“No one has the right to have a child. You don’t have that right. You can’t obtain that right.” These are the words of Students for Life of America President Kristan Hawkins, who just recently condemned in-vitro fertilization (IVF) access on October 22nd of this year. [1] On her podcast, Hawkins stated that IVF “turns having a child, the ultimate blessing and privilege, into a right.” [1] And, according to her, the right to having a child allows for “terrible, awful things to happen.”  [1] You read that right: anti-abortion leader Kristan Hawkins has claimed that IVF “kills more babies than abortion.”  [1] As anti-abortion leaders continue their attack against IVF, they’re now uplifting pseudo-science that essentially blames women for infertility.

Recently, Reproaction’s Jasmine Geonzon wrote about the dangers of what the anti-abortion movement calls “restorative reproductive medicine.” [2] Anti-abortion leaders, along with members of the Trump Administration, have endorsed this so-called alternative to IVF to promote specious fertility options such as the “rhythm method,” “natural family planning,” or “foundational lifestyle changes”. [3] These methods are not scientifically backed and have little to no data on success rates. [4] The use of junk science to support an anti-abortion agenda is a strategy to appeal to ‘natural’ family planning; in other words, condemn IVF, birth control, and other scientifically backed family planning methods.

Earlier this year, Live Action President Lila Rose made similarly themed arguments to that of Kristan Hawkins. Despite recent calls by her organization to ban IVF, Rose spoke of a woman’s natural “vocation” of at the first Live Action Woman’s Summit on June 21st of this year. [5] Rose called for women to accept their “spiritual and biological” call to motherhood (14:39), pushing the feminist framework to embrace a woman’s “God-given design” to carry life (11:39). [6] This sentiment echoes Hawkins, who calls IVF “unnatural” and equating it the crime of child abduction. [1] It seems that at the same time, she places the blame on women experiencing fertility struggles, stigmatizing infertility as a crisis that needs to be “studied” to “cure” underlying causes. [1] What anti-abortion leaders have in common is their obsession with co-opting feminism to bully women into their dangerous, anti-science and anti-IVF agenda.

It’s not a coincidence that anti-abortion organizations are pushing a supposedly ‘pro-women’ stance to justify their actions. Earlier this year, Lila Rose attempted to appeal to young girls – stating she intended to “teach them the beauty of their fertility,” while preaching false medical conspiracies about IVF and birth control. [5] To be clear, these ‘natural’ family planning methods, such as the rhythm method, show varying failure rates that range from 2 to 34 pregnancies for every 100 women per year with typical use [7].

Anti-abortion leaders co-opt pro-women language to push pseudo-science, and are largely condemning IVF as a threat to the “privilege” of a mother’s role. [1] Rose’s speech centered around the framework of being “Made for Motherhood,” suggesting that only those who follow her unscientific methods deserve to fall into their natural role of motherhood. [5] This is a slap in the face to families who only exist because of medically sound and effective assisted reproductive technology like IVF, and it does not support women: it is a strategic attack on scientifically backed reproductive medicine. In fact, Lila Rose has compared the immorality of IVF to that of rape as both “immoral acts” within the same breath.[8]

Anti-abortion bullying and restricting IVF goes hand-in-hand. Some so-called fertility clinics that have focused on “restorative reproductive medicine” have direct ties with anti-abortion pregnancy centers, such as Vitae Clinic in Austin, Texas. [9] The “fertility” center is housed with an anti-abortion pregnancy center, likely to dissuade some visitors from accessing abortion care and for others, offering up fake science to address the “root cause” of their infertility. [9] In this way, anti-abortion pregnancies could be reaching a larger market to spread sexist stigma and junk science.

Once again, anti-abortion bullies are co-opting feminist language in order to take even more control over women’s bodies. Their proliferation of junk science and limiting scientifically-backed reproductive health services harms everyone. Among roughly 1 in 6 people globally experience infertility and pushing a ‘natural’ approach to family planning does nothing but place blame upon those people. [10] Plainly, limiting IVF access would prevent many families from being created.

Infertility does not equate to being undeserving of motherhood or parenthood. According to research from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), up to 30% of infertility cases are due to unexplained factors, meaning there is no underlying cause to be treated. [11] This obsession with women’s fertility among the anti-abortion movement is really a facade for an anti-woman, Christian nationalist agenda: promoting “the God-given design” of a woman’s ability to conceive – a ploy to ultimately restrict access to IVF, birth control, abortion, and other reproductive care. [5]

The clear contradiction lies in anti-abortion language that claims IVF “commodifies” women and children by way of surrogacy and planned pregnancy, but simultaneously calls to restrict all methods of reproductive choice. [12] At its core, the anti-IVF agenda is a strategy to control basic reproductive health access while masking itself as a tool for woman’s empowerment. Leaders of anti-abortion organizations have no interest in advocating for the needs of women or families – they are threatening bodily autonomy by framing motherhood as a sacred privilege, rather than a basic human right.

Sources: 

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfucuFZ4S6Q
[2] https://reproaction.org/opposition-ivf-restorative-reproductive-medicine/
[3] https://reproaction.org/the-trump-aligned-pro-family-movement-is-much-more-sinister-than-simply-promoting-childbirth/
[4] https://www.acog.org/advocacy/abortion-is-essential/trending-issues/issue-brief-restorative-reproductive-medicine
[5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJMMf1Euo2o&t=858s
[6] https://x.com/LiveAction/status/1981079122110476301
[7] https://www.kff.org/womens-health-policy/fertility-awareness-based-methods-to-prevent-pregnancy/
[8] https://bsky.app/profile/reproaction.bsky.social/post/3luzts5xkdc2k
[9] https://19thnews.org/2025/11/abortion-opponents-ivf-restorative-reproductive-clinics/
[10] https://www.who.int/news/item/04-04-2023-1-in-6-people-globally-affected-by-infertility
[11] https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/23187-unexplained-infertility
[12] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfucuFZ4S6Q