As Republicans struggle to unify their abortion message in the run-up to the 2024 election, a recent Alabama Supreme Court decision It is considered a child created through in vitro fertilization put them in a new package.
The issue has created complications for politicians who are staunchly anti-abortion, who say they believe life begins at conception or that an embryo or fetus deserves all the rights of a human being. The Alabama Supreme Court’s decision showed the far-reaching consequences such policies can have for families and the political difficulties Republicans still face in finding a way to talk to voters about the issue.
The ruling has many doctors and families worried that IVF will become less accessible because people could theoretically be sued for destroying an embryo. During the IVF processthey are often discarded if the embryos have genetic abnormalities or after patients decide they no longer need to use them.
There are already three facilities in the state Stopped IVF services.
On Wednesday, Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley told NBC News that she supports the Alabama decision.Embryos are babies to me.” But just a few hours later, Haley knew Take back your comment on CNN, “I didn’t say I agreed with the Alabama ruling,” he said. However, she added that she still believes “my fetus is an unborn baby.”
On Thursday, Haley tried again clear your answersaying that the court’s decision may be correct, but that there should be a new law: “I think the court did it based on the law, and I think Alabama needs to go back and look at the law.”
“Yeah, I was all for it,” Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., said Thursday at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland when asked what he thought of the ruling on embryos being children.
However, he did not seem clear about what the decision was.
“You know, you just have to look at everything that’s happening in the country. It’s just an attack on families stacked on top of children,” he told NBC News.
“We need more kids,” he said. “We need people who can afford to have children.”
“Well, I haven’t looked into it,” South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott said Thursday, dodging a question about the Alabama ruling.
The former presidential candidate, who now endorses former President Donald Trump, instead criticized Haley for her mixed responses on the issue.
“I’m going to let Nikki Haley go back and forth on that,” said Scott, who has promised to sign.the most conservative pro-life legislation” if elected president.
Mini Timmaraju, president of Reproductive Freedom for All, said she was not surprised that Scott and Tuberville were unable to answer seemingly simple questions about IVF.
“Today, when you see people like Tommy Tuberville or Tim Scott bothering to answer questions, it’s because they know how unpopular the position is,” Timmaraju said.
President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday criticized The Alabama decision marked a landmark decision by the US Supreme Court to strike down federal abortion rights.
“Make no mistake: this is Donald Trump’s Roe v. A direct result of ending Wade,” Biden Posted in X. “The Vice President and I have signed Roe v. federal law for all women in every state. We will not stop until we restore protection on Wade.”
Republican Governor Brian Kemp also defended IVF “There are a lot of people in this country who wouldn’t have children if it weren’t for this,” he said Thursday. In 2022, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that Kemp’s vote was his open a state-level ban on the destruction of embryos. But in a later statement, the newspaper said, the governor’s office said it would not support such a proposal if it was formally introduced.
In vitro fertilization or IVF, allows doctors to test embryos for genetic abnormalities and then implant only healthy ones. But Alabama’s decision could force clinics to store all their frozen embryos regardless of genetic testing — a costly process.
And IVF has long received bipartisan support. Former Vice President Mike Pence, an outspoken opponent of abortion, spoke about his and his wife’s struggle with infertility in his book, and wrote that his wife, Karen, went through IVF multiple times.
“I fully support fertility treatments and I think they deserve it defense of the law,” he said in 2022.
Trump has so far ignored the ruling, and his campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
Katie Daniel of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, whose mission is to end abortion — said the Alabama high court made the right decision, but that doesn’t mean all IVF procedures should end.
“The Alabama Court recognized the obvious and a scientific truth – life begins at conception. This does not mean that fertility treatment is prohibited. Rather, it means that fertility treatment does not recklessly or intentionally destroy the new life that is being created,” he said.
Senator Tim Melson, a Republican state legislator in Alabama, said he plans to do so to introduce legislation To preserve IVF and clarify when embryos are viable.
“We all know that conception is a big argument for life. I won’t argue with this, but life is not formed until it is placed in the uterus” – Melson told the Alabama Reflector.
The split in the conservative movement was on display at two separate gatherings on Thursday.
At the National Religious Broadcasters convention in Nashville, Tennessee, some attendees supported the decision. Jo Anne Ramsay, of Virginia Beach, Virginia, said she believes “a sperm is a baby from the moment it’s released into a female” and that “anything that destroys human life should be stopped.”
Maureen Maldonado of Flower Mound, Texas said “hallelujah” to the decision.
“I believe they are viable people and they should be protected just like you and I should be protected. So I’m very excited,” he said.
But at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Thursday, some Republican women expressed dismay at the decision.
Pa. Michele Schwab of Doylestown said she supports IVF because her own daughter struggled to conceive.
“My own daughter lost two babies. So… I’m emotional,” Schwab said.
As for politicians who might try to restrict IVF, Schwab says they would lose votes: “I wouldn’t support a politician who’s against it.”