How Can You Be Pro-Life if You’re Not Letting People Conceive? I’m looking at you, Alabama
I’m looking at you, Alabama
I’m not a scientist or medical health professional, but I have personally undergone enough IVF (in vitro fertilization) myself to know how it works.
I went through four rounds of IVF.
Each round, sadly, was unsuccessful. I managed to get a handful of embryos each round, but when they were genetically tested to see if they had 46 chromosomes, only one of embryo out of those four rounds was normal. And that one didn’t take.
Our doctor wouldn’t even transfer the abnormal embryos because we knew the outcome wouldn’t be favorable. Either I wouldn’t get pregnant, or I’d miscarry.
Yes, miscarriages are common, but we should avoid them if we can. Not many people realize the risk birthing people have just being pregnant. So why put ourselves at risk if we won’t carry our baby full term?
My embryos weren’t viable, so the clinic destroyed them.
Welcome to The Handmaid’s Tale
You can imagine my outrage when I read the latest story about the United States turning into The Handmaid’s Tale. The Alabama Supreme Court recently determined that frozen embryos are people.
Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Tom Parker actually quoted the Book of Genesis in his concurring opinion. Yes, that Genesis. The one from the Bible.
I don’t care of if you’re religious, but when you’re using the Bible to determine reproductive rights, we have a problem.
What in the fresh hell of Gilead is happening here?
The Alabama Supreme Court just decided to make up alternative facts about medicine. Which, by the way, are not facts.
Embryos are not people. Until you consider an egg to be a chicken, an embryo is not a person. (Also, an egg is not a chicken).
When I, a person who has zero experience working in health care, know more about medicine than the powers making rules about it, there is something wrong.
What does this new law mean for IVF patients in Alabama? They can do IVF, but they can’t destroy those embryos. They are protected under Alabama’s Wrongful Death of a Minor Act, which allows parents to sue for punitive damages when their child dies.
For two weeks after the Supreme Court decision, at least three major IVF clinics stopped treatment to protect themselves legally.
This has resulted in many of these clinics putting IVF cycles on pause to protect themselves legally, placing an unfair burden on patients planning to build their families.
Luckily, Alabama lawmakers passed legislation this week to protect IVF providers from civil and criminal liability.
However, this “personhood” status of embryos has not been resolved, and patients in Alabama are now sitting in legal limbo over what they can do with their embryos.
Having been through infertility and IVF myself, I can say that it is not an easy process. It can be draining physically, emotionally, and financially. We don’t need another obstacle to overcome just so we can conceive.
Now, patients in Alabama who cannot conceive naturally and want to pursue ART (assisted reproductive technology) have to travel to another state.
All because the Alabama Supreme Court decided to make up its own rules about medicine.
The utter ridiculousness of this is mind-blowing. A frozen embryo, which cannot become a child outside of the uterus, is given personhood status?
Are you kidding me?
This isn’t about protecting embryos, in the same way that banning abortions isn’t about protecting fetuses. It’s about controlling our reproductive systems.
This is just another step our country is taking in an effort to take away our bodily autonomy.
I find it ironic that the party that claims to be “pro-life” is making it so difficult for us to conceive.
Where will the religious right draw the line?
When the United States Supreme Court repealed Roe v Wade in 2022, we were livid. I, personally, was terrified, not just because of the threat to abortion, but to all reproductive rights.
The infertility community saw this one coming. When it starts with an abortion ban, fertility treatments come next.
This is what happens when the government decides they have a say in our reproductive systems.
It started with the overturning of Roe v Wade, and it won’t stop there. IVF be the next victim, then the LGBTQ community, then sex education, and before you know it, we’ll be living in a Christian nationalist country.
We might already be there.
Please. Leave these decisions to the birthing people and their doctors. And stop controlling our bodies.
Uteruses everywhere are begging you to vote
This is a huge election year. Four years have passed, and we’re once again looking at Biden vs. Trump.
If you’re on the fence (I mean, how?) let me tell you what a vote for Trump means.
It means letting the Christian nationalists win. No, Trump isn’t Christian, but that’s his fanbase.
He appointed three of the Supreme Court Justices who were in favor of the overturning of Roe v Wade, including Amy Coney Barrett, a strong anti-abortion advocate who opposes IVF.
Trump’s previous presidency is how we got here. We need to get out of this mess.
Alabama is the tip of the iceberg. We can’t let the religious right win.
Such a powerful piece Alice