Prestonwood’s Jeremiah Johnston Defends IVF: An Embryo Is Not Synonymous With A Child

Jeremiah Johnston is a renowned apologist who serves under the helm of Jack Graham at Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, TX as the Associate Pastor of Apologetics & Cultural Engagement. He has authored several books including Unleashing Peace, Body of Proof, and even the Nefarious bible study Know Thy Enemy. On Sunday, Fox News published an op-ed by Pastor Johnston entitled, “I’m a pro-life pastor who is very thankful the miracle of IVF allowed me to become a dad” in which he defends his personal use of In Vitro Fertilization (IVF).

For many years, IVF has taken a back seat because this was disconnected from everyday life since the costs of these measures make it more of an affluent practice. However, it cannot be denied that IVF is inseparable from abortion, as excess embryos, at an average of 15, are created through the process and often discarded as medical waste, typically after a week. Then there are the ones left in storage which number at least a million.

So how does the Christian apologist defend the practice?

In vitro fertilization (IVF) is widely accepted as a blessing to parents of all religions and political persuasions. Thankfully, Gov. Greg Abbott strongly supports access to IVF.

But an Alabama court decision reignited questions about the personhood of embryos that had been put to rest years ago. Unfortunately, a small but vocal minority have fixated on this position, and it has certainly been no help to the pro-life cause or to families struggling with infertility.

To start by appealing to religious pluralism when the accusation of sin is being made is a way to inaccurately frame the issue. It makes it seem like only a small minority is opposed to IVF when that is not the case. For decades, Catholics have been ahead of the Protestants on the issue of IVF and surrogacy, at least on paper. The same could also be said of birth control. The Southern Baptist Convention, America’s largest protestant denomination, issued a resolution this past June reaffirming the “unconditional value and right to life of every human being, including those in an embryonic stage.” Within Christian circles, the issue of IVF is no longer in the background.

Women struggling with infertility are being shamed with religious jargon, where some claim IVF lacks the “mystery of natural conception” or that children conceived through IVF are less than human. 

It’s common for ethical questions like these to be viewed through the lens of newsworthy court decisions or interesting intellectual debates. But that’s not all they are. The topic of infertility is intrinsically personal and often painful, especially for women.

Johnston appeals to women’s hurt feelings of inadequacy for using IVF to conceive, but the issue surrounding IVF is not so much the “mystery of natural conception,” though that is important, but the excess embryos that are created in the process. The question being posited is whether this is abortion, which would make its participation sinful.

The idea of infertile women desiring children is seen throughout Scripture in women like Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, Hannah, and Elizabeth, so the unfortunate circumstance of infertility is well attested to as a recurring trial in this earthly life. Rather than confront couples, the church seeks to appeal to feelings and personal testimony, which is exactly what Johnston does. Johnston proceeds to describe his own familial struggles with infertility, which lasted five years.

We had every hormone in our bodies checked. Every intimate detail of our love life was examined for medical inquiry. And the physical stress paled in comparison to the emotional toll infertility was taking on our marriage.

Audrey and I eventually came to a crossroads. We could give up, or we could pursue the modern medical miracle of IVF.

As it had already been during many other doctor appointments, science and faith came together in our quest to become pregnant. Our relationship with God was essential, and we were inspired to do everything we could to become pregnant, which meant the financial and emotional risk of IVF.

He alludes to the extensive procedures required for IVF. On average, most IVF treatments will cost somewhere between $15-20K but it could exceed $30K per round. Storing the embryos adds further costs, and the other fertility treatments or consultations drive up the total costs of IVF. This is without delving into the downside risks that these procedures have, like cancers or higher-risk pregnancies. The Johnstons would end up having triplets via IVF.

