About 100,000 babies were in 2024, according to the most recent U.S. data. But IVF commonly involves trying to create , because success is never guaranteed. If unused, those embryos can be frozen, discarded, donated to research or donated to another fertility patient.
In the eyes of some anti-abortion activists, those frozen IVF embryos are already children – children who need to be “adopted” into families. And that idea now appears in a federal document: in June 2026.
The department’s has existed since 2002. But this year’s funding notice describes IVF embryos as “children who already exist and are in need of a family.” Rather than presenting “embryo adoption” as one option among many for patients with remaining embryos, the document describes the practice as centered on ” and “best interests.”
This language draws from a to fetuses and embryos, including those made in fertility clinics. The personhood movement is rooted in a belief embraced by many conservative Christians: that human life begins at fertilization and from that moment.
Embryo adoption occupies a niche corner of U.S. fertility care. But the notice brings far-reaching questions about reproductive politics into sharper focus, including the future of IVF – a fertility treatment that .
In my 2023 book, “,” I show how embryo adoption developed as a Christian pro-life response to the accumulation of embryos remaining after IVF, recasting embryos as vulnerable children requiring rescue. Once a fringe view even among anti-abortion activists, that claim is now .
Donation vs. adoption
Some fertility patients who no longer plan to use their frozen embryos in the United States. An embryo is transferred through contracts and clinic consent forms, after which it can be transferred into a recipient’s uterus.
The small network of agencies, nonprofits and churches that offer embryo “adoption,” on the other hand, recast the donation process as one that saves “pre-born children.” Modeled on domestic adoption, many programs require that assess prospective parents and their households. Many also allow donors to select who receives their embryos and encourage families to get to know each other rather than remain anonymous.
Legally, though, embryos in the U.S. generally are not adopted, because states do not classify them as children under adoption law. Instead, they are often transferred by contract .
The , however, but part of a larger political project. Advocates seek to change how the public understands embryos and, ultimately, how the law classifies them.
As one advocate for embryo personhood told me in 2008, “What we call things matters.” Adoption language gives the process “some meaning and some dignity,” he said, by recasting IVF embryos as children deserving protection rather than as surplus tissue or research material.
Pushing for personhood
The world’s first was launched in 1997 by Nightlight Christian Adoptions, which also facilitates traditional domestic and international adoptions. But the idea emerged from a longer effort that began taking shape in the 1960s, led largely by conservative Christian organizations, to establish legal personhood .
In 1973, the Supreme Court’s found that the Constitution protected the right to have an abortion – a decision grounded in the right to privacy, stemming from . But the majority’s opinion also observed that the case for abortion rights would “collapse” if a fetus were recognized as a person under the 14th Amendment, with a constitutional right to life.
It was a watershed moment for personhood politics, and anti-abortion strategists responded quickly. One week later, Maryland Rep. Lawrence Hogan , which sought to extend constitutional personhood to “the moment of conception.” repeatedly failed in Congress and at the ballot box, including that Mississippi voters rejected.
As IVF advanced, the treatment raised . Some anti-abortion advocates extended claims about life beginning at fertilization to embryos created outside the body, but IVF was not one of the movement’s main targets.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, debates over drew national attention to what happens to embryos that remain after IVF. Scientists and patient advocates viewed embryos remaining after IVF as valuable materials for research that might lead to treatments for serious diseases.
To anti-abortion activists, however, using embryos in research destroyed human life. Embryo adoption entered the debate as a “” to discarding them or donating them to research.
President George W. Bush brought families from Nightlight’s embryo adoption program to White House press conferences opposing expanded federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. These children helped convey Bush’s message that “.”
From margins to mainstream
Embryo politics changed dramatically in 2022, when a new Supreme Court ruling, , overturned the constitutional protection for abortion.
Before Dobbs, persuading courts to recognize embryos and fetuses as persons had been a among anti-abortion groups. Some embraced it, while others favored a different strategy – in part because .
After Dobbs, however, activists to extend legal rights to embryos and fetuses. Personhood arguments now surface in not only abortion restrictions but also disputes involving pregnancy loss, and . , in particular, has .
Alabama became a bellwether in 2024 when its Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos created during IVF treatment ” under the state’s wrongful death law, which allows parents to sue over the death of a child. The case arose after a patient entered a fertility clinic’s cryogenic storage area and dropped a container holding frozen embryos. , clinics paused services, and the state quickly giving providers immunity for embryo damage or death during IVF services.
New territory
Today, the Health and Human Services signals a shift toward the personhood movement’s central premise: that embryos are children.
To be sure, embryo adoption occupies a small corner of U.S. fertility medicine. for procreative use. Nor is embryonic personhood a popular idea: declaring that human life begins at fertilization. A majority of white evangelical Protestants, Hispanic Protestants and Latter-day Saints support that view, yet majorities of these religious groups also .
But embryo adoption’s political power has never depended on widespread participation or public support. It lies in the story the movement tells about what embryos are, and advocates’ efforts to embed that story in institutions, policies and law.
I would argue the funding notice is one sign that the personhood movement is gaining force after the Dobbs decision. The question it raises is what legally recognizing embryos as children would mean for reproductive health and rights.
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