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.
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.
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.
CV: In your letter to Vice President JD Vance, you introduced him to NaProTechnology as a morally sound and effective alternative to IVF. What motivated you to write this letter, and what do you hope policymakers like Vance take away from it?
Sr. Renée: In his address to the 2025 Catholic Prayer Breakfast, JD Vance invited Catholics who have questions or concerns to knock on his White House office door and bring those concerns to his attention. That’s all the motivation to write to him that I needed.
I pray any lobbying efforts in DC that we might attempt will bring NaPro to share in the greater inclusion efforts and patient fee reduction following on the heels of President Donald Trump’s executive IVF order and any subsequent legislation.
CV: The Catholic Church opposes IVF for several reasons. Can you break down how NaProTechnology aligns with Catholic teaching and respects the dignity of both parents and children?
Sr. Renée: Just as God’s love manifests its perfection in giving life, so must married love. Hence, God’s plan for human procreation requires that a human being be conceived within the couple’s sexual act of self-gifting unitive love. The loving act of marital sex is the only context worthy of — able to make sense of — the mystery and beauty of conceiving a new human being.
Therefore, any reproductive technology — like NaPro — that assists the act of marital intercourse to achieve its natural goal of pregnancy is moral; it is able to lead the couple to the good of their own flourishing.
On the contrary, any reproductive technology — like IVF — that replaces the act of intercourse with a laboratory technique that simulates the mere procreative structure of the marital act is immoral; it is a grave injustice or a tyranny that fails to lead the couple to greater happiness, greater fulfillment.
Additionally, any reproductive technology, such as IVF, that fails to respect the dignity of the baby being conceived — by threatening the child’s right to life, cryopreserving the child, or exposing the embryonic human being to further objectification via research — tyrannically deprives the newly conceived human being of his or her just right to be conceived, gestated, born into, and raised within the marital love of his or her parents.
NaPro’s infertility protocols embody the small “c” catholic truths that the Church’s teaching on infertility treatments underscores:
(1) They respect the inviolable integrity and right to life of a newly developing baby.
(2) They acknowledge the truth that parents ought to view their baby as a gift, not a right.
(3) They recognize the child’s right to be conceived, gestated, born into, and raised within a heterosexual, until-death-do-we-part marriage.
(4) They assist, not replace, the marital act of unitive love.
(5) They promote the unitive love meaning of the martial act of sex that’s not only inextricably linked to, but that alone makes sense of, the mystery of sexuality and human procreation.
In sum, NaPro’s infertility protocols provide infertile couples the medical-moral solution that IVF procedures do not.
CV: Despite its decades of success, NaProTechnology remains relatively unknown to many couples struggling with infertility. Why do you think this is, and what can be done to raise awareness?
Sr. Renée: Budget constraints on our side (the Saint Paul VI Institute) have limited what we have been able to do and what we want to do in the future by way of marketing.
Putting limited funds aside, it’s simply amazing what Dr. Hilgers and his colleagues, guided by the Holy Spirit, have done to nurture our approach to women’s healthcare from its sapling stage of the 1970s into an ever-burgeoning national and international fully-grown OB/GYN tree in the 21st century.
In 1984, Dr. Hilgers established the Saint Paul VI Institute, a one of its kind medical institute specializing in research, diagnosis, and treatment of procreative and women’s healthcare within a pro-life ethic.
The Institute houses:
Since 1978, the Institute has trained thousands of Creighton Model teachers to help women track their cycles for gynecologic health, fertility awareness, and family planning that works with — rather than suppresses — the body’s natural functions.
Since 1991, it has also trained hundreds of medical professionals, including physicians and nurse practitioners, to provide NaPro (Natural Procreative) treatments that align with a woman’s natural cycle.
Since 2007, nearly 40 OB/GYNs have been trained as NaPro surgeons, specializing in pelvioplasty, a technique that reduces post-surgical scar tissue and treats conditions like ovarian cysts, polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), and endometriosis.
Currently, the Institute sponsors 250 FertilityCare centers in the U.S. and 100+ centers abroad. Each center teaches women/couples how to chart their cycles and then networks with a doctor trained in the medical practice of NaPro and, if required, with one of our surgeons trained in the medical and surgical practice of NaProTechnology.
In 1991, we moved from referring to our system as Creighton Model Natural Family Planning and introduced the umbrella term: NaProTechnology, an integrated diagnostic, treatment system of women’s health care that includes its family planning component of cyclic charting and that treats every major OB/Gyn health situation — pregnancy and birth, premenstrual syndrome (PMS), polycystic ovaries, painful or irregular periods, abnormal bleeding, premature birth, repetitive miscarriage, postpartum depression, hormonal abnormalities and infertility.
The old garment of Creighton Model Natural Family Planning now wore the new ‘dress’ of The Creighton Model FertilityCare System, leaving behind the unpopular term Natural Family Planning (as in ‘My grandmother used that and it doesn’t work’).
