Takeaways from AP’s profile of a Christian IVF doctor – Image for illustrative purposes only (Image credits: Unsplash)
Many couples struggling with infertility face tough decisions about how far to go in creating life outside the body. Dr. John Gordon, once a co-director at a large fertility clinic near Washington, D.C., reached a point where those decisions no longer sat well with his faith. He moved to Knoxville, Tennessee, in 2019 and opened Rejoice Fertility, a clinic designed to limit the creation of extra embryos and avoid practices that conflict with his convictions. The result is a practice that still helps patients conceive but follows stricter boundaries than most standard IVF programs.
Questions That Prompted a Change
Gordon began to question the routine production of surplus embryos during his earlier work. These embryos often remain frozen for years or are eventually discarded, a process that troubled him as a member of the Presbyterian Church in America. He also noted how genetic testing now allows parents to select for sex or screen out conditions ranging from serious diseases to milder issues like hearing loss. In his view, the core issue came down to whether children should be treated as gifts or as products to be optimized.
Those doubts led him to relocate and start fresh. Rejoice Fertility does not discard viable embryos, perform genetic testing, or donate them for research. Instead, the clinic focuses on creating only the number of embryos a couple expects to use and offers embryo adoption when extras remain. Gordon has said he needs to practice in a way that aligns with his personal decisions.
How IVF Works in Simple Terms
In vitro fertilization combines eggs and sperm in a laboratory to form embryos that can later be placed in a woman’s uterus. The technique has grown steadily, with more than 100,000 babies born through IVF in the United States in 2024 alone. Medical estimates place the number of frozen embryos currently stored nationwide at around 1.5 million, though some advocates believe the true figure is higher.
While the procedure helps many families, it raises ethical questions for those who believe life begins at fertilization. The Catholic Church has opposed IVF for decades. Among Protestants, the Southern Baptist Convention in 2024 urged limits on methods that destroy embryonic human life. Gordon’s clinic operates within this broader conversation by trying to reduce those risks from the start.
Practical Steps That Set Rejoice Apart
Rejoice Fertility asks patients upfront how many children they hope to have and designs treatment around that number. Many choose minimal-stimulation, or “mini-IVF,” cycles that use lower doses of medication and typically produce fewer eggs. Others opt for natural-cycle IVF, which retrieves the single egg released during a normal monthly cycle. These approaches usually result in fewer embryos overall.
The trade-off is clear: if a cycle fails and no embryos remain, patients must start over at a cost of $8,000 to $10,000 per round. Gordon reports that most of his patients accept this possibility because it matches their beliefs about not creating more embryos than they intend to use. The clinic also facilitates embryo adoptions through its new Rejoice Embryo Rescue program, which stores donated embryos and works with Christian agencies to match them with families.
Balancing Faith and Medical Care
Gordon’s approach does not eliminate every moral tension surrounding IVF, but it addresses several that matter most to him and his patients. By limiting embryo creation and treating unused ones as candidates for adoption rather than disposal, the clinic offers one concrete way to navigate the technology while staying within certain religious boundaries. His local church has supported the effort, and patients appear willing to accept longer timelines or additional cycles when needed.
Whether this model will influence other clinics remains to be seen. For now, Rejoice Fertility stands as one doctor’s attempt to reconcile advanced reproductive medicine with deeply held convictions about the status of early human life. The choices families make in such settings continue to reflect both medical possibilities and personal values that are not easily separated.