The miracle of modern science is not cheap, and the irony is that modern science is the likely cause of infertility, something that seldom receives attention. Toxins like processed foods, microplastics, prior birth control use, obesity, and chemicals in the water all affect fertility. Many women were targeted by their doctors to receive the Gardasil vaccine for HPV, something one primarily contracts through promiscuity, which has been linked to infertility. Tucker Carlson discussed this at length in a recent interview while Robert F Kennedy Jr. addressed the food supply problems when endorsing Trump. Even masculinity and declining testosterone levels are attributable to chemical exposure. Many medical problems are caused by modern science, including infertility. $20K to conceive a child created in a lab is not God’s solution, but the very embodiment of Man’s solution.

But how does Jeremiah Johnston square the circle of the excess embryos?

What a handful of lawmakers and a few judges fail to understand is that an embryo doesn’t always transform into a pregnancy or develop into a child – whether that’s entirely naturally in the womb or with help via medical procedures like IVF. An embryo is not synonymous with a child. That was true even before IVF existed. Only when an embryo successfully attaches in a mother’s womb does a child begin its beautiful journey to soon living an independent life. 

I say this as a pro-life individual who believes every life is sacred and precious.

But what I’ve learned from endocrinologists – many sharing the same faith as I do might I add – is that a handful of outliers claiming an embryo in and of itself is the beginning of pregnancy simply misunderstand the process and hinder moms and dads on their journey to give birth and start families.

Typically, the pro-life platitude is that “life begins at conception,” which means fertilization or the creation of the embryo. Implicitly, Johnston is arguing that implantation should be the standard. He cites that only 25% of embryos successfully attach to the womb, but this is equivocating the providence of God to the hubris of Man. By his logic, all birth control and Plan B are permissible since it is not a life until it implants in the womb. Furthermore, the same could be argued about embryos experimented on in laboratories, like the experiments funded by Francis Collins at the NIH where human cells are merged with rats in grotesque chimeras. The failure rate of natural biological mechanisms for procreation, being part of the “mystery of natural conception,” does not justify the creation of embryos to be stored nor discard their value as life. Implantation is a weak moral standard that does not safeguard against modern science and medicine. 

If fertility specialists are not allowed to help families create multiple embryos, as a female body does naturally throughout its life, this will significantly decrease the chance the IVF cycle will be successful. Or specialists will be forced to implant all viable embryos at once, an outdated procedure, which can be medically dangerous.

The whole purpose of being pro-life is to see the value in children and help moms and dads enjoy their God-given ability to raise them. It seems not only misguided but counter-productive to limit a way for families to enjoy the blessing of children. Pro-life means supporting the path to pregnancy, not hindering it. 

Here he argues that creating the excess embryos was necessary and Pro-Life, again equivocating it to female biological function. The benefit of creating multiple embryos at once is that it is a financial burden to go through a second round of embryo creation and the rate of failure necessitates multiple attempts. While the Pro-Life Movement should evolve to become more natalist, supporting the expensive Fertility Industry is not pro-life. Rather, it commodifies life itself.

Prohibiting IVF will indeed prevent children from entering our world. Whereas defending IVF will allow future parents to fulfill their God-given desire to nurture a child.

That’s what the pro-life position should entail. It’s about valuing children, celebrating them when they’re on the way, and doing everything possible to help moms and dads pro-create – no matter their hurdles.

Conclusion: the ends of there being more children justifies the means of IVF.

Conclusion

The Church has a long way to go to catechize its pews on the immorality of IVF. Despite the SBC’s redress of IVF and affirmation that the embryos are life, one of its biggest churches just had its Cultural Engagement Pastor defend IVF while rebuking pro-life activists as anti-life for their opposition. As the issue of infertility becomes more apparent in society, due to both feminism delaying marriage and the chemical toxins, the church needs to confront this issue. Even the SBC’s resolution was anemic in its resolves, advocating the adoption of frozen embryos, which Christians should not touch at all.

Jeremiah Johnston takes up the cause of apologetics, in which Christian ethics is a common subject matter, but he has compromised himself on this issue because he himself partook of its fruits to bear his children. How many excess embryos does he have sitting in storage or were they discarded since he does not believe it to be life? The Bible should not be discarded simply because of personal anecdotes and feelings. Infertility is no exception.