CEO Of Surrogacy Firm Admits He Uses Fertility Tech To Avoid ‘Ugly’ Kids
'Nobody wants an ugly kid,' Barrie Drewitt-Barlow said. 'Sometimes we get them, but we don’t always want them.''Nobody wants an ugly kid,' Barrie Drewitt-Barlow said. 'Sometimes we get them, but we don’t always want them.'‘Children as assets’: Gay couple’s viral IVF video reveals just how far Obergefell has gone
A video has gone viral of a gay man explaining how he and his partner are choosing two embryos via in vitro fertilization that they will be transferring to two surrogates.
“We’re so happy that we decided to purchase as many frozen eggs as we could, 40, because that leaves us with these 10 embryos for two babies. And we’re told that the majority of journeys take two to three transfers to get pregnant,” the man explained.
“We’ve decided which embryo on both sides that we want to transfer to our two surrogates. We’ll keep you updated as we do the transfers and as we find out whether or not we’re pregnant,” he continued.
“But we’re not going to share the sex of both babies until we’re officially pregnant, just like any other expecting parents would,” he added.
BlazeTV host Steve Deace does not like what he’s hearing.
“So, that’s a homosexual man talking in depth, in detail, about essentially trying to manufacture a human life on an open market with him and his gay lover. And this video went everywhere. It was viral everywhere on social media over the weekend,” he explains.
Deace cites Katy Faust — founder and president of Them Before Us, a global children’s rights nonprofit that focuses on a child’s right to a mother and a father — who blames the Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court case for same-sex couples manufacturing human life.
The Obergefell v. Hodges’ Supreme Court case decided that the fundamental right to marry is guaranteed to same-sex couples.
“Her argument really is that Obergefell is the genesis of all these kinds of videos ... and Katy points out, the central core of her premise, the best that I can understand it, is that since Obergefell, the paradigm of child-rearing and procreation has completely flipped,” Deace says.
“And in the past, what happened for thousands of years essentially of human existence is that children and their priorities were put ahead of the adults,” he continues. “And now what we have is that the children are assets to be acquired.”
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IVF CEO says conceiving naturally is for those with 'genetic privilege'
The CEO of an in vitro fertilization company says sex is for fun and IVF is for conceiving babies.
Noor Siddiqui is the founder of Orchid, a company that screens embryos for those using IVF services and looks for possible genetic defects and disease.
Siddiqui recently equated the idea of using IVF screening to providing the maximum amount of love to a child, meaning that if parents choose not to use IVF, they are subjecting their offspring to untold risks.
'I didn't want to quote that to you because I thought it was so ridiculous, but go on.'
Siddiqui gave an interview to the New York Times podcast "Interesting Times with Ross Douthat," where the host saved his best question for last. After reciting a poem that describes the magic of a man and woman creating life, Douthat asked Siddiqui about the idea that she wants to take that magic away.
"You're imagining a future where that just goes away. And I'm wondering if you think anything would actually be lost if that goes away," Douthat asked.
In response, Siddiqui recalled her own quote: "Sex is for fun; Orchid and embryo screening is for babies."
Douthat immediately replied, "I didn't want to quote that to you because I thought it was so ridiculous, but go on."
The CEO claimed that because most sexual encounters do not result in a pregnancy, "it's actually not so strange of a concept" that IVF becomes the predominant way to conceive.
"But when you get a baby, most people get it from having sex," Douthat argued. "It is linked inextricably to having sex with your spouse. And you are saying it's time to sever that for the sake, I concede, of potential medical benefits."
While one might consider that Siddiqui is simply providing a service to those who cannot conceive naturally, the CEO made it clear that she believes those who do not use IVF are rolling the dice on their child's health.
RELATED: Lila Rosa challenges Christian support for IVF, debunks one of the most common arguments
"I think that if you have enormous genetic privilege and, for you to roll the dice and to get a outcome that isn't going to lead to disease is in the cards for you, then of course, go ahead and roll the dice," Siddiqui told the host.
The 29-year-old claimed "the vast majority of parents" will not want to "roll the dice," before stating that IVF screenings are actually the highest form of love a parent can give a child.
Parents are "going to see it as taking the maximum amount of care, the maximum amount of love, in the same way that they plan their nursery plan, their home plan, their preschool," she said.
Siddiqui then turned in vitro around on naturally conceiving parents and said it would be "denigrating and dismissive" to IVF parents to say that babies conceived through IVF are somehow "inferior to babies that are made the old-fashioned way."
RELATED: Surrogacy: Inside the industry that rents women’s bodies
BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey took a hard stance on the issue and said embryo screening is not a moral or ethical option.
