California’s factory for creating humans

More than a million frozen embryos languish in fertility freezers throughout the United States, and most won’t be rescued. California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom just signed a law that will lead to millions more, with most destined to live and die in tiny ice coffins.

The law requires health insurance to cover in vitro fertilization treatments, including for single parents and LGBTQ couples. It will increase state healthcare premiums by $329 million within two years. However, cost is secondary when the sanctity of life and children’s rights are at stake.

Many IVF treatments result in excess embryos alongside invasive and often unnecessary hormone-driven procedures. Each embryo is human, yet they’re usually treated otherwise after a successful cycle.

In fertility medicine, IVF babies aren’t much more than experiments—until they implant. Yet, once families are “complete,” parents struggle to discard the extra embryos, facing the harsh reality of what this says to the leftovers: “You didn’t make the cut, kid.”

It’s easy to gloss over the consequences of IVF treatments when you’re desperate to have a baby. Many fertility doctors barely mention, or even overlook, that extra embryos are part of the process. But for the Christian, each one of those creations is sacred.

We can look to Psalm 139, where David writes that God’s eyes saw his “unformed body” when “all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.”

As John Calvin said, God knew David (and you!) as a “shapeless mass”—and if He knew us even then, “much less could he now elude his observation.” In short, the unchanging truth of our unchanging God is that our value exists from conception to eternity—even as tiny blastocysts.

As an IVF mom, I wish I had known more when I went through the process. Today, I struggle to separate my 6-year-old asking for a Bluey bandage from the siblings she once nestled near in storage. They were once equals, but now, somehow, they aren’t. Who decided which of them was worth saving?

It wasn’t me, I can tell you that. Parents sit cluelessly in the waiting room while unseen doctors grade and select the best specimen for transfer. These are blue-ribbon babies, curated and mixed to perfection—and it’s utterly dystopian.

Though only the “winners” get a chance at life, every stored embryo is encoded with gender, eye color, and unique DNA. God designed each of us with unique fingerprints, a distinct work of art. Once destroyed or held in a frozen waiting room, that masterpiece of a person is gone. Newsom and others simply don’t grasp the gravity of it.

The California law has many other problems, too. With few regulations or ethical obligations surrounding IVF in the United States, virtually anyone can create children with no background checks, family history, or even blood relationship necessary.

Money is the key. One can purchase an egg, buy sperm, and rent a womb through surrogacy. That person can leave the hospital with a baby that is not biologically related to them and disappear forever. No one is doing child welfare checks. California is especially vulnerable, as more Chinese nationals use commercial surrogacy in the state to exploit birthright citizenship for dubious purposes.

What’s more, the cognitive dissonance of allowing unlimited embryo creation while permitting abortion well into a pregnancy, as California does, is striking. This law turns the state into a factory that creates humans, where duds, extras, or returns are discarded.

Newsom criticized those pushing restrictions on IVF, and he then said, “Everyone who wants to should be able to start a family—without going broke.” Though he may have good intentions, this ideology commodifies children inside a corrupt and inhumane industry.

The bill’s author, state Sen. Caroline Menjivar, said the law is important because so many have been “denied a path towards family-building” due to financial barriers, relationship status, or sexuality-based discrimination.

But she’s wrong, too. Adults aren’t entitled to children simply because they want them. However, children deserve at least one thing: a mother and father married to each other.

The California law characterizes children as entitlements, rather than God-given gifts. The truth is that commercialized IVF, by destroying or freezing embryos indefinitely, strips away the dignity of our humanity. We all began as two-celled beings allowed to multiply and take shape just as God intended “before I formed you in the womb” (Jeremiah 1:5). It’s time to stop the exploitation of God’s creation.