USA – Why the rift between anti-abortion activists and Republican lawmakers is growing

Alabama supreme court’s decision causing a temporary halt in IVF care shines spotlight on problem between two groups

Ava Sasani
Sun 17 Mar 2024

There is a growing rift in the decades-old marriage between anti-abortion activists and Republican lawmakers.

The problem came into view last month, after a bombshell decision from the Alabama supreme court temporarily halted in vitro fertilization (IVF). The ruling, which described frozen embryos as “extrauterine children”, unraveled when the Republican-controlled legislature passed short-term protections for IVF providers.

Continued; https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/17/anti-abortion-activists-republican-lawmakers-ivf-alabama

18.03.2024

News

fetal personhood

Heritage Foundation

in vitro fertilization

IVF

Kay Ivey

Life at Conception Act

The Right-Wing War on Abortion Has Nothing to Do With Babies

Coverage of the recent controversy over IVF has made a perilous omission: This is a battle over body autonomy.

Jessica M. Goldstein
March 4, 2024

… But the insidious, vile truth is that the Alabama ruling—as well as all of the statutes and the language of the Alabama state Constitution, a plain reading of which really left the state Supreme Court no choice but to restrict IVF—has got nothing to do with babies. The anti-abortion movement is not about babies. It has never been about babies. It’s about control.

The force behind every anti-abortion policy is not concern for babies or the alleged humanity of unfertilized embryos; it is violent misogyny, plain and simple, with the obvious intent of stripping every person who can get pregnant of their basic human rights.

Continued: https://newrepublic.com/article/179464/abortion-body-autonomy-forced-birth

04.03.2024

USA – First abortion, then IVF… and now birth control?

The GOP's been suffering on the issue of abortion already — Democrats can now clobber them with Alabama's IVF move

By LUCIAN K. TRUSCOTT IV, Salon
FEBRUARY 27, 2024

Man, one thing you can depend on Republicans for is that if you give them a shovel, they will just keep on digging. Last week the Alabama Supreme Court did Republicans the favor (not!) of putting in vitro fertilization on the ballot for 2024. Two years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court did their Republican handlers the favor (not!) of putting abortion on the ballot by overturning of Roe v Wade. Now Democrats will be able to use access to contraception as another issue to pound Republicans with, given the results of a new poll that shows how hugely unpopular Republican opposition to contraception is.

Republicans have been suffering on the issue of abortion already, losing several special elections to Democrats pushing the issue. It’s a no-brainer.

Continued: https://www.salon.com/2024/02/27/first-abortion-then-ivf-and-now-birth-control/

27.02.2024

Opinion

Americans for Contraception

birth control

in vitro fertilization

IVF

Jack Posobiec

Kellyanne Conway

Life at Conception Act

Lucian K. Truscott IV

United States

Contraception

Human Rights

Alabama is using the notion that embryos are people to surveil and harass women

Even before the court ruled in favor of this vulgar fiction, state authorities relied on the concept to intimidate and jail women

Moira Donegan
Mon 26 Feb 2024

Something that’s important to remember about last week’s ruling by the Alabama supreme court, which held that frozen embryos were persons under state law, is that the very absurdity of the claim is itself a demonstration of power. That a frozen embryo – a microscopic bit of biological information that can’t even be called tissue, a flick laden with the hopes of aspiring parents but fulfilling none of them – is equivalent in any way to a child is the sort of thing you can only say if no one has the power to laugh at you. The Alabama supreme court is the final court of review in that state. It cannot be appealed. For the foreseeable future, frozen cells in Alabama have the same legal status there as you or I do. Is this an absurd elevation of the status of an embryo, or an obscene degradation of human beings? The answer, of course, is both.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/feb/26/alabama-ivf-frozen-embryos-surveillance

Why Alabama’s ruling that embryos are children could fuel anti-abortion movement in Canada

Decision also 'chilling' for people seeking IVF, says Canada Research Chair

Natalie Stechyson · CBC News
Feb 22, 2024

A decision by the Alabama Supreme Court that frozen embryos can be considered children under state law has some reproductive rights advocates and fertility law experts in Canada concerned about a potential ripple effect.

The worry isn't necessarily that a decision like the one in Alabama, that was issued in wrongful death cases brought by couples who had frozen embryos destroyed in an accident, could happen here, experts say.

Continued: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/alabama-court-embryos-1.7121293

USA – Accidents, Lax Rules and Abortion Laws Now Imperil Fertility Industry

Fertility clinics are routinely sued by patients for errors that destroy embryos, as happened in Alabama. An effort to define them legally as “unborn children” has raised the stakes.

