When 7-year-old Rosie Buchholtz asks where she came from, her mother answers simply.
“I just tell her, ‘A very nice family gave us you, and you were sooooo tiny. And they put you inside me so you could grow. When it was time to come out, you did. We had shared blood, but I have brown hair, and you have blond,’” said Chelsea Buchholtz, an Austin, Texas, attorney. “‘But I’m your only mommy.’”
Neither Chelsea nor her husband, Scott, was able to have biological children. After exploring fostering and traditional adoption, she learned about embryo adoption.
“It’s the most clear time in my life in which the Holy Spirit has spoken to me. It allowed us to have a family in kind of a traditional way.”
The Buchholtzes attend Providence Church, a church plant that partners with the University Avenue Church of Christ, where Chelsea grew up and her father served many years as an elder. Her youth minister from those years and his wife were the first of several to mention in vitro fertilization by donation.
“It’s the most clear time in my life in which the Holy Spirit has spoken to me,” Chelsea said. “It allowed us to have a family in kind of a traditional way.”
So she tells Rosie what she believes to be true: “That embryo was created by God, and I’m so glad he created you for us.”
The Buchholtz family
Chelsea’s fertility doctor explained that IVF by adoption could be facilitated as a traditional adoption or as a transfer of property with a contractual agreement.
“I’m a lawyer. I said, ‘Let’s do a contract.’” They met the donor parents and their children previously conceived through IVF. The family gave the Buchholtzes five embryos, one of which was implanted and became Rosie.
Chelsea, 45, serves as executive director of the Texas Real Estate Commission but said her favorite title is Mom. Scott, 52, works as operations director for the Texas Economic Development Corporation. Though Rosie wishes for a sibling, they don’t plan to have more children.
“We have a dog named Sister!” Chelsea said, laughing.
They would like to give the other embryos to the next family.
How it works — and doesn’t work
The Buchholtz story is typical. And not at all typical. Which is the case for all families who choose IVF.
Their story is nothing like that of Brent and DeShonna Taylor, a Dallas couple whose 27-year-old quintuplets were born through IVF. And theirs, in turn, is nothing like Jessica Hemenway Knapp and her husband, David. The Arizona Christians endured three failed IVF attempts and a 14-year sojourn with infertility that included four miscarriages. Their four children were all conceived naturally over that same span of time.
“Nobody does IVF without a passion for having babies,” Jessica said. “It’s not just, ‘This is how I’ll get a kid.’”
Jessica Knapp
Knapp is minister of The Seed Gathering, a church plant associated with Churches of Christ on the University of Arizona campus, but she began her professional career as a math professor. David is an engineer.
Jessica described the expensive last resort treatment for couples dealing with infertility as physically and emotionally brutal. Doctors tailor the process to each couple’s needs. But typically it begins with a regimen of hormones and injections to stimulate the woman’s ovaries to overproduce eggs that are harvested through the first of two surgical procedures. The number harvested varies from as few as five or six to as many as 30, determined by factors including the mother’s health, age and history.
The eggs are fertilized in a lab using the father’s sperm or, if the father is infertile, using donated sperm. If the mother is infertile, a donated egg may be fertilized. Odds of infertility being due to the woman, the man or undetermined are about equal.
About 5 percent of couples with infertility will try IVF, according to the Cleveland Clinic. The total cost can range from $20,000 to $40,000 with insurance coverage varying.
Related: Christian bioethicists help students consider the moral complexities of IVF
Spontaneous abortion, or miscarriage, happens in 10 to 20 percent of pregnancies, even in naturally occurring, clinically recognized pregnancies. Clinically unrecognized loss is likely even higher. The numbers increase with maternal age.
In the IVF process, as in the womb, some eggs die. Some embryos die. In Knapp’s case, all of them died in the first two attempts before any could be transferred to her womb. A third attempt failed when the implanted embryo died in utero.
Embryos develop to six to 10 cells each within just two or three days of fertilization. They are tested for genetic anomalies and graded to assess which have the highest viability. One or more of the most viable are implanted in a second surgical procedure.
Chelsea Buchholtz only had to undergo the second procedure since she was using a donated embryo. And only one was transferred. That one became Rosie.
But when the Taylors underwent IVF 27 years ago, doctors commonly transferred multiple embryos, assuming some would not survive. Today, doctors more commonly transfer only one or two or three to avoid multiple births beyond twins.
The Taylor quintuplets at ages 1 and 18: Kenedy, Jonah, Jacob, Aleksi and Zachary. The five, now age 27, are the IVF babies of Brent and DeShonna Taylor of Dallas.
The remaining embryos are frozen. Parents may choose to use them later, donate them to other couples, donate them for medical research or allow them to be discarded.
And that’s where things get even more complicated. Enter the Catholics, the courts, the bioethicists, the Baptists. And, of course, the politicians.
