The Suffering and Psychological Illnesses Caused by Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART)

The study was published on June 27, 2024 in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology (BJOG), a British scientific journal of international reference in the fields of obstetrics and gynecology.

Scientists from the Royal College of Obstetrics and Gynecology set out to assess the “psychological experiences of DC [donor conceived] people through childhood and adulthood.” To do this, they synthesized data from around 50 surveys carried out in Anglophone countries, concerning 4,666 children who had been conceived by this means.

It should be noted, as the BJOG points out, that “over 70,000 donor-conceived (DC) people have been born in the UK since 1991” through medically assisted procreation with sperm or egg donation. A constantly growing number “since in 2019 alone, 4,100 DC children were born in the UK.” By comparison, in France, the Health Insurance recorded 870 children born by third-party donor in 2021.

From the 50 studies, the BJOG drew 19 comparative studies between “DC and non-DC people”: 14 of the studies found no difference in outcomes between the two groups on many points, but 6 found worse outcomes: “increased autism spectrum disorders and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, addiction issues, mental illness, disruptive behavior, and identity problems.”

In addition, the studies all reveal that subjects born by assisted reproductive technology share concerns related to the formation of identity and the genetic heritage of the gamete donor. “It is plausible that certain psychological processes that occur in subjects born under assisted reproductive technology with a third-party donor explain the observed differences," summarize the British scientists.

The BJOG synthesis highlights the impact of the subject's possible knowledge of how he was conceived. If he does not learn that he came into the world by means of assisted reproductive technology, no psychological damage is observed; conversely, the later this revelation is made, the more significant the consequences on his mental health seem to be. But today, it is very difficult, often even impossible, according to state laws, to hide this information from subjects.

It is a way of demonstrating that this practice is against nature, and is not without consequences, as is the case with ​​any mode of conception of a child that moves away from the laws that the Creator has written in nature for the propagation of the human race. This is why the Catholic Church opposes the artificial technique of assisted reproductive technology that would deviate from the natural union. 

And it would be possible to affirm that the more a scientist lets himself be intoxicated by the power that technical progress provides, the less he is able to control the scope of his actions, and in the end, the human creature risks becoming the plaything of his inventions.

As Hannah Arendt wrote in The Human Condition: “If it turned out that knowledge (in the sense of know-how) and thought had separated for good, we would then be the playthings and slaves, not so much of our machines, as of our practical knowledge, brainless creatures at the mercy of every possible technical device, however deadly they may be.”