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NaProEthics Director
Explains How Pro-life Fertility Treatment
Works Better Than IVF
Rachel Quackenbush on March 17, 2025

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CV NEWS FEED // In a recent interview with CatholicVote, Sister Renée Mirkes, director of the Center for NaProEthics at the Saint Paul VI Institute in Omaha, offered a compelling defense of NaProTechnology as a groundbreaking and morally sound alternative to in vitro fertilization (IVF). 

Drawing from decades of research and clinical success, she outlined how NaProTechnology not only addresses infertility but also restores women’s reproductive health — something IVF fails to do.
 

Sr. Renée’s remarks follow her recent open letter to Vice President JD Vance, in which she urged him to recognize NaProTechnology as “exemplary reproductive medicine that — unlike IVF — is moral to its core.”

Founded by Dr. Thomas Hilgers in response to Pope Paul VI’s Humanae Vitae, the Saint Paul VI Institute has been at the forefront of advancing pro-life women’s health care for more than four decades. Its flagship innovation, NaProTechnology, has helped countless couples conceive naturally by treating the underlying causes of infertility, boasting significantly higher success rates than IVF — all while avoiding the ethical concerns surrounding embryo destruction and artificial conception.
 

Sr. Renée, a member of the Franciscan Sisters of Christian Charity, shared with CatholicVote how NaProTechnology provides an effective, science-based approach to reproductive healthcare that upholds the Catholic Church’s teachings on the sanctity of life and marriage.
 

CatholicVote: Many people assume that IVF is the only or at least the most effective solution for infertility. How does NaProTechnology compare in terms of success rates and overall health outcomes for both mothers and babies?

Sr. Renée: The cumulative pregnancy rate for 1,054 infertile women who were treated at the Saint Paul VI Institute clinic with NaPro for the full spectrum of infertility-causing diseases demonstrates that over 60% became pregnant within 24 months, and nearly 70% of them within 36 months.

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Success rates for achieving pregnancy rates with NaPro will differ based on the patient’s infertility diagnosis. NaPro’s pregnancy success rate for patients with PCOS is between 60 and 80%. For patients with Kallmann Syndrome, it is between 80 and 90%, and for patients with endometriosis, it is greater than 50%. 
 

In contrast, the most recently Centers for Disease Control and Prevention-published data (2022) collected from approximately 390 U.S. Society of Assisted Reproductive Technology (SART) centers show a pregnancy rate with IVF techniques of 26% per cycles reported.
 

Dr. Hilgers is about to publish the results of a study that suggests NaPro can get close to an 80% pregnancy rate, if patients come to NaPro as soon as they suspect infertility. 

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CV: You’ve spoken about how NaProTechnology treats infertility as a symptom of underlying medical conditions. Can you explain how this differs from IVF, which bypasses natural conception?

 Sr. Renée: The NaPro infertility approach is disease-based.  It views infertility or subfertility as a symptom of underlying organic hormonal, or ovulatory dysfunctions.  And because NaPro treats these underlying diseases/conditions by comprehensively evaluating, diagnosing, and effectively treating them, NaProTechnology, both nationally and internationally, has been extremely successful in helping infertile couples to conceive, gestate, and give birth to a healthy newborn.
 

In stark contrast, IVF leaves the underlying root(s) of the woman’s infertility untreated or, at best, rarely treated.  Hence, after a round of IVF, the woman is still infertile — the root of her infertility has not been addressed at all or only unsuccessfully addressed.  IVF “leap-frogs over” the cause or causes of infertility, requiring the woman who wants a second try at pregnancy or a second pregnancy to subsequently return to IVF.

THIS EXTENSIVE INTERVIEW CONTINUES AND CAN BE READ HERE​

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