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“Anything made in a lab is artificial. This is why it can’t be real. Nothing there is natural.”
While one of my professors was introducing themselves and describing their credentials and background, they made this statement. Now I can somewhat understand how something that’s made in a lab may not always effectively simulate what is natural. The observer effect is very real. But this wasn’t a narrow point about how to account for various biases in interpreting data. This was a broad statement that calls into question the legitimacy of anything made in a lab as not “real”. He even specified that he doesn’t consider lab-made animals to be real, such as some types of rats used for studies.
I was born through in vitro fertilization, more commonly abbreviated IVF. IVF is a method of artificial fertilization and insemination to induce pregnancy. It’s a particularly common form of fertility treatment for people who have issues getting pregnant, but likely could carry to term safely once pregnant. Essentially, the sperm fertilizes the egg in a petri dish, which is then inserted into the uterus. There’s more to it than that, but frankly, I don’t understand the full biology of it, and this gets close. This is how I was conceived.
By his definition, I’m not a real person. I was made in a lab, therefore I am not natural and can’t be real. And neither are the roughly 12 million people worldwide who have been born through IVF (according to 2023 estimates from the International Committee for Monitoring Assisted Reproductive Technologies).
In this current world, this is absolutely terrifying. The executive order targeting birthright citizenship is a direct attempt to discount the rights of people based on birth in ways not seen since the Dred Scott case in the Supreme Court. The executive order on gender from conception shows a very clear definition of what a person is. Over the summer, Senate Republicans blocked attempts to both expand and better regulate the IVF industry, while proposals have been submitted in several places to restrict or remove IVF on moral grounds, and the idea that fertilized eggs created from IVF would be considered people is reinforced by the Alabama Supreme Court decision ruling them as such. And IVF concerns are disproportionately found among religious extremists, particularly the evangelical Christians who form the backbone of Trump’s political base.
It’s easy to be alarmist in all of this. And I don’t want this to just be my next mental health spiral of this administration. But the worrying part is that opinions like that of my professors are not as uncommon as people think. I have met a lot of people who think that people like me should never have been born. The unique thing about IVF is that there is no way for you to know whether or not an individual was born from it, which means people talk fairly openly about their hostility to it regardless of context. And as someone who is very conscious about this topic, the number of times that I’ve heard people say that people from IVF are unnatural and that the practice should be banned is high.
In a world where conception is life and there is a clear decision to regulate who does and does not deserve rights based on their birth, a group who already has existing prejudice against them – particularly when regulating away new IVF births is feasible, and most of the people against it will be the basis of upcoming policy – is going to be exceptionally vulnerable. This is especially true when you consider that there are people who genuinely do not consider me to be a real person as it is. Just remember to support those around you through these next few years (and however long it takes to undo the damage done by them). Supporting those around us and remembering what harms one group harms all of us will be key to maintaining our identities and our rights.
And despite the fact that it hurts that I even have to say this: I am a real person and being created in a lab makes me no less real.