I bet her chances of becoming an adoptive parent were pretty good back in 1995. Think about all of the money that this woman spent on IVF treatments. If she had waved half that amount of money under the noses of the board of directors at an orphanage, she would have been a mother years ago. She wouldn't have had her third abortion.
As for IVF--the only reason to undergo IVF treatments that I can accept as not being inherently prideful is if a parent has a child dying of a rare disease and said parent is desperate for a matching donor. That's not prideful, that is a parent doing everything possible to save the life of a child. Even in that situation I am wary of IVF. Would all those fertilized eggs be brought to term, or would some of those embryos be culled? Does it make sense, any sense at all, to sacrifice the lives of several individuals in the hope that one may possibly be saved?
You'd think she could have adopted a child during many years, although I don't know exactly what the situation vis-a-vis adoption was in Communist Romania.
But it appears something "snapped" when she learned about IVF and got the idea that she could gestate a baby. (I hate to keep using that word, but she didn't ever "conceive." It's a strange twist on surrogate motherhood ... "rent an embryo," instead of "rent a womb." If the babies had been IVF "excess," she might have done embryo adoption, which I think is generous, but instead she had more embryos made, who knows how many.)
Anyway, it's not the action of a person who has all their synapses firing.
I agree that it's strange she didn't pursue other family building options earlier. However, having not walked in her shoes, and not knowing anything about her circumstances beyond what's written in this article, I think it's uncharitable and yes, prideful to judge her too harshly. I do agree, though, that this is probably not in the best interests of her child.
As for IVF, let me repeat: you can do IVF without discarding/killing any fertilized eggs. Yes, sometimes embryos may cease dividing on their own, as commonly happens in natural conception as well. This is a sad natural occurance and no fault of either IVF or natural conception.
You can put back only the number of little ones you're willing to gestate and raise (usually 2). If there are additional embryos, you can give them to another needy couple through embryo adoption.