"When technology takes us from what's natural to what's possible, we have the obligation to ask: But is it moral? Is it ethical? Is it biblical?" Stuckey told Blaze News. "The answer here is: no, no, and no. Embryos are human, and like all humans they have an inherent right to life."
Siddiqui said in a 2024 interview with Mercury that she has "always known" that she wanted to conceive through IVF, despite neither her nor her husband having any fertility issues.
In the interview, she argued it was actually "unethical" to stigmatize the embryo screenings and argued it is not "playing God" to get a cast for a broken leg or to have chemotherapy for cancer. Therefore, she is not interrupting "God's plan" with her services.
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In vitro fertilization – the process by which a human embryo is created outside the body using naturally occurring egg and sperm – is growing in popularity as infertility continues to rise.
But how should Christians view IVF? Is it something believers can support or take part in without compromising their Christian ethics?
Allie Beth Stuckey invited Live Action’s Lila Rose to “Relatable” to have a candid conversation about this topic.
Allie points out that many Christian IVF supporters make the case that “even though scientists and doctors are bringing together the sperm and the embryo, it always has to be God who gives the spark of life, so God is in IVF.”
“I’ve definitely heard that [argument] as well,” says Lila, and while “it is true that those are precious human beings made in God's image” and “God respects our power to [create life artificially],” that doesn’t mean it’s the moral thing to do.
She explains that just because God has allowed life to happen doesn’t mean he condones the manner in which it was created. She points to rape as an example. In a case where a rape results in a child, that child is an image bearer of God and a blessing to be cherished, but the act that brought that child into the world is condemnable.
In the case of both rape and IVF, “The act that brought that life into existence ... was not the moral act, so the act that brings life into existence can be immoral, but the bringing of the life into existence is never immoral,” Lila explains. The only way to morally bring a life into existence is through “the loving marital embrace.”
“[Children] deserve to be conceived in love. It's a natural order, and there's a lot of protective mechanisms in God's providence for that child if they're conceived that way,” she adds.
If children are conceived naturally, there’s no chance they will be “frozen” in perpetuity, and there’s a much higher chance of survival, as IVF has just a 50% success rate for women under 35 using their own eggs. That percentage plummets with a number of factors, including age, clinic quality, and lifestyle choices, among others.
“The natural order is much more designed for [children’s] safety and their nourishing, so IVF is wrong,” Lila concludes, “but what is not wrong is that new human life.”
Allie agrees — “The baby is always a blessing, but that doesn't mean that we are endorsing every method of making a baby.”
To hear more of the conversation, watch the episode above.
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IVF Experiments That Mix And Match Multiple Adults’ DNA Are Bad For Kids And Society
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In-vitro fertilization is sold as a cure-all for those struggling with fertility issues — but not only does it rarely work, it also can cause a myriad of issues in the mother and child when it does.
Jennifer Lahl, founder of the Center for Bioethics and Culture Network, is one of the leading voices sounding the alarm.
“IVF is fraught with risk. It’s risky to the woman’s health; it’s risky to the health of the unborn child,” Lahl tells BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey on “Relatable.” “You can just follow the CDC data, and for the last 10-plus years, overwhelmingly, all IVF cycles fail.”
Data is now coming out that IVF increases the chance of pregnancy-related complications, like preterm labor and birth defects.
“My grandson was born with a heart defect. And when his care was transferred to a big university hospital in California, two independent pediatric cardiologists there said, ‘Is he an IVF baby?’ He’s not, but in the medical literature, IVF babies have much higher rates of congenital heart defects at birth,” Lahl explains.
“Shouldn’t that be something that at least could make us pause and think? We know that pregnancy is risky; I know that, you know, any child that’s born healthy, praise God, because there’s a lot of things that can go wrong to make children born with all kinds of defects, but knowingly doing it, I think, is problematic,” she continues.
Stuckey has also done her research on the issues associated with IVF, and one of them is a higher prevalence of the child being diagnosed with autism.
“Specifically because there was a fertility problem on the father’s part. So that is because say a dad has basically immobile sperm. They’re just not fast enough, strong enough, to do what they have to do in the natural fertility reproduction process,” Stuckey says, noting that in IVF they “take the sperm and put it on the egg.”
“There is a reason that that sperm isn’t working. There’s an underlying issue there that will affect the baby that is born, because those sperm weren’t supposed to re-create, and when you force them to re-create, then the baby is going to inherit a lot of problems,” she adds.
“People like to say, ‘We’re playing God,’ and I always say, ‘Well, no, because God doesn’t play that way. We’re playing naughty people,'” Lahl agrees.
“There’s a natural order to how things are supposed to work and how our bodies are supposed to work, and even though the human body is incredibly resilient, our fertility is very fragile,” she adds.
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