When the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that the “death of embryos kept in a cryogenic nursery” constituted the “wrongful death of a minor,” it did not refer to any law involving in vitro fertilization, commonly known as IVF. Instead, it referenced the state constitution and a concept that is at the core of almost every Republican bill on abortion.
Page 8 of the ruling reads, “All parties to the case, like all members of this Court, agree that an unborn child is a genetically unique human being whose life begins at fertilization and ends at death.”
If they genuinely believe that “life begins at fertilization,” then every IVF attempt is mass murder.
IVF is fundamentally at odds with the idea that life begins at conception. That’s not a trap that “pro-life” Republicans are going to easily escape. And the more they try to have it both ways, the more everything they’re saying is revealed as nonsense.
Since the Alabama ruling, Republicans have been engaged in a flurry of we-love-IVF statements. From Donald Trump to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, GOP candidates and legislators have piled on their support for a process that has resulted in at least 8 million births over the past 40 years and now results in about half a million a year. The National Republican Senatorial Committee is urging candidates to get out there and express their support for IVF.
It didn’t take Republicans long to realize that the IVF ruling was very, very bad for them.
But trying to come up with reasoning that allows them to support the IVF process is a genuine conundrum for Republicans. That’s because it runs afoul of the reasoning that has been at the core of every anti-abortion push for decades: the concept that human life begins at fertilization.
Despite signing one of the toughest abortion laws in the nation and sitting back as women are persecuted for trying to preserve their own health, Abbott has been badgered for years by Republican Party hard-liners. These extremists don’t think Texas law goes far enough because it doesn’t stick hard to the “life begins at conception” rule.
"It is disgusting to watch our governor tout his pro-life credentials while advocating for women to get abortions in the first six weeks of pregnancy," said one of Abbott’s potential primary challengers in 2021.
Other Republicans, like Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy, have campaigned on the idea that life begins at conception. For these guys, six weeks, six days, or six minutes wouldn’t be soon enough. It’s before the moment of fertilization, or it’s murder.
The hugely influential Heritage Foundation has insisted since 2014 that “Our ultimate objective, however, must always be the legal recognition and protection of the unborn from the moment of conception.”
Four states have already encoded this idea into law, and a dozen more have bills currently working their way through state legislatures. This is part of the huge push for more abortion restrictions that have come since the Dobbs decision ended protection under Roe v. Wade.
None of that is at all compatible with IVF.
IVF is a multistep process that starts with collecting 10 to 20 eggs, with 15 regarded as an ideal number. About 80% of those eggs are mature enough to be fertilized. That’s roughly a dozen embryos created on every IVF attempt.
About 30-50% of those embryos reach the blastocyst stage on day five or six. They are then sorted to find those that appear most chromosomally normal. Usually only two or three are selected to either be implanted or stored for later.
Those frozen embryos may represent over 1 million “children,” so far as the Alabama ruling goes. But for anyone who truly believes that life begins at conception, that million is only the tip of a mountain of embryos lost along the way.
Republicans have been arguing that “life begins at conception” for decades. The concept is not found in the Bible or any other ancient document, chiefly because the people who wrote those texts didn’t know that human eggs existed, much less have any concept of a unique genetic signature. It’s a mid-20th century mishmash of religion and pseudo-science that didn’t get officially endorsed by the Vatican until 1987 when it issued an edict saying, “the absolute sanctity accorded to human life begins with the fertilized egg, making it impossible to discard early embryos or to use them for research.”
Regardless of its origin, this concept has been the absolute core of anti-abortion statements and protests.
The Alabama ruling isn’t only a threat to potential parents seeking to have a child using IVF after exhausting other options, but to cancer patients about to face months of grueling chemotherapy or radiation who are worried about their future fertility. The ruling and its fallout leave Republicans pinned by a belief they’ve used to rally support for 50 years.
“I grew up in Catholic school, and my mom is a Catholic activist, so I have been very familiar with this kind of fetal personhood movement for a long time,” one young woman facing a breast cancer diagnosis told The Washington Post. “They can’t quite connect the cognitive dissonance that exists between the pro-life views and what they imply.”
It’s almost as if conservatives they’ve been using the idea that life begins at conception as another means of reducing the agency of women. It’s something they can embrace or discard when it seems convenient.
Republicans are trying to embrace IVF without giving up their historic support for an anti-abortion movement steeped in the idea that life begins at conception. They can’t have it both ways.
And no one should let them.
Democratic voters know Joe Biden is old and MAGA voters like to pretend that Trump isn't just as long in the tooth. Both men were old the last time we did this and the only thing that’s changed is Biden is now a successful incumbent, while Trump is busy juggling trials and indictments.
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