AI is being harnessed to enhance IVF, offering prospective parents the power to select embryos based on traits like intelligence, physical appearance, or predisposition to certain conditions.
Newsroom (27/08/2025, Gaudium Press ) In the quiet laboratories of cutting-edge reproductive technology companies, a revolution is unfolding—one that promises to reshape the very essence of human procreation. Artificial intelligence (AI), with its unparalleled ability to process vast datasets and predict outcomes, is being harnessed to enhance in vitro fertilization (IVF), offering prospective parents the power to select embryos based on traits like intelligence, physical appearance, or predisposition to certain conditions. But this technological leap, heralded by some as a triumph of human ingenuity, is sounding alarms among ethicists and theologians who warn of a dystopian future where thousands of embryos are discarded in a single round of treatment, evoking comparisons to a modern form of infanticide on an industrial scale.
Charles Camosy, a bioethics and moral theology professor at the Catholic University of America, has emerged as a vocal critic of this trend. Writing for UnHerd, he argues that the integration of AI into assisted reproductive technologies is not merely a scientific advancement but a cultural shift, one influenced by a resurgence of pre-Christian pagan values. “The pagan Greeks and Romans had no trouble dehumanizing newborns,” Camosy writes, “and they thought nothing of making choices about which babies should live and which die, based upon their own needs and desires.” Two millennia later, he contends, we are witnessing the rise of a “neopagan” worldview that similarly wields the power of life and death over unborn children, albeit with far greater sophistication and scale.
This new era of reproductive technology, Camosy warns, is driven by consumerist desires for optimization and quality control, where children are treated not as unconditional gifts but as products to be curated through apps and algorithms. Companies like Orchid and Nucleus are at the forefront of this movement, developing tools that allow parents to screen embryos for traits such as height, hair color, eye color, intelligence, and even the likelihood of developing mental illnesses. Orchid’s CEO, Noor Siddiqui, has been unabashed about the cultural transformation her company envisions. In a video shared on X, she declared, “Sex is for fun, and embryo screening is for babies. It is going to be insane not to screen for these things.” The “things” she refers to, according to a New York Times article, include conditions like obesity and autism, which Orchid claims it can screen for.
This vision of reproduction—where procreation is severed from the act of sex and reduced to a transactional process of selection—has drawn sharp criticism from those who adhere to traditional religious frameworks. Ross Douthat, a New York Times columnist and Catholic convert, confronted Siddiqui in an interview, reading aloud a poem that celebrated the unchosen gift of children born through natural procreation. The poem, Camosy notes, left Douthat visibly moved, but Siddiqui’s response was a blank stare and a question: “What do you mean?” For her, the Catholic vision of procreation—rooted in the sanctity of life and the acceptance of children as divine gifts—has been rendered obsolete by a culture that prioritizes choice and customization.
Camosy’s critique is not directed at the individuals behind these technologies, whom he believes may be motivated by a desire to alleviate suffering. Rather, he argues that they are shaped by a “pagan culture” that blinds them to the moral implications of their actions. “They aren’t moral monsters,” he writes, “though they are promoting, on a massive scale, morally monstrous practices.” These practices, he predicts, will only intensify as technological advancements allow for the creation of thousands of embryos in a single IVF cycle, with AI-driven screening tools selecting the “desirable” few and discarding the rest.
The implications of this trend extend beyond the ethical to the societal. Camosy warns that the widespread adoption of such technologies could exacerbate existing class-based inequalities, creating a new “biological caste” system where the wealthy gain access to genetically optimized children, while those who cannot afford such interventions are left behind. Over time, as these technologies become more affordable and pervasive, societal pressures—perhaps even from health insurers—may compel parents to optimize their children, relegating natural procreation to the margins of society, a practice associated with “insane” religious outliers.
This dystopian vision is not without precedent. Camosy draws a parallel to the ancient world, where pagan cultures routinely practiced infant exposure, discarding newborns deemed unfit based on arbitrary criteria. A surviving letter from 1 BC, written by a pagan migrant worker named Hilarion to his pregnant wife, Alis, illustrates this mindset. In it, Hilarion instructs Alis to keep their unborn child if it is a boy but to “cast it out” if it is a girl. The letter, Camosy notes, reveals a man capable of deep feeling yet shaped by a culture that normalized the dehumanization of certain children. Today’s AI-driven reproductive technologies, he argues, represent a high-tech return to this pagan mindset, where embryos are swiped right or left based on parental preferences.
Yet, the historical arc of Christianity offers a counterpoint. The early Church, Camosy reminds us, rejected the pagan practices of abortion and infanticide, welcoming discarded children into Christian homes and eventually outlawing infant exposure as Christianity became the dominant religion of the Roman Empire. This transformation was driven by a radical belief in the equal dignity of all human beings, a principle that Camosy believes is eroding in the modern West. As medicine and technology increasingly embrace a utilitarian view of human life, where worth is measured by traits like autonomy or cognitive ability, the stage is set for a revival of practices that prioritize parental desires over the intrinsic value of life.
Recent developments in IVF underscore the urgency of these concerns. A study conducted by researchers at King’s College London, King’s College Hospital, and King’s Fertility found that preimplantation genetic testing for aneuploidy (PGT-A)—a process that screens embryos for chromosomal abnormalities—improved live birth rates for women aged 35 to 42, increasing the success rate from 52 percent to 72 percent after up to three embryo transfers. Proponents argue that such technologies reduce the emotional and physical toll of failed IVF cycles and miscarriages. However, the Catholic Church, while empathetic to the struggles of infertile couples, opposes IVF, particularly the creation and destruction of multiple embryos, which it views as a violation of the sanctity of life.
Camosy’s warnings are not without hope. He points to a resurgence of Christian, particularly Catholic, values among young people in the United States and Europe as a potential counterforce to the neopagan tide. Just as early Christians resisted the reproductive practices of their time, he suggests that a renewed Christian ethic could challenge the commodification of human life in the 21st century. “Dare we hope,” he writes, “that one of the hallmarks of the 21st-century Christian revival will also be resistance to the neopaganism of the Siddiquis of the world? It may be the only force that can stave off dystopia.”
As AI and reproductive technologies continue to advance, the choices society makes will determine whether we embrace a future where human life is reduced to a consumer product or one where the dignity of every embryo, every child, is upheld. The stakes could not be higher, and the echoes of history—from Hilarion’s letter to the algorithms of today—serve as a sobering reminder of what is at risk.
- Raju Hasmukh with files from Catholic Herald and Unherd
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