The use of assisted reproductive technologies, including in vitro fertilization (IVF) and surrogacy, is increasingly common in Canada. In 2022, a total of 7,609 infants were born in Canada through IVF. Over 27,000 were transferred from a petri dish into a woman’s womb. In 2023, there were 271 live births from surrogates and 428 ongoing pregnancies from 1237 embryo transfers. And for every live birth, other pre-born children are often destroyed, discarded, or indefinitely frozen.
When the BC Legislature condemned the “intolerant views” of ARPA Canada in 2025, some MLAs referenced ARPA’s policy report on IVF. One MLA called ARPA’s condemnation of creating excess embryos, freezing embryos indefinitely, destroying or discarding embryos, commodifying gametes, and intentionally severing children from their biological parents “hurtful and hateful.”
But the truth is that assisted reproductive technologies hurt women and children. Just a couple of weeks ago, the National Post reported that a Canadian couple is suing their surrogate. When it was revealed that the baby had a cleft lip and possible genetic abnormalities, the couple said the baby should be aborted. The surrogate refused and insisted that more tests be conducted. The couple later agreed to let the pregnancy continue since it looked like the child was healthy with only a minor birth defect.
Nevertheless, the couple is suing the surrogate for $600,000 in damages for allegedly failing to keep them informed about the health of the baby, putting the child at risk (even though they were the ones who requested the child’s death), and causing them emotional distress.
According to a 2024 Research Co poll, 78% of Canadians approve of IVF and 74% approve of surrogacy. How have Canadians come to broadly support the commodification and destruction of children and the intentional fracturing of parent-child relationships?
Origins of IVF and Surrogacy
Traditional surrogacy dates back thousands of years. Abram used Hagar to conceive a child when he believed that he and Sarai would be unable to conceive. Sarai said to Abram, ‘“Go in to my servant; it may be that I shall obtain children by her’” (Genesis 16:2). In traditional surrogacy, the surrogate is the child’s mother, but she is not treated as such after the child is born.
Gestational surrogacy arose following the development of IVF several decades ago. This technology made it possible for a woman to gestate and give birth to a child to whom she is genetically unrelated.
The world’s first IVF baby was born on July 25, 1978, following years of research and the creation and subsequent deaths of many preborn children. The first IVF baby born in Canada was born in British Columbia in 1983. Since then, IVF has become popular as a proposed solution to infertility and the natural inability of same-sex couples to conceive a child, with an estimated 12 million babies born through IVF around the world.
Canadian Law
Between 1978 and 2004, IVF and surrogacy were left largely unregulated in Canada. In 1989, the federal government established the Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies to study the implications of such technologies. Four years later, in 1993, the Commission released a report calling for federal legislation to regulate reproductive technologies.
In 2004, the federal government passed the Assisted Human Reproduction Act, which regulates fertility treatments and related research. Among other things, it prohibits paying a woman to be a surrogate, purchasing gametes or embryos, or creating a human clone. Various regulations have been added or repealed, but the bulk of the law has remained the same. In recent years, governments have increased funding for IVF and surrogacy, and advocates continue to promote commercial surrogacy to pay women for the use of their wombs. All Canadian provinces and territories, except Alberta, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut provide public funding in the form of grants, reimbursements, or tax credits for IVF.
The law leaves many gaps which allow for commodifying women and children and fracturing natural relationships. You can read more about these gaps and proposed recommendations in ARPA Canada’s policy reports on IVF and Surrogacy.
Foundations Conference 2026
The desire for children is a good, God-given desire. But a right desire does not justify every means of satisfying it. Not all means of creating life are ethical. God’s design for families is that children should be born to a husband and wife. Rather than seeing children as a gift from God (that some may or may not receive), our society views them as a right that can be obtained in any way necessary – not only by married couples, but also by singles, same-sex couples, and even by unrelated groups of adults who agree to share parental responsibilities.
Assisted reproduction has other ethical quandaries as well. Destroying and freezing embryos is a common practice in IVF. IVF often involves the use of donor gametes, commonly from an anonymous donor, resulting in children who may not know their biological parent(s). Surrogacy may involve donor gametes as well. But even if it involves the gametes of the mother and father who intend to raise the child, it adds a third party to the picture and fractures motherhood into three people: birth mother, the intended mother, and the biological mother.
We don’t often talk about assisted reproduction as a Christian community, but we need to start giving greater attention to this issue and its implications for children. Not only do its “successes” often lead to the fracturing of families, but its “failures” often leave dead or indefinitely frozen pre-born children in its wake.
As Canadian culture has moved away from God, people suffer. That’s why we will be talking at length about the impact of the secular revolution on children at our Foundations Conference in Hamilton, Ontario on September 19.
Josh Wood, the Executive Director of Them Before Us, will be speaking about children’s rights after the secular revolution, discussing how questions about family and identity are also questions about what children need to flourish. Assisted reproductive technologies are just one piece of that conversation, but a key piece that has allowed the proliferation of family structures that ignore children’s needs.
We hope that you will join us for the inaugural event that aims to bring Christians together to consider how we got to this cultural moment and how we can respond and rebuild. Registration is required, so visit our Foundations Conference event page to sign up.
