Clinics employ cunning marketing to convince couples to use their services.
Theologian Father Alexander Schmemann reminds us in his “Celebration of Faith” series: “Every entrance of a new human being into the world and life is a miracle of miracles, a miracle that explodes all routine, for it marks the start of something unending, the start of a unique, unrepeatable human life, the beginning of a new person. And with each birth the world is itself in some sense created anew and given as a gift to this new human being to be his life, his path, his creation.”
This quote is a poignant reminder of how, upon conception, a new, eternal relationship between parents and child has begun, and how the intentional taking of an unrepeatable, eternal soul’s life is nothing short of a tragedy.
The profound significance of this new, eternal relationship is ignored not only through abortion, but through politicians such as Tim Walz and Donald Trump when they champion in vitro fertilization, a process that treats embryonic human beings as expendable, experimental subjects. Walz stated that the Republican party seeks to remove “reproductive freedoms” from some of the ways people have been choosing to build their families for quite some time already, and Trump has recently promised “free” IVF to infertile couples.
In the best-case scenario, perhaps these two politicians are unaware of the reality that IVF involves the killing of many humans for the sake of those who are brought to birth. But how are your average, working-class couples so easily duped by the “promises” of the fertility industry?
One of the ways clinics advertise their services is through their websites. Once clinics hook their clients with the promise of children, they are well on their way to creating an “excess” of human lives — lives with which they play trial and error without acknowledging the incredible loss of life that accompanies the process. So let’s examine how clinics market to convince couples to use their services in the first place.
Researcher Jim Hawkins sought to provide an in-depth analysis of fertility clinics’ websites to illustrate and better understand how clinics appeal to potential customers. While these websites often appeal to emotions and communicate the types of care they provide, they seldom mention the costs or success rates of services.
Pricing
When clinics do list their prices, the bundles they include can vary from extensive to basic. Many clinic websites, while upfront about financing arrangements and insurance plans, often give few details about what is included in the packages. As Hawkins found:
[S]ome clinics claim to have lower prices but fail to list the price so that consumers can assess the truthfulness of the claim. Along the same lines, one clinic notes the fact that its prices are competitive and that it does not have hidden fees, despite the fact it does not list its fees … [one] clinic charging $9,000 for one IVF cycle, well above the average cost, claims to have ‘the most competitive pricing in the greater Washington area.’ With so little pricing information available, it would be hard for consumers to assess these claims.
While factors for excluding price may include an inability to accurately assess pricing without first meeting with patients, or that clinics simply don’t think price is an important factor in patients’ decision-making, it may be more likely that clinics are trying to avert patients away from considering price upfront so that they are more inclined to seek their services.
Emotional Content
Hawkins found that some clinics focus solely on emotional content. In a survey of clinic websites, he found, “Of the 372 clinics with websites, 294 … presented images of babies on the Home page of their websites; 112 … used the word ‘dream’ on the Home page; and 33 … used the word ‘miracle.’”
He concluded that “focusing on dreams … causes patients to underestimate the costs involved in fertility treatments.”
Those who wish not to commodify children don’t have to analyze the costs of treatments versus the value of having a child in this circumstance, nor do they have to think of the cost that comes with having a commercial relationship with the clinic.
Further, this way of marketing can cause couples to associate images and words with successful pregnancies, making them more likely to act.
As Hawkins states:
Advertising scholars note that advertisements that present images and allow viewers to draw their own conclusions are more persuasive to customers than direct claims or even verbal metaphors. If patients see children and come up with an association between treatment and pregnancy on their own, they are more likely to act on the information.
Pictures of success are therefore more powerful at suggesting success rates than listing actual success rates.
Care and Certifications
In advertising the types of care they provide, the qualifications of their staff, and other factors, clinics seek to appear more attractive to patients. For example, “If a clinic’s success rate were lower than its competitors, perhaps the clinic would emphasize other subjective factors like its technological prowess or quality of its doctors to focus patients’ attention on those attributes instead of its lower success rates.”
Clinics’ websites also trumpet third-party assessments of their facilities by mentioning that their doctors (or the clinic itself) are board certified, that the clinic is part of a professional organization, that it’s endorsed by “Top Doctors” lists, or that patient testimonials are positive.
Studies “reveal that whether a physician is board certified is an important factor in how consumers choose physicians … a study analyzing twenty-three factors consumers use to select their primary care physician found that the most important factor was whether a physician was board certified.” This makes sense, then, that this would be a top priority on clinic websites that are seeking to entice customers by establishing trust in their services.
An Experiment Gone Awry
Hawkins concluded by stating that regulators both inside and outside of the industry need to “consider new regulations to ensure that the market functions correctly and that clinics do not mislead consumers or capitalize on decision-making biases.” He hopes that the “study encourages policymakers to take greater interest in fertility clinic advertising. Because laws already address success rates and because the industry actively engages in self-regulation, policymakers may be lulled into a state of complaisance about the need for intervention to ensure fertility markets function efficiently.”
More oversight of the fertility industry, specifically to ensure that clinics do not mislead customers, is certainly warranted. In the meantime, IVF clinics continue to create multiple embryonic persons on which to experiment during the transfer process. They are still indefinitely freezing embryos or donating them to be destroyed in scientific research.
The miraculous gift of life continues to be demeaned and disrespected. The only way to fully honor the dignity of unique, unrepeatable persons is to ban these experimental practices.