Democrats are not standing by while Republicans try to enlighten Americans about the inevitable consequences of their anti-abortion laws.
It wasn’t just Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) who pushed back against Republican attempts to backtrack on their attacks on IVF and reproductive rights.
Senator Tammy Duckworth tied Republican attacks on IVF to their anti-abortion rhetoric that led to the overturning of Roe.
On ABC’s This Week, @SenDuckworth reminded viewers that attacks on IVF are possible because of the elected Republican war on Roe v. Wade and reproductive freedom pic.twitter.com/GCWFfaM4z7
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— Robyn Patterson (@RMPatterson46) February 25, 2024
“I’ve been talking about this since 2018, when it was very clear that Republicans were working to eliminate women’s reproductive rights,” Duckworth told ABC’s This Week. “I said, if Neil Gorsuch is nominated to the Supreme Court, if Amy Coney Barrett is nominated to the Supreme Court, we will have an erosion of Roe v. Wade. And already in 2018 I said that IVF was the next thing. They said they will come for IVF. So, unfortunately, I wasn’t surprised.
Jen Klein, director of the White House Gender Policy Council, also disagreed. “Women in this country are denied access to the emergency room when they are in the midst of an emergency, whether they need an abortion or are having a miscarriage,” Klein told MSNBC’s The Weekend.
“What just happened in Alabama is that the fertility clinics are now closed. They’re not sure what to do. And these are people who desperately want a family, who desperately want a child – and now they’re not sure if that’s legal in their state,” Klein added.
ON @TheWeekendMSNBC:
The White House’s Jen Klein made clear that despite Republican claims of support for IVF, women in red states are being denied access to care, fertility clinics are closing, and Americans who want families are afraid they won’t is legal in their states. pic.twitter.com/GEacB6OQQs
— Robyn Patterson (@RMPatterson46) February 25, 2024
How we got here:
The trouble for Republicans began when a poll “found that 86 percent of all respondents supported access to IVF, with 78 percent support among self-styled ‘pro-lifers’ and 83 % among evangelical Christians.
After the strong backlash against Alabama’s ruling against IVF based on the Republican argument used to overturn Roe v Wade by a conservative Supreme Court, Republicans were told to come out and deny deny deny. They were told to express support for IVF.
The Senate Republican campaign memo urging members to support IVF came just “three days after the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos used in IVF are children and have legal protections for under state “personality” laws.”
And Republicans are doing just that, ignoring their own record.
Here’s how it’s going: Rep. Byron Donalds says IVF is important because it helps couples “procreate.”
Rep. Byron Donalds on Meet the Press says IVF is important for couples because it helps them “create great families.” pic.twitter.com/WeO20BGvMk
—Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 25, 2024
Republicans are trying to escape their own policies
Behind all this is the conservative notion of “personhood” attributed, but only when convenient, to embryos. There are many obvious ramifications of this unfounded belief, which Republicans have been well aware of for at least 20 years, so denial at this point loses all credibility.
The bottom line is that if “life begins at conception,” as they claim, then embryos are human beings. The Alabama ruling allowed parents to sue for wrongful death of their frozen embryos.
This has caused several fertility clinics to go out of business, worried that they “could be held liable for the destruction or loss of embryos.” The Alabama AG then tried to reassure everyone that he will not prosecute IVF clinics and families.
However, the Alabama Supreme Court has referred to IVF cryo tanks in which embryos are preserved as “cryogenic nurses.” This would certainly give pause to anyone worried about legal liability.
Logically, there is no way out: either one way or the other. Republicans may equivocate about using the uterus versus one in an IVF lab, but this argument undermines the entire premise. Either life exists at conception or it does not.
Oh, and by the way, we all saw it coming. It is the inevitable next step in their premise, which has no medical or scientific basis. If only Republicans hadn’t overturned Roe, their illogical attacks on liberty might have gone largely under the radar.
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