Even though the U.S. abortion industry kills roughly 1 million unborn babies each year, data reveals that the number of conceived lives lost in America through in vitro fertilization (IVF) processes is far outpacing elective abortion. 

Based on 2024 data from the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, the scale of loss of created embryos from IVF that year was nearly four times the lives lost to the abortion industry at more than 3.9 million. In 2024, IVF clinics reported that patients underwent more than 449,000 IVF cycles, with an average estimate of nine embryos created per cycle, for a total of more than 4 million embryos where the vast majority of which are lost at various stages of pregnancy, frozen, discarded, or donated for scientific experimentation. Additionally, the 449,000 cycles resulted in slightly more than 100,000 live births out of the 4 million embryos created. 

Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also shows that in 2022 more than 3 million embryos were created from about 435,000 IVF cycles (estimating seven embryos per cycle) resulting in about 98,000 live births, meaning 2.9 million created embryos were potentially lost that year.

Medical experts suggest that between 1.2 million and 1.5 million embryos are currently stored in cryopreservation across the country where only a minute fraction will ever be thawed and implanted. Compared to the 1 million lives lost to elective abortion annually, the IVF industry is showing a significantly higher volume of lost, created lives.

Tragically, in addition, the IVF industry is growing largely without oversight. Minimal regulations are giving rise to the phrase that the U.S IVF industry is the “wild west.” Unlike the U.S. adoption process and the regulated IVF standards in other nations, the U.S. and many states do not restrict who can commission IVF services or regulate the process itself. There are few, if any, regulations based on marital status, age, background screenings, surrogacy, how many embryos can be created, and how they are to be frozen and stored. In addition, what used to be seen as a last resort for infertile married couples, the IVF market is now seeing demand from LGBT couples and single individuals “purchasing gametes and hiring surrogates” to get babies.

As long as IVF clinics continue to operate as businesses where high volume and higher success rates are rewarded with financial gain, the U.S. IVF market is projected to exceed $15 billion annually by 2035.

Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, “Every human life begins as an embryo and has incalculable worth. The data makes a compelling case that the unregulated, commercialized IVF industry is destroying far more conceived lives than it births and even surpasses the elective abortion industry due to its high-volume scale per cycle. The U.S. IVF market needs regulation. Every unborn life should be protected, no matter their stage or location.”