertilized with sperm
- 8 Embryos that develop to day 3
- 7 Embryos that develop to blastocyst stage
- 3 Embryos chromosomally “normal” after PGT testing
- 2 Embryos implant in the uterus
- 1 Live birth
Live Action breaks down what these charts mean:
Based on these charts, there is an average of 10-12 embryos created per IVF cycle, but fertility businesses often list anywhere from seven embryos up to as many as 17 per cycle. Using a conservative nine embryos as the average number created per cycle, at 432,641 cycles, that totals about 3,893,769 embryos created via IVF in 2023 alone. Yet only 95,860 babies were born.
Here’s how those numbers break down. Up to half of the original 3,893,769, likely did not survive beyond the next two stages: the blastocyst stage and the genetic testing stage. . . .
That’s about 1,946,884 embryos who died or were deliberately killed without being given a chance to be implanted.
Of the remaining estimate of 1,946,884, SART states that 91,360 were automatically “banked” for “future use,” as was the parents’ plan when they began the process. We also know that after being graded, labeled, selected, and transferred, only 95,860 survived to birth.
That leaves 1,759,664 human embryos unaccounted for. They survived to the blastocyst stage and passed genetic testing, but they were then either miscarried, destroyed, donated to researchers (and ultimately destroyed), released for embryo adoption (just 1-6%), or are frozen indefinitely. The data don’t tell us, but we can estimate that at least 1.9 million died before even making it to the implantation or freezing stage of the IVF process, and another 1.7 million are not statistically accounted for.
That’s horrifying. The sheer number of persons destroyed in the typical IVF process highlights the commodification of life, where babies are created only to be destroyed if they aren’t “good enough.” (But who defines “good enough”?)
And, according to another news report, some of those “unaccounted for” persons may end up . . . as jewelry! Yes, you read that right—jewelry! A UK-based company “crafts modern heirloom jewelry for parents who have undergone IVF but can no longer store their unused embryos or feel uncertain about donation.” Hailed as a “gentler way to [honor] what [they] created,” parents are offered their choice of rings, pendants, bracelets, and charms encasing the embryos they decided to destroy! Human life becomes nothing more than a macabre decoration.
Christians must speak out against the intentional killing of babies, whether those babies are forming in the womb or in a petri dish. Each individual embryo is a person made in the image of God, fearfully and wonderfully knit together by him and deserving of life. They are not a commodity to be kept or discarded at the whim of the parents or a technician in a lab.
Psalm 139:13–16 reads, “For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, And that my soul knows very well. My frame was not hidden from You, When I was made in secret, And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, The days fashioned for me, When as yet there were none of them.”
