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Charlie Kirk is the Founder and President of Turning Point USA, the largest and fastest growing conservative youth activist organization in the country with over 250,000 student members, over 150 full-time staff, and a presence on over 2,000 high school and college campuses nationwide. Charlie is also the Chairman of Students for Trump, which aims to activate one million new college voters on campuses in battleground states in the lead up to the 2020 presidential election. His social media reaches over 100 million people per month and according to Axios, he is one of the "top 10 most engaged" Twitter handles in the world. He is also the host of “The Charlie Kirk Show,” which regularly ranks among the top news shows on Apple podcast charts.
Charlie Kirk Explains His Moral Position on IVF to Twin Sisters Conceived Through the Process
Charlie Kirk faces a deeply personal question from twin sisters Paige and Alex, both conceived through IVF, about his moral stance on the procedure. Kirk navigates the challenging conversation by acknowledging the fruit of IVF 'celebrating their lives' while explaining his pro-life concerns about discarded embryos, frozen fertilized eggs, and the separation of life from natural conception. He discusses how infertility may be symptomatic of broader health issues, touches on the potential downsides of birth control pills, and offers advice for pro-life couples considering IVF. Kirk emphasizes that while he doesn't advocate making IVF illegal, he sees serious ethical problems with how the process is often conducted, particularly when multiple embryos are created with the expectation that some will be discarded.
When twin sisters Paige and Alex approached Charlie Kirk at a Turning Point USA event, they brought a question that couldn't be more personal. Both conceived through IVF, along with their two older sisters, they wanted to understand Kirk's moral position on the very process that brought them into existence. Paige described herself as "particularly neutral on the topic" given that her "entire family's kind of become a product of IVF."
Kirk immediately acknowledged the complexity of the issue, stating that while he has significant problems with IVF, he must celebrate the fruit of it—the lives of people like Paige and Alex. This set the stage for a nuanced conversation that would explore the intersection of pro-life principles and reproductive technology.
The Pro-Life Dilemma of Discarded Embryos
Kirk began by addressing what he considers the fundamental problem with IVF from a pro-life perspective: the discarded fertilized eggs. He pointed out that during the twins' creation process, they lost siblings. For their older sisters, there were six embryos in their batch with two resulting in live births. For Paige and Alex, there were three embryos with two surviving.
"That's why you guys are twins," Kirk explained. "Because during your creation process, if I can be provocatively blunt with you, you lost a lot of your siblings." He identified this as definitionally problematic because it involves discarding life to get to life.
Paige attempted to justify the process by arguing that the embryos weren't going to survive anyway, but at least the attempt resulted in children who would be raised in a pro-life home that cherished them. Kirk acknowledged this perspective but offered an alternative approach.
A Pro-Life Approach to IVF
Kirk explained that there is a more ethically consistent way for pro-life couples to approach IVF: only implant the eggs corresponding to the number of children they actually want to raise. He noted that IVF doctors typically sell the process differently, explaining that with six embryos, couples should be lucky if one or two implant to the uterine wall.
The problem, as Kirk sees it, is that this approach treats embryo creation like "a roulette table"—creating multiple embryos with the full expectation that some will not survive. He finds this "directly contradictory" to pro-life stances and "a little bit creepy" that a doctor can essentially call shots on which lives will live and which won't.
In some cases, four embryos might implant, resulting in quadruplets. Kirk's concern is that the standard IVF approach involves creating embryos without the full intent of raising all the resulting children, which he describes as "bordering on eugenics"—essentially killing five to let one live.
The Problem of Frozen Embryos
Kirk's second major concern involves the millions of fertilized eggs currently sitting in freezers. From a pro-life perspective that holds these are human lives, he considers this a human rights violation. These embryos exist in a state of suspended animation with unclear futures, raising profound ethical questions about their status and rights.
Life Without Sex: The Brave New World Concern
Drawing on Aldous Huxley's dystopian novel "Brave New World," Kirk expressed concern about the broader implications of separating human creation from sexual reproduction. He noted that IVF represents the exact opposite of birth control: "Birth control is sex without life. IVF is life without sex."
Kirk worried about humans playing God with nature, comparing it to other concerning developments like resurrecting extinct species and gene editing with CRISPR technology. He believes that attempting to control nature as if we are "God almighty" is "a terrible idea" and "how you get the worst civilizations."
The Paradox of Pro-Life IVF Patients
Kirk highlighted an important irony: people who pursue IVF are often among the most pro-life individuals because they desperately want babies. "They're the last people that would walk into an abortion clinic," he observed. This further complicates the ethical landscape, as the people utilizing IVF are not approaching it from a casual or anti-life perspective.
Infertility as a Symptom, Not a Sickness
Taking the conversation in a different direction, Kirk suggested that infertility should be viewed as a symptom rather than a condition in itself. He proposed that infertility often results from:
Terrible diet
Genetic issues we don't fully understand
Environmental toxins poisoning us
Artificially lowered testosterone rates
This perspective reframes the IVF question by asking what underlying issues are creating the need for fertility interventions in the first place.
The Birth Control Pill Warning
Kirk then ventured into controversial territory by warning young women about the potential downsides of birth control pills, particularly as they relate to future fertility. "If you never want to deal with infertility, be very careful taking the pill," he advised. "The pill has a lot more downsides than they will ever tell you."
He acknowledged that as a man, he's "not allowed to say that," but both twins affirmed his right to address the issue. Kirk argued that the birth control pill can dramatically increase the likelihood of eventually needing IVF services.
A Sinister Business Model
Kirk concluded with what he called "the even more sinister take"—a profit-driven scenario where pharmaceutical and fertility companies could theoretically maximize revenue by getting teenage girls on birth control pills as a recurring revenue stream, encouraging them to delay childbearing until their 30s when fertility naturally declines, then profiting again from IVF services when they struggle to conceive.
"That's only if you'd want to make a bunch of money, though," he noted sarcastically, implying that this business model may already be playing out in reality.
The Bottom Line on IVF
When asked what it would take for him to be morally okay with IVF, Kirk essentially said that his conditions would largely invalidate the current IVF model. The reason IVF has successful outcomes is precisely because of the multiple-embryo approach he finds morally problematic.
If couples only implanted the number of embryos they intended to raise, success rates would drop dramatically. Doctors typically increase the number of embryos in subsequent rounds if initial attempts fail, sometimes creating 25 or more embryos in extreme cases for couples desperate to have a baby.
Kirk emphasized that he would not want to make IVF illegal, but he maintains serious ethical concerns about how it's practiced. He noted that second only to cancer, infertility causes the most mental suffering, creating significant depression and anxiety. This human suffering dimension adds another layer of complexity to an already difficult issue.
His advice for pro-life couples considering IVF: push back on doctors and insist on only implanting embryos they would be comfortable raising, trusting God with the outcome rather than treating embryo creation as a numbers game.
