(LifeSiteNews) — A specialty jeweler that offers to incorporate organic tissue including frozen embryos into its products is gaining notoriety as a stark example of how the in vitro fertilization (IVF) process objectifies nascent human life.
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| Image Credit: Carlos Duarte / Getty |
Blossom Keepsake offers hand-crafted jewelry “transforming breastmilk, ashes, umbilical cord, embryo, placenta, and hair into unique stones to create modern heirlooms,” according to its website.
It says it specializes in keepsakes “using unused IVF embryos that are destined to be destroyed” to “provide families with a way to honour and cherish the journey they have taken to bring life into the world.”
The company purports to “believe that every life is precious and deserves to be celebrated,” which is why it “carefully handles each embryo with the utmost care and respect. Using advanced techniques, we are able to encapsulate the essence of life within stunning jewellery pieces. From delicate pendants to intricate rings, each keepsake is meticulously crafted to reflect the beauty and significance of the journey it represents.”
Many found professions of respecting life difficult to reconcile with a business model of literally turning the bodies of pre-born human into material for luxury items, however.
“By offering to turn these tiny humans into keepsakes, the company preys on the emotional desire of parents to hold onto a ‘piece’ of their children,” wrote Lydia Taylor Davis at Students for Life. “But here’s the kicker: these embryos are not just biological material; they are reportedly living human beings who are being killed and turned into accessories, not treated with dignity.”
“Many Instagram users thought the same, as the business experienced swift and intense backlash,” Davis continued. “When I commented on how this jewelry business profits from the termination of innocent human life, the business blocked me. Other commenters argued that turning embryos into jewelry isn’t just disrespectful – it’s dangerous. In the pursuit of ‘celebrating life,’ as this business claims to do, we risk normalizing the idea that some human lives are less valuable than others based solely on their potential for profit or utility.”
The IVF process is gravely unethical, as it entails the conscious creation of scores of “excess” embryonic humans only to be killed and human lives being treated like commodities to be bartered over. It has been estimated that more than a million embryos are frozen in storage in the United States after IVF, and that as many as 93 percent of all embryos created through IVF are eventually destroyed. A 2019 NBC News profile of Florida fertility doctor Craig Sweet acknowledged that his practice has discarded or abandoned approximately a third of the embryos it places in cold storage.
Yet most in the nominally pro-life Republican Party have dropped opposition to IVF, led by President Donald Trump, who this week directed his administration to brainstorm administrative action and policy recommendations to strengthen IVF “access” and “affordability” that he campaigned on.
A White House official later told the Daily Wire’s Mary Margaret Olohan that input from pro-life groups will be considered in formulating a final policy, but many pro-life and religious leaders continue to point out that any pro-IVF policy will be fundamentally anti-life.