Isn't the Church's teaching on IVF unfair to couples who can't conceive?
The short answer
It may seem cruel, but it is not unfair: a child is a gift, not an entitlement. Marriage gives the right to the natural acts ordered to procreation, not a right to a child. A child has the right to be the fruit of his parents' conjugal love, and IVF separates the procreative act from the sexual act.
A gift, not a right
Marriage does not give spouses a right to a child, only the right to perform the natural acts ordered to procreation. A right to a child would contradict the child's dignity; a child is not property but a gift, the supreme gift of marriage. He has the right to be the fruit of his parents' conjugal love and to be respected as a person from conception (Donum Vitae, II.8).
Separating the acts
Even techniques using only the couple separate the sexual act from the procreative act. The act bringing the child into existence is no longer mutual self-giving but entrusts the embryo's life and identity to doctors, establishing technology's domination over human origins — contrary to the dignity and equality of parents and children (CCC 2377).
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