By Azeen Ghorayshi and Sarah Kliff
Feb. 22, 2024

To the fertility patients whose embryos were destroyed at an Alabama clinic, the circumstances must have been shocking. Somehow, a patient in the hospital housing the clinic had wandered into a storage room, pulled the embryos from a tank of liquid nitrogen, and then dropped them on the floor — probably because the tank was kept at minus 360 degrees.

The bizarre episode was at the center of lawsuits filed by three families that eventually reached the Alabama Supreme Court. On Friday, a panel of judges ruled that the embryos destroyed at the clinic should be considered children under state law, a decision that sent shock waves through the fertility industry and raised urgent questions about how treatments could possibly proceed in the state.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/22/health/fertility-clinics-embryos-alabama.html

USA – The Anti-Abortion Movement Is Coming for Fertility Treatments

An Alabama court may have just ended IVF in the state—opening up the whole IVF process to politically-motivated legal scrutiny and penalty.

2/20/2024
by JILL FILIPOVIC

The availability of in-vitro fertilization in Alabama may now be in question after the state’s Supreme Court ruled that embryos kept in clinic freezers are considered persons under the law, and protected by the state’s Wrongful Death of a Minor Act. It’s a shocking and jarring decision that radically extends the bounds of legal personhood, tosses any claims to originalism aside, and seems primed to make a variety of fertility treatments either extremely costly for patients, or extremely legally risky for clinicians.

If you want a sense of just how overtly theocratic the opposition to abortion and IVF are, I invite you to read the dissent in the Alabama decision, which was penned by the court’s chief justice and is a really really long argument that can be basically summed up as: “God said so.” So that’s who’s leading the court in Alabama.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2024/02/20/fertility-ivf-alabama-supreme-court-anti-abortion/

Roe v Wade: ‘Could abortion bans put my IVF at risk?’

Aug 9, 2023
By Lebo Diseko, Global Religion Correspondent

One year after the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade - a landmark ruling on abortion rights - some IVF patients are worried that potential new laws could jeopardise their fertility treatment. Some women are even considering moving their frozen embryos across state lines.

Julie Eshelman has had a long and difficult journey trying to build her family. "My husband and I were married in 2015," she tells me. "We naively decided that we wanted to wait a year before we started having kids. In 2016, we started trying and after six months, I was like: 'This isn't working, maybe there's something wrong.'"

Continued: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-66438294

09.08.2023

Commentary

American Society of Reproductive Medicine

Barbara Collura

Dr Natalie Crawford

in vitro fertilization

Why many IVF patients worry about the antiabortion movement

Perspective by Julianna Goldman
July 29, 2023

Whenever anyone asks whether I’m done having children, my answer is: “Yes, but … .” That’s because, although my husband and I have two young children, we also have six potential babies. The latter are embryos created years ago through in vitro fertilization and now frozen in liquid nitrogen in a Maryland lab.

While I mostly feel like our family is complete, I haven’t been able to bring myself to decide what to do with those frozen bundles of our DNA. The decision has become even more fraught since last year when the Supreme Court stripped away the federal right to an abortion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. It’s unclear how Dobbs could affect autonomy over the estimated 1.5 million frozen embryos nationwide, but it’s a worry.

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2023/07/29/dobbs-abortion-ivf-embryos-impact/

A legal scholar sizes up the religious argument against abortion bans

ANDREW SILOW-CARROLL
JULY 9, 2023

(JTA) — The abortion debate is often portrayed as a clash between religious beliefs on the pro-life side and secular or humanist convictions on the pro-choice side. Indeed, lawmakers and activists have often invoked God in enacting state bans on abortion since the Supreme Court, in last year’s Dobbs decision, struck down a woman’s right to terminate her pregnancy.

Some clergy and faith groups, however, including a number of Jews, are pushing back. In efforts to overturn these restrictions, they have been pressing a legal strategy claiming that abortion bans violate their religious liberty. In Kentucky, a case brought by three Jewish women argues that the state’s near-total abortion ban violates their religious beliefs about when life begins and protecting a mother’s life. In Indiana, a suit brought by Hoosier Jews for Choice and four women who represent a variety of faiths demands exemptions from the state’s abortion ban for people whose religions support abortion rights.

Continued: https://www.jta.org/2023/07/09/ideas/a-legal-scholar-sizes-up-the-religious-argument-against-abortion-bans