Think about this: Our newly named system of family planning is essential to helping the woman take care of the great gift of her fertility. As in nurturing it and bringing it to its healthiest state, readying it for a healthy pregnancy, so that the woman and her husband, based on the circumstances of their marriage, and guided by their intelligent knowledge of their phases of fertility can either limit births — space children for serious reasons — or more readily achieve pregnancies according to their dream of a large family.
CV: IVF is notoriously expensive, often requiring multiple costly cycles. How does the cost of NaProTechnology compare, and why isn’t it more widely covered by insurance?
Sr. Renée: In most instances, insurance does not cover infertility procedures whether for IVF or NaPro, which is precisely the reason President Trump issued an executive order to expand access to IVF.
Generally speaking, this is how Dr. Teresa Hilgers, chief clinician at the Institute clinic, puts it: “Our cost to the [infertile] patient is lower than IVF treatment.”
There have been infertile NaPro patients who have become pregnant just by charting and engaging in intercourse during the fertile and, especially, their peak time of fertility.
Unlike IVF, where there tends to be a bottom-line cost figure, our infertile patients receive and are charged according to their patient-specific testing, diagnoses, and surgical procedures.
It’s important to note that many infertile NaPro patients will, after their first NaPro baby, go on and conceive more children without further clinical intervention or expense.
IVF patients need to do yet another round of IVF — at 100% of the original fee — if they failed to achieve a pregnancy in cycle one or if they attempt to conceive a second or third time, whereas NaPro infertile patients who need to come back for clinical supplemental help in achieving another pregnancy will only be paying a portion of their original fee.
CV: Does NaProTechnology offer any long-term health advantages for women that IVF does not? How does it contribute to overall reproductive health beyond simply achieving pregnancy?
Sr. Renée: This is what I tell my ethics clients who are struggling to conceive after they decide to try the NaPro approach: “We don’t get every infertile patient pregnant, but we do guarantee that you will be in your best possible reproductive health after experiencing the elemental system of charting and any follow-up diagnostic and medical treatment/surgical procedures. With continued use of charting, you’ll be in touch with your body and your fertility in a totally healthy way that flings open all sorts of windows to a better self-image, a better spousal relationship, a renewed spiritual trust in God and His love for you, and a totally moral system of family planning should you continue to achieve pregnancy.”
When appropriate, I suggest the NaPro couple search God’s will for the question of pursuing adoption, foster care, or Big Brothers/Sisters programs.
CV: Where do you see the future of NaProTechnology in mainstream medicine?
Sr. Renée: Over-the-moon expectations: maybe, just maybe, the article, “An Open Letter to JD Vance About IVF” will mainstream NaPro by introducing our approach to women’s health in general and infertility in particular (eschewing abortion, contraception/sterilization and IVF) to DC and the federal government. After that, who knows what miracles God will work.
More modest hopes: All of the post-‘open letter’ happy consequences and substantial gain of interest will motivate and attract all sorts of small-c and capital-C Catholics to the hiding-in-plain-sight miracles of NaProTechnology.
CV: Many couples facing infertility feel hopeless and believe IVF is their only option. What message would you like to share with them about NaProTechnology?
Sr. Renée: Never give up, never give up, never give up. Email me at [email protected] to set up a phone appointment to discuss your preliminary questions/concerns and then I’ll connect you to the Saint Paul VI Institute clinic to set up a clinical consult/appointment. The reward in pursuing NaProTechnology is a holistic woman-, couple-, family-, and societal-friendly health and human flourishing that can only come from following God’s plan for procreation.
CV: As the Ethics Director at the Center for NaProEthics, you’ve been deeply involved in promoting life-affirming reproductive healthcare. What led you to this work, and how has your faith shaped your journey in bioethics?
Sr. Renée: With the backdrop of three undergraduate/graduate degrees in music education and vocal performance, I experienced a spiritual conversion at age 33 releasing me from the trap of feminist ideology and freeing me for a moral theology that just sounded and felt like the true, the good, and the beautiful. The rest is history.
My religious community graciously asked me to study moral theology which led me, first, to the University of St. Thomas, Houston, and then to Marquette University, Milwaukee. Throughout, I’ve consistently sensed that God was forming me, equipping me, and strengthening me for the work He would show me and did show me at the Saint Paul VI Institute and with and for people and places beyond any of my wildest dreams.
All of this is part of my pilgrimage of hope, as I, hand-in-hand with my family, community, and work colleagues, try to follow Augustine’s travelogue directive: “Sing, but continue on your journey. Do not grow lazy, but sing to make the way more enjoyable. Sing, but keep going. … If you make progress, you will continue your journey, but be sure that your progress is in virtue, true faith and right living. Sing then, and keep walking.” Keep traveling back to God.
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.