‘Pro-life is pro-IVF.’ SBC Megachurch Pastor Praises Trump for Signing IVF Order, Argues ‘Life Begins at Implantation’
Southern Baptist Church pastor Dr. Jeremiah J. Johnston, who works as the pastor of apologetics and cultural engagement at the 50,000-member, multisite Prestonwood Baptist Church, has come out in praise of In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) and President Trump signing an Executive Order for it, insisting in a social media post that that ‘Pro-life is pro-IVF.’
Johnson has five children through IVF, where all of his children were created and conceived the same day but implanted at different times over the years, including a set of triplets that they unthawed eight years ago.
There is no word on how many other frozen embryos he has or how many were discarded by doctors for not being viable enough for implantation, but Johnson doesn’t have a problem with that at all.
In a follow-up post, Johnson insisted that there is no difference between a dozen IVF embryos being created and discarded into the trash and a dozen embryos naturally perishing by failing to implant.
In fact, Johnson, the (checks notes) apologetics pastor for one of the largest churches in the world, previously wrote an op-ed for Fox News where he argued that life does not begin at conception but rather implantation.
What a handful of lawmakers and a few judges fail to understand is that an embryo doesn’t always transform into a pregnancy or develop into a child – whether that’s entirely naturally in the womb or with help via medical procedures like IVF. An embryo is not synonymous with a child. That was true even before IVF existed. Only when an embryo successfully attaches in a mother’s womb does a child begin its beautiful journey to soon living an independent life.
…what I’ve learned from endocrinologists – many sharing the same faith as I do might I add – is that a handful of outliers claiming an embryo in and of itself is the beginning of pregnancy simply misunderstand the process and hinder moms and dads on their journey to give birth and start families.
Johnson has no issue with the millions of frozen embroys currently being kept and stored in refrigerated purgatory- they are not people or humans to be treausured, but rather property to be discarded. To that end, he doesn’t care if millions more are made. He concludes:
Prohibiting IVF will indeed prevent children from entering our world. Whereas defending IVF will allow future parents to fulfill their God-given desire to nurture a child.
That’s what the pro-life position should entail. It’s about valuing children, celebrating them when they’re on the way, and doing everything possible to help moms and dads pro-create – no matter their hurdles.
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