Bishops from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) have responded to a recent announcement by the White House regarding expanded access to in vitro fertilization (IVF) and fertility treatments.

Bishop Robert E. Barron, chairman of the USCCB Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth; Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades, chairman of the Committee for Religious Liberty; and Bishop Daniel E. Thomas, chairman of the Committee on Pro-Life Activities issued a joint statement following the administration’s announcement.

“Though we are grateful that aspects of the Administration’s policies announced Thursday intend to include comprehensive and holistic restorative reproductive medicine, which can help ethically to address infertility and its underlying causes, we strongly reject the promotion of procedures like IVF that instead freeze or destroy precious human beings and treat them like property,” said the bishops.

They further commented: “Every human life, born and preborn, is sacred and loved by God. Without diminishing the dignity of people born through IVF, we must recognize that children have a right to be born of a natural and exclusive act of married love, rather than a business’s technological intervention. And harmful government action to expand access to IVF must not also push people of faith to be complicit in its evils.”

The bishops stated their intent to review the new policies further: “We will continue to review these new policies, and look forward to engaging further with the Administration and Congress, always proclaiming the sanctity of life and of marriage.”