Moral complexity
IVF was invented in 1978 by British physiologist Sir Robert Edwards. Since then, more than 8 million IVF babies have been born, according to the Cleveland Clinic. And Christians have sometimes found themselves conflicted, some objecting to the process, others to its consequences for unused embryos.
Yet there’s widespread support for what many call a pro-life practice. IVF allows babies to be born who would not have life without it.
Roman Catholic opposition to IVF was documented in “Donum Vitae: Instruction on Respect for Human Life in Its Origin and on the Dignity of Procreation,” issued by Pope John Paul II in 1987. The instruction details objections to the side effects of IVF, specifically the creation of extra embryos and their destruction. But at its heart it disdains any form of reproduction outside the natural order, which it calls “the fidelity of the spouses in the unity of marriage.”
Read this related story about how Christian bioethicists at Abilene Christian University are helping students consider the moral complexities of IVF.
A May 2024 study published by Pew Research found that 65 percent of American Catholics believe IVF is a good thing, but the official stance remains unchanged. In the same study, mainstream Protestants and evangelicals also responded that IVF is a good thing at a rate of 63 percent to 78 percent, depending on how the groups were defined.
In a Gallup survey a month later wherein religiosity is measured by frequency of church attendance, 63 percent of Americans who attend weekly believe IVF is morally acceptable. But 54 percent believe destroying frozen human embryos is morally wrong.
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That divergence was evident at the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting in June. The nation’s largest Protestant denomination engaged in emotional debate over IVF. Delegates, called messengers, passed a resolution largely opposing IVF but most particularly the “destruction of embryonic human life” and “dehumanizing methods for determining suitability for life.”
They commended couples who have “sought to only utilize infertility treatments and reproductive technologies in ways consistent with the dignity of the human embryo as well as those who have adopted frozen embryos.”
What was once a fairly rare and little-discussed procedure designed to treat the most personal of medical conditions entered the spotlight via court cases in Alabama and Texas, legislation in Alabama and party posturing in Congress. A GOP bill called the IVF Protection Act and a Democratic bill, the Right to IVF Act, both failed amid political maneuvering.
Yet despite genuine moral complexity and protracted political wrangling, support for IVF remains surprisingly bipartisan — even in states such as Alabama and Texas, which have two of the largest concentrations of Churches of Christ.
Michael DeBoer
In February, a conservative Supreme Court in Alabama ruled that “extrauterine unborn children” created through IVF must be considered exactly the same as in utero embryos. Thus parents could sue clinics or physicians, or theoretically be held responsible themselves, for the embryos’ demise under Alabama’s Wrongful Death of a Minor Act, passed in 1872.
Michael DeBoer, associate dean for academic affairs at Faulkner University’s Jones School of Law in Alabama, said the legal issue in LePage v. Center for Reproductive Medicine was straightforward: “What does the statute say, and what does the statute mean?”
In this case, DeBoer said, that is, “What would the meaning of ‘minor child’ have been in the 1870s when that legislation was enacted?”
“Of course they didn’t know anything about what is termed ‘extra uterine children.’ But a minor child would have been known,” he said, “and I think what Justice (Jay) Mitchell is saying is ‘minor child’ was meant to be encompassing rather than excluding. So it’s minor children whether born or unborn.”
Property or personhood
DeBoer, a Southern Baptist, has been on the Faulkner faculty since 2011. His courses have included healthcare law, public health, and law and religion. His explainer on LePage, published by the Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary’s Center for Faith and Culture in Wake Forest, N.C., details the case and its rationale.
After LePage, many fertility clinics statewide put procedures on hold. Then less than three weeks later, the Alabama Legislature passed a bill sponsored by Sen. Bill Melson, a member of the Wood Avenue Church of Christ in Florence, protecting IVF providers and patients from prosecution in the event embryos die before they are implanted.
Melson, a Republican and an anesthesiologist, has a long list of conservative bonafides. The bill he authored passed in Alabama’s Republican-dominated House and Senate by overwhelming margins, garnering national and international media attention. The Christian Chronicle made multiple attempts to reach Melson for this article but failed to connect with him.
Related: Two adoptions, two differing views: Christian women reflect on their experiences
In the political arena, U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Southern Baptist, and several governors, including Texas’ Greg Abbott, a Catholic, issued cautious statements supportive of IVF.
In June, Texas’ Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal of Antoun v. Antoun, a case challenging a divorce settlement. The appeals court held that a contract between both parents and a fertility clinic several years earlier was enforceable, and in keeping with the contract, unused embryos would be the property of the father.
The property or personhood issue is abstract to some. Jessica Knapp understands it concretely.
“We still have two embryos frozen. We know they are not viable, but I’m not quite ready to have them destroyed. I don’t have an adjective for how it feels.”
