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Mike Johnson blocked IVF in the 2025 NDAA. Pro-life Christians must stay alert as embryo-destructive IVF policies spread nationwide.
A Quiet Victory for Life in the National Defense Authorization Act
On December 10, the U.S. House passed the 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Buried inside the 3,000-page bill was a critical victory for pro-life Christians: expanded in vitro fertilization (IVF) coverage for military families was removed.
House Speaker Mike Johnson worked behind the scenes to ensure the NDAA did not become a taxpayer-funded gateway to routine embryo destruction. IVF was previously included, but Johnson and his allies stripped it out before the final vote. (source)
This marks the second consecutive year Speaker Johnson has stood against bipartisan pressure to expand federally funded IVF access. While mainstream media framed his position as anti-family, the real issue concerns preserving the sanctity of human life from fertilization.
One pro-life advocate explained: This is not a war on fertility. It is a defense of innocent life created in God’s image.
The NDAA victory demonstrates that Christian conviction can still shape national policy under immense political pressure. Yet this single victory, however significant, reveals a larger battlefield most pro-life Christians have not yet recognized.
Why IVF Is the Hidden Destroyer of Human Life
While pro-life Christians have spent decades fighting surgical and chemical abortions, IVF has quietly become one of the most prolific destroyers of human life, operating under the radar, masked by sympathetic stories and medical jargon.
Consider this: the fertility industry creates and destroys more embryos annually than abortion clinics. Yet where is the pro-life outcry? Where is the sustained Christian response?
The problem lies in five fundamental practices:
Mass Creation and Destruction of Embryos
Standard IVF procedures create multiple embryos in a laboratory. These embryos are screened for quality, selected for implantation, then discarded, frozen indefinitely, or destroyed.
Each one is a human life, genetically complete and biologically distinct from fertilization. If pro-life Christians affirm that life begins at conception, and we do, then these are unborn children, treated as disposable.
Jeremiah 1:5 – Before I formed you in the womb I knew you
Commodifying Children
IVF treats life as a product: embryos are evaluated like merchandise, clients choose the best one, and leftovers are discarded, sold, or stored. This violates the dignity of every human being created in God’s image, a core pro-life principle.
Genesis 1:27 – So God created man in his own image
Bypassing God’s Design for Marriage
IVF removes procreation from the covenant of marriage. Through sperm or egg donors, surrogates, and solo parents, children are deliberately separated from either a father or a mother, undermining God’s family design.
Genesis 2:24 – The two shall become one flesh
Reawakening Eugenics
Modern IVF clinics offer embryo screening and genetic testing to help parents select traits such as sex, eye color, and intelligence potential. This is not healing the sick, it is weeding out the unwanted, a sanitized return to eugenics that pro-life Christians must reject.
Proverbs 24:11 – Rescue those being led away to death
Confusion Within the Pro-Life Movement
Some conservatives and even self-identified pro-life leaders support IVF access, perhaps not realizing that IVF routinely destroys human life. Scripture makes no exception for embryos created in clinics.
Exodus 20:13 – You shall not murder
If we say life begins at fertilization, we must defend every fertilized life.
Where the IVF Industry Is Headed Next
Even as pro-life Christians celebrate the NDAA victory, the broader fight around IVF is intensifying. IVF has become a moral fault line stretching across politics, law, and tech-driven family redefinition.
Three trends demand your attention:
IVF Access Expanding Elsewhere
While military IVF coverage was blocked, federal employees, Members of Congress, and civilians in states like New York and Illinois enjoy increasingly expansive IVF access, often paid by your tax dollars or mandated by law. Employers like Amazon, Google, and Meta provide IVF, egg freezing, and surrogacy benefits as recruitment tools, transforming fertility into a consumer benefit rather than a moral responsibility.
Designer Babies and Eugenics Resurface
The Wall Street Journal recently profiled wealthy Chinese elites using surrogacy and IVF in the U.S. to create dozens of American-born children. Companies now offer embryo screening services that allow parents to select for intelligence, height, or gender. This is eugenics with a human face, and it is accelerating.
Pro-life Christians have long opposed eugenics. The IVF industry is bringing it back under a medical veneer.
Embryos Are Still Being Destroyed
Standard IVF procedures create multiple embryos in labs, only to discard, freeze, or use the extras for experimentation. Every discarded embryo represents a life made in the image of God, discarded as medical waste.
Psalm 139:13 – You created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb
Why This Victory Matters for Pro-Life Christians
Speaker Johnson’s leadership to strip IVF from the NDAA is a rare pro-life policy win in an era where cultural and political elites relentlessly push to redefine family, reproduction, and the value of life.
Yet the battle continues. IVF is still offered broadly to federal workers. IVF mandates are growing at the state level. Global fertility tourism is booming. Ethical lines are disappearing in favor of choice.
The Virginia Christian Alliance affirms two biblical truths that IVF routinely violates:
- life begins at fertilization, whether destroyed in abortion clinics or fertility labs.
- Children are meant to be conceived in marriage, not through contracts, clinics, and technology.
If pro-life Christians retreat, the vacuum will be filled with policies that institutionalize embryo destruction and deconstruct God’s design for family.
The question is not whether Christians care about life. The question is whether we will act on that conviction with the same urgency we bring to other pro-life issues.
What You Can Do Right Now
This is not the time for passivity. Here are four concrete steps every pro-life Christian can take:
- Give Thanks and Pray
Thank God for this NDAA victory. Pray for Speaker Johnson and congressional leaders who defend life under intense political pressure. Ask God to grant them wisdom and courage for the battles ahead.
- Educate Your Church
Most Christians do not understand that IVF routinely destroys human life. Share this article with your pastor, small group, or Sunday school class. Start conversations. The silence around IVF in pro-life circles must end.
- Contact Your Representatives
Call or email your senators and representatives. Thank those who opposed IVF funding in the NDAA. Urge them to resist future attempts to expand taxpayer-funded embryo destruction. Be specific. Be persistent.
- Support Pro-Life Ministries
Organizations like Virginia Christian Alliance speak biblical truth when it is costly. Support ministries that refuse to compromise on the sanctity of life from fertilization forward.
Final Word: Life Is Not Ours to Manufacture
The embryo is not a pre-human. It is a human being. If we truly believe that, we must resist policies and technologies that treat life as raw material.
Proverbs 31:8 – Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves
Speaker Johnson stood firm when it mattered. So must pro-life Christians everywhere. The next battle is already forming. Will you be ready?
Because life, all life, matters to God. From fertilization forward.
By Jeff Bayard
Content Manager, Virginia Christian Alliance
Learn more: https://vachristian.org
