HYPOCRISY OF ANTIABORTION ZEALOTS UNMASKED
We don’t know whether former Vice President Mike Pence and his wife, Karen, had any leftover embryos after they availed themselves of the advanced reproductive technology known as in vitro fertilization to become the parents of their three children, who are now adults.
In November 2022, after the Supreme Court overturned the federal right to abortion, the virulently antiabortion Pence told CBS’ “Face the Nation” that the couple had struggled with infertility for years and that he would never dream of trying to stop others from using such technology to have kids.
“I fully support fertility treatments, and I think they deserve the protection of the law,” said Pence, who also avidly supports fetal personhood, that is, the idea that every fertilized egg is entitled to full protection under the law. Well, guess what? You can’t do both. Last month, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled 8 to 1 that under the state’s Wrongful Death of a Minor Act, frozen embryos are people, putting a harsh spotlight on the hypocrisy that drives so much of the fight against abortion.
“A lot of state legislators right now are scratching their heads — whether you’re a Republican, Democrat, pro-life, pro-choice — and saying, ‘What are our laws on IVF?’ ” Billy Valentine, the vice president of political affairs at Susan B.
Anthony Pro-Life America, told Politico. “For us, it’s about making sure that IVF is available but that these embryos aren’t needlessly discarded.”
Hoping to have it both ways, the Alabama Legislature rushed to pass a law that shields patients and health care providers from prosecutions and lawsuits related to IVF services.
Last year, Judith Daar, dean of the Northern Kentucky University Samuel P. Chase College of Law, published a prescient article in the Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics, speculating on the effect that outlawing abortion would have on practices such as IVF, in which embryos are routinely frozen, tested for genetic anomalies, discarded or selectively aborted in the case of multiple pregnancies after implantation.
Once a couple is finished with the IVF process, she told me Thursday, any decision about what to do with the remaining embryos — donation to research, “compassionate transfer” to another couple, destruction — “could raise a claim that there was mistreatment, wrongful handling, wrongful death. It would be up to the state to decide if it wants to bring criminal charges.”
Pre-implantation genetic testing, in particular, presents a dilemma in states where embryos are considered people, she said. “Would it ever be in the best interest of an embryo to perform a test, the very point of which is to discard unhealthy embryos? Would you test a person for the purpose of ending their life?”
It is estimated that between 1 million and 5 million frozen embryos live in suspended animation in the United States, which, unlike some other countries, does not limit the number of years embryos may be stored.
The Alabama Supreme Court ruling has uncorked a potent dilemma that antiabortion states will have to face: How can lawmakers criminalize abortion while allowing, or turning a blind eye to, the destruction of “people” conceived through IVF?
This a phenomenon Daar calls “IVF exceptionalism.”
IVF, which is not covered by most insurance plans, is very expensive. A single cycle, which includes stimulating ovaries, retrieving eggs, fertilization and implantation, can cost between $15,000 and $30,000, Forbes reported last year. A majority of women go through more than one cycle.
“The simple fact,” Daar wrote, “is the majority of patients who seek IVF are of higher socioeconomic status and white; the majority of patients who seek abortion are of lower socioeconomic status and people of color.” Indeed.
To put it in the crudest terms: For antiabortion zealots who support advanced reproductive technologies, “killing babies” in the pursuit of parenthood is entirely justifiable, but “killing babies” to avoid parenthood is murder.
Are we even the least bit surprised?