Chrissy Teigen and her husband, John Legend, announced last week that during the in vitro fertilization process that resulted in their recent pregnancy, they “selected” a female embryo — choosing, specifically, to bring a girl to full term.
Public reaction was mixed. Although Teigen defended her decision valiantly on social media, it was clear that there was a level of discomfort, even among her fans, that she’d treated the IVF process almost as though she were picking out a pair of shoes for a special occasion: The blue Gucci pumps don’t fit in her life right now, so she’ll grab the pink. But as someone who has struggled with infertility for close to four years, the decision for me was a deeper, more personal disappointment.
As Chrissy’s pregnancy has progressed, she’s been a vocal, open advocate for women struggling with infertility, a medical problem affecting almost 10 percent of American women — but one most women struggle with in silence.
Many are too afraid to disrupt the endless social-media parade of baby photos and sonograms and first birthday parties with posts of their drug cocktails, treatment schedules and routine, crushing monthly disappointments.
Infertility is deeply personal, and deeply devastating; a feeling that your body, designed to do a single thing — create more human beings — has completely betrayed you.
Teigen spoke frankly about the shots and the pills, the stress and the panic, in a way that is difficult for many women. She inspired conversation — and awe — rather than the silent, pitying looks many of us routinely receive, and openly revile.
She, and friend Tyra Banks, gave the public a background understanding of exactly what it’s like to undergo years of painful treatment that affects you physically, spiritually and emotionally, and helped many of us explain our journey more effectively to friends and family.
And that is why Wednesday’s odd announcement was so devastating. Teigen took what was a very difficult journey and made it into a shopping trip, albeit a physically demanding one.
The quest for a child is not a material quest. It’s certainly a deep desire, but many women handling infertility struggle with the perception that they see children as consumer goods. The modern infertility “industry” has done little to dispel that view, with IVF clinics that advertise with slogans like “Baby or your money back!” and who market the notion that children are necessarily “deserved” as though pregnancy was an owed condition, not a blessed one.
But life — especially the life of a child — isn’t a commodity to be created and destroyed at our convenience. That’s one of the reasons my husband and I struggled with the idea of IVF and ultimately declined to go that route, though it made fertility treatments that much harder: The system seemed all too willing to make the children we desired into products we could buy. And that’s before we considered that the process could — and would — tailor our products to our individual wants.
The [IVF] system seemed all too willing to make the children we desired into products we could buy.
When Chrissy Teigen announced that she had specifically “selected” a female embryo, it did nothing but reinforce the notion that slates of lab-created embryos — babies — could be organized, analyzed and sorted. Parents like Teigen and Legend could then select from a menu of options, desirable and undesirable. For Teigen and Legend, they stopped with gender, but a barrage of tests could easily reveal any number of genetic markers accompanying any number of defining characteristics, from eye and hair color, to sexual orientation, disability or racial features. That would give parents the opportunity to select children with their ideal genetic makeup, and weed out the weak, the diseased and the undesirable — creating ideal products.
Teigen defended herself by saying that the doctors had already determined gender anyway, and that her infertility — which she called on Twitter her “natural blessing” — had given her the opportunity to pursue this route.
If the options were open to her, why not take them?
Especially in this day and age of incredible technological advancement, where third-party reproduction methods like IVF are considered a gift to couples who find pregnancy difficult to achieve naturally.
But the reason why not is actually very clear: Actions have consequences, both immediate and widespread. The ethical consequences of gender selection are obvious.
But while all along Teigen has stood with us as we face our daily trials, her decision seems only to reveal that she was willing to view her treatment as an excuse to devalue its stated goal.
In her announcement, she reinforced the superficial marketing, the casual relationship we’ve developed with reproduction and the cultural narrative that life exists (and ends its existence) at our whim.
Having children is serious business. Not an unserious celebrity pursuit.
Emily Zanotti is a communications consultant and digital editor of The American Spectator.