The Capital

Criminaliz­ing IVF not how we protect kids

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The University of Alabama at Birmingham health system is no longer performing in vitro fertilizat­ion procedures for fear of criminal prosecutio­n since an Alabama Supreme Court ruling that frozen embryos have the same status as children in wrongful-death lawsuits.

The decision, which will likely have wide-ranging implicatio­ns for IVF clinics in and beyond Alabama, is a devastatin­g blow to the 1 in 6 couples who experience infertilit­y.

“Disbelief, denial, all the stages of grief,” Dr. Michael C. Allemand, a reproducti­ve endocrinol­ogist at Alabama Fertility, told The Associated Press. “I was stunned.”

Legal scholars expect the ruling to be replicated in other states.

“I think there’s been a broader strategy — the sort of next Roe v. Wade, if you will — for the anti-abortion movement,” University of California, Davis law professor Mary Ziegler told NPR after the ruling. “I think you’ll see the anti-abortion movement making a gradual case that the more state courts — the more state laws — recognize a fetus or embryo as a person for different circumstan­ces and reasons, the more compelling they can say is the case for fetal personhood under the Constituti­on.”

Justices on Alabama’s court cited language in the Alabama Constituti­on recognizin­g the “rights of the unborn child” in response to three couples suing for wrongful death when their frozen embryos were accidental­ly destroyed while in storage.

“Even before birth,” Chief Justice Tom Parker wrote, “all human beings bear the image of God, and their lives cannot be destroyed without effacing his glory.”

What an interestin­g way to communicat­e that we value the rights and lives and well-being of children in this country. And by interestin­g I mean hypocritic­al and hollow.

The poverty rate for children in the United States stands at 12%, more than double what it was in 2021. That’s thanks in large part to Congress allowing pandemic relief programs, including the expanded Child Tax Credit, to expire.

One in 4 children lives in poverty in New York City, our nation’s largest city. One in 4 children, that is, struggle to access basic necessitie­s.

Guns kill children in this country at an astounding, appalling rate. More than any disease kills children. More than automobile accidents kill children. The gun-death rate for children here is around 5 in every 100,000.

We have watched children be slaughtere­d at parades, in schools, on playground­s and on sidewalks, and we have yet to enact the sort of sweeping legislativ­e change that would prevent it from happening over and over again. We can’t even agree on something as basic as universal background checks.

“We’re not going to fix it,” Rep. Tim Burchett, a Tennessee Republican, said from the steps of the U.S. Capitol the same day a gunman killed six people at The Covenant School, a parochial elementary school in Nashville, Tennessee.

Meanwhile, the U.S. spends 0.2% of its gross domestic product on care for children 2 and younger, which comes to about $200 a year for most families. Norway spends close to $30,000 annually per family. Germany spends more than $18,000 a year. On the list of 17 Nordic, European and South American nations, the U.S. comes in dead last for early childhood spending.

American parents receive zero weeks of government-mandated paid parental leave, unlike parents in 40 other nations. One in 4 moms returns to work within two weeks of giving birth here, according to Department of Labor statistics.

Where is the energy, the passion and the policymaki­ng to protect and defend children once they enter the world, in all of its harsh, complicate­d, unpredicta­ble, dangerous glory?

The Alabama ruling and the subsequent rulings it paves the way for aren’t about protecting the lives of children. They’re about dogma. They’re about restrictin­g women’s bodily autonomy. They’re about blurring what’s left of the line separating church and state and remaking this nation in the image of a vocal, energized minority.

A quote by Pastor David Barnhart made the rounds on social media shortly before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Barnhart, who’s from St. Junia United Methodist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, originally posted this in 2018 on Facebook, according to Snopes.com.

It’s worth revisiting now. Again.

“The unborn are a convenient group of people to advocate for,” Barnhart wrote. “They never make demands of you; they are morally uncomplica­ted, unlike the incarcerat­ed, addicted, or the chronicall­y poor; they don’t resent your condescens­ion or complain that you are not politicall­y correct; unlike widows, they don’t ask you to question patriarchy; unlike orphans, they don’t need money, education, or childcare; unlike aliens, they don’t bring all that racial, cultural, and religious baggage that you dislike; they allow you to feel good about yourself without any work at creating or maintainin­g relationsh­ips; and when they are born, you can forget about them, because they cease to be unborn.

“You can love the unborn and advocate for them without substantia­lly challengin­g your own wealth, power, or privilege, without re-imagining social structures, apologizin­g, or making reparation­s to anyone. They are, in short, the perfect people to love if you want to claim you love Jesus, but actually dislike people who breathe. Prisoners? Immigrants? The sick? The poor? Widows? Orphans? All the groups that are specifical­ly mentioned in the Bible? They all get thrown under the bus for the unborn.”

But actually dislike people who breathe. A powerful line, and a hard one to dispute when you look at what our policies and practices prioritize and, more importantl­y, what they don’t.

 ?? CHARITY RACHELLE/THE NEW YORK TIMES ?? The University of Alabama at Birmingham’s Women & Infants Center, seen Feb. 22, halted in vitro fertilizat­ion after a state Supreme Court’s ruling that embryos in test tubes should be considered children.
CHARITY RACHELLE/THE NEW YORK TIMES The University of Alabama at Birmingham’s Women & Infants Center, seen Feb. 22, halted in vitro fertilizat­ion after a state Supreme Court’s ruling that embryos in test tubes should be considered children.
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