UK plan gives gender-confused men, lesbians priority for IVF over heterosexual couples

(LifeSiteNews) — If, 25 years ago, social conservatives had sat down, brainstormed, and attempted to come up with a headline that encapsulated the moral and social chaos brought about by the sexual revolution, I doubt they could have done better than this one, published by the Daily Mail on November 16: “Trans men and lesbians would get IVF priority two years ahead of heterosexual couples under NHS plan.”

According to the report, the UK’s National Health Service has put forward plans that will “give trans men and lesbians access to NHS-funded IVF two years ahead of heterosexual couples.” “Trans men,” of course, are women who identify as men, and thus can theoretically become pregnant (assuming that cross-sex hormones or other drugs haven’t rendered them infertile). To add insult to injury, the NHS plan also prioritizes single women over married couples, although it is not explained why single motherhood should be a social aspiration of the state.

To be clear: In vitro fertilization, in which children are created in petri dishes to be manually implanted into patients, is intrinsically immoral. From a pro-life perspective, the sheer cost in human lives alone is mind-boggling, and the separation of procreation from human intimacy is also a violation of the natural order. For those interested, I recently had a longform discussion with Stephanie Gray-Connors on this question in which we examined the morality of IVF in depth.

But the new NHS proposal adds layers of moral confusion on top of this. According to the report, lesbians, trans-identifying women, and singles “will be immediately eligible for IVF on the NHS — costing an estimated £5,000 a cycle – if they meet the other criteria such as a body mass index between 19 and 30, not smoking, being under age 43 and not having a partner with a child from a previous relationship” while “heterosexual couples … will still have to prove they can’t have a baby naturally within two years.”

In short, the state is facilitating and funding the procuring of children for those who cannot “have a baby naturally.” According to the Mail:

The proposed changes will cover a vast swathe of England including Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Northamptonshire, Leicestershire and Lincolnshire. The plans, explained in a document called ‘The Case for Change’, are out for an eight-week public consultation ending in January, meaning the new policy could come into force next year. Heterosexual couples where one partner already has a biological child or children have also been dismayed to see that no changes are planned to the current rules barring them from NHS-funded fertility treatment.

Unfortunately, rather than questioning the policy of state-funded IVF entirely, family campaigners are instead fixating on “discrimination.” Lucy Marsh of the Family Education Trust, for example, stated, “At the very least these proposals seem grossly discriminatory towards traditional families.” Which is true, but the more fundamental issue is that these policies are discriminatory toward pre-born children, who are commodified, created artificially, and frequently abandoned in freezers. Any critique of IVF that ignores the intrinsic evils of the process is insufficient and instead affirms the morality of IVF.

Pro-life and pro-family groups in the United Kingdom should speak up firmly in opposition to this proposal — not just because the government is prioritizing the LGBT community over “traditional families” once again but because the proposal includes the mass destruction of embryonic human beings. As the culture continues to deteriorate, it can be tempting to respond to the latest outrage or the latest woke insanity while neglecting to stake out more fundamental territory. If pro-lifers do not speak out against the commodification of pre-born children, who will?