Alabama ruling destroys IVF and is not ‘pro-life’

Let’s talk about the term pro-life. Because I’m just not sure we’re all on the same page about what exactly it means. I mean, I would call myself pro-life. As an example, I am pro-lifesaving health care for pregnant women. I am pro-people, women included, being afforded the agency to live their lives as they see fit. I know it’s just revolutionary. We all knew that the Dobbs decision would have far-reaching consequences for women’s health care, which, yes, does include abortion. And now we have one of what I will imagine be many, many, many examples of just how far our government is willing to go to control women’s bodies.

In the state of Alabama, which already has some of the nation’s strictest abortion laws, the Supreme Court recently ruled that frozen embryos, you know the ones that are used during in vitro fertilization treatments that give thousands of people across the nation every year the chance to become parents, well, they ruled that those frozen embryos are people and cannot be destroyed. Specifically, they held that “unborn children are children.” No. And that frozen embryos should be given the same protections as babies under the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act.

This is all under the umbrella of the personhood movement, which holds that fetuses or, I guess, embryos, should be granted legal rights at virtually the moment of conception.

The problem is the creation of multiple embryos, more than you need, not all of which are expected to be viable, is how IVF works. The excess embryos are kept for some designated amount of time. And then they’re either destroyed per the couple’s wishes or they’re used in medical research, which is okay, because they’re essentially petri dishes. But if said embryos are granted personhood, and cannot be destroyed, that means I don’t know what that means. I guess that means they remain in storage forever. That’s problematic for many reasons, not the least of which is that it is very expensive to store embryos. And this will certainly both raise IVF prices to an exorbitant level and also leave parents and healthcare providers deeply reluctant to even consider the process, lest they be held liable for, I don’t know, manslaughter.

Again, multiple embryos are needed if there has to be a decent chance of a successful IVF pregnancy. If doctors don’t want to retrieve multiple eggs out of fear of liability, women seeking IVF will necessarily have less successful outcomes. Pro-life!

The other problem is like, I’m sorry, there are just so many problems. But okay, say you have some frozen embryos in storage. And then you get divorced. And say your settlement agreement states that those shared embryos should be destroyed. But now that’s illegal. Let’s say then your ex sues for custody of those embryos and then all of a sudden, you are forced into parenthood with a person you specifically chose not to become a parent with against your will. All of the legal issues raised by the Alabama Supreme Court’s decision are intensely complicated, but all of them beg the same question: Whose lives exactly are we pro?