A jewellery company offering keepsakes made from embryos created through in vitro fertilization is drawing criticism from pro-life advocates who argue that it’s treating children like decorations and denies them a dignified burial. Blossom Keepsake, based in the United Kingdom, advertises on its website that it crafts modern heirloom jewellery for parents who have undergone IVF but can no longer store their unused embryos or feel uncertain about donation. According to the company, its IVF embryo keepsake jewellery service offers couples a “gentler way to honour what they created” by encasing the embryos of their children into rings, pendants, bracelets and charms. Blossom Keepsake also states that it can combine the embryo “with other meaningful inclusions to tell the whole story. Popular choices include breastmilk, ashes, hair, umbilical cord, dried flowers and fabric.” Couples can choose from a variety of metals, including sterling silver and rose gold, and they can also personalize their IVF embryo jewellery by adding birthstones and diamonds, according to the website.
While the company states in the Frequently Asked Questions section that it doesn’t yet have an upper limit on the number of embryos parents can set into jewellery, it does advise couples that have a large number of embryos to consult with them first. On its website, Blossom Keepsake promotes IVF embryo keepsakes as a way for couples to “create something symbolic” that “truly represents their journey.” Pro-life advocates, however, contend that setting embryos into jewellery treats children like commodities instead of human beings deserving of dignity. “These embryos are actually human beings,” pro-life advocate Stephanie Gray Connors, the author of On IVF (The Dignity Series), told The Christian Post. “They were alive until the parents chose to have them stored in a stone.” “The children made by IVF are more valuable than any earthly jewel; those who have died deserve a respectful burial as any born person does, and those involved in taking the lives of the youngest of our kind owe them repentance, not rings,” she added.
The pro-life advocacy group Live Action, founded by Lila Rose, referred to the practice of encasing human beings in jewellery as “dystopian” in a post on X. “Parents can now turn their ‘leftover’ IVF embryos, living children, into jewellery. We are treating human life as decoration — a keepsake of convenience,” the pro-life organization warned. Blossom Keepsake did not respond to The Christian Post’s request for comment. However, this article will be updated if a response is received. According to the Mayo Clinic, IVF consists of a process in which “mature eggs are collected from ovaries and fertilized by sperm in a lab” and “a procedure is done to place one or more of the fertilized eggs, called embryos, in a uterus.” While proponents of IVF typically argue that it provides couples struggling with infertility the opportunity to have children, pro-life advocates and bioethicists have warned that the practice results in the destruction of human lives.
Them Before Us, an organization that advocates for the right of every child to be raised by a mother and father, has cited research that suggests only 7% of lab-created children are born alive, while others remain frozen, are donated to science or “compassionately transferred to die in the womb.” According to a 2024 article published by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, it’s estimated that more than 1.5 million embryos are currently frozen and being kept in storage across the United States. “If it’s decided for any reason that too many embryos have implanted, or the babies are deemed to be the wrong sex, or not developing as the commissioning parents desire, a reduction may be performed — or rather, abortions, until only the desired number and quality remain,” Them Before Us states on its website.
Source: Christian Post