“I did three rounds of IVF and got no babies,” she said and paused. “We still have two embryos frozen. We know they are not viable, but I’m not quite ready to have them destroyed. I don’t have an adjective for how it feels.”
“I want them to be considered my babies when I decide to implant them,” the mother said. “But I need them to be considered property in terms of how my husband and I manage what happens next. It’s both.”
‘Blessings we don’t have all the answers for’
Bill Chambers of Tyler, Texas, is retired now, but for 40 years he was an OB-GYN specializing in high-risk pregnancies and a life fellow in the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology.
Chambers, a former elder of the Glenwood Church of Christ, said he “had no apprehension in referring couples, for whom we had done every other reasonable thing, for IVF.”
“Man has forgotten that there are many blessings that we don’t have all the answers for. (One of those is) the gift of unbelievable technological medicine.”
“Man has forgotten to be humble. Man has forgotten that there are many blessings that we don’t have all the answers for,” the physician said. One of those is “the gift of unbelievable technological medicine.”
Brent Taylor told his own mom something similar — but in West Texas vernacular — when she raised concerns almost three decades ago.
From left, Joshua, Kenedy, Zachary, Jonah, Jacob, Aleksi, Deshonna and Brent Taylor pose for a family photo.
Both Taylors are nurses and attend Highland Oaks Church of Christ in Dallas, where DeShonna is director of heart, lung and vascular at UT Southwestern Medical Center. In 1997 she was working at the hospital in Snyder, Texas, a small town midway between Abilene and Lubbock, and Brent was sports editor at the local newspaper.
“Mom was old, staunch C of C,” Brent said, “but I told her one day, ‘Mom, God gave these doctors and scientists the ability to figure this out, so what’s the problem?’ And of course from that point on, especially after they were born, she doesn’t have any problem. She added five grandkids in three minutes!”
The 37th Avenue Church of Christ in Snyder marshaled volunteers to work four-hour shifts helping care for the five little ones and their older brother.
“Even though we love all our kids unconditionally, I wouldn’t wish five kids on anybody ever,” Brent said.
Related: Roe v. Wade overturned: What’s next?
When the fertility clinic called to ask what the couple wanted done with two remaining embryos, embryo adoption wasn’t yet a thing, DeShonna recalled.
“I’m not sure what I would have chosen — research or adoption,” she said. “Maybe my decision was made rashly — at the time I just remember having all those toddlers who were 2 or 3 years old. We knew we weren’t going to have any more kids. We just told them to let them thaw.”
Grace and redemption
In LePage, DeBoer saw an opportunity for one state to take a small first step toward better regulation of IVF, which he believes has not received the attention it deserves from the law.
“There’s a human impulse at work with IVF and assisted reproductive technology. … It’s an expensive process but one that holds a lot of promise for people who could not otherwise have children,” DeBoer said.
“I have lived long enough to see God’s redeeming hand in the care and development of technology that is within his will. And God has shown that blessing among his disciples.”
“That’s one reason people haven’t given it attention,” he added. “It’s a very difficult subject to speak into because it involves a lot of pain for a lot of people.”
As healthcare professionals, Chambers and DeShonna Taylor echoed DeBoer’s concerns about too little regulation of IVF.
Bill Chambers
Until that changes, Chambers believes physicians and patients must work it out together.
“It is not God’s fault that men will take those tools and use them for profit and convenience and fail to recognize or acknowledge the sanctity and miracle of life,” he said. “I have lived long enough to see God’s redeeming hand in the care and development of technology that is within his will. And God has shown that blessing among his disciples.”
Judges, politicians and ethicists debate whether an eight-celled organism is a human being to be protected or a collection of cells that lacks viability for life outside the womb.
Knapp believes the church must be part of the discussion. But because the church has denied science in a lot of places, “we aren’t getting to have a voice about ethical matters like this,” she said. “We have to be part of a conversation that’s aware of the legal and medical implications.”
Meanwhile, physicians sit with patients who arrived in their exam rooms after months or years of pain and prayer in pursuit of a positive stripe on a pregnancy test –– years praying to have a baby.
“If society wants to prohibit technology, then prohibit the misuse of it. But not those aspects that reveal the Creator’s mercy, grace and redemption of one of the most deeply embedded evidences, which is motherhood and fatherhood.”
“If society wants to prohibit technology, then prohibit the misuse of it,” Chambers said. “But not those aspects that reveal the Creator’s mercy, grace and redemption of one of the most deeply embedded evidences, which is motherhood and fatherhood.”
Perhaps 40 years spent delivering babies informs the physician’s conviction that grace and redemption can be found in IVF. In those 40 years he has seen several IVF babies grow to adulthood and lead Christian families of their own.
Babies like Rosie.
CHERYL MANN BACON is a Christian Chronicle contributing editor who served for 20 years as chair of the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication at Abilene Christian University. Contact [email protected].
