We don't know if former Vice President Mike Pence and his wife, Karen, had leftover embryos after they took advantage of the advanced reproductive technology known as in vitro fertilization to become parents to their three children, who are now adults.
In November 2022, after the Supreme Court struck down the federal right to abortion, the virulently anti-abortion Pence told CBS' “Face the Nation” that the couple had struggled with infertility for years and that he was never It would happen to try to prevent others from using that type of abortion. Technology to have children.
opinion columnist
Robin Abcarian
“I fully support fertility treatments and believe they deserve the protection of the law,” said Pence, who also avidly supports fetal personhood, that is, the idea that each 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 8-1 that frozen embryos are people under the state's Wrongful Death of a Child Act, highlighting the hypocrisy driving much of the anti-abortion fight. Three IVF clinics in the state quickly announced they were suspending their programs.
“A lot of state legislators right now are scratching their heads (whether they're Republican, Democrat, pro-life or pro-choice) and saying, 'What are our IVF laws?' “Billy Valentine, vice president of political affairs at Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, told Politico. “For us, it's about making sure IVF is available but that these embryos are not discarded unnecessarily.”
Hoping to have it both ways, the Alabama Legislature rushed to pass a law protecting patients and healthcare providers from lawsuits and lawsuits related to IVF services.
A similar effort is underway in Congress, although with a different motivation. After Roe v. Wade, Democratic Sens. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois and Patty Murray of Washington introduced legislation that would provide federal protection for fertility treatments. They feared that abortion bans would lead to an attack on IVF, in which couples routinely create more embryos than they can use and then discard them or donate them for research. The bill would protect doctors and insurance companies from prosecution and give parents the right to determine the fate of their embryos.
Republicans blocked the measure again last week, prompting Murray to accuse them of hypocrisy.
“It's been incredible to watch Republicans now scramble to suddenly support IVF while many of those same Republicans are literally, right now, cosponsors of legislation that would enshrine the personhood of the fetus,” Murray told reporters. “You cannot support IVF and laws on the personality of the fetus. They are fundamentally incompatible. You're not fooling anyone.”
Last year, Judith Daar, dean of the Samuel P. Chase College of Law at Northern Kentucky University, published a prescient article in the Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics, speculating on the effect that banning abortion would have on medical practices. such as IVF, in which embryos are routinely frozen, tested for genetic abnormalities, discarded, or selectively aborted in the case of multiple pregnancies after implantation.
“Applied to IVF,” wrote Daar, who studies the legal and ethical issues raised by advanced reproductive technologies, “discarding embryos could be considered homicide, while cryopreservation could amount to some kind of battery on the frozen embryo.” .
Once a couple finishes the IVF process, he told me Thursday, any decision about what to do with the remaining embryos (donation for research, “compassionate transfer” to another couple, destruction) “could trigger a claim that abuse occurred.” , Mishandling, wrongful death. “It would be up to the state to decide if it wants to file criminal charges.”
Preimplantation genetic testing, in particular, presents a dilemma in states where embryos are considered people, he said. “Would it ever be in an embryo's best interest to perform a test that aims to rule out unhealthy embryos? Would you test a person in order to end their life?
More than 2% of births in the United States each year are the result of advanced technology such as IVF. Last year, Daar said, that number rose to about 100,000 babies. Since 1978, when the first baby was born through IVF, the number has now exceeded 8 million. An estimated 1 to 5 million frozen embryos live in suspended animation in the United States, which, unlike other countries, does not limit the number of years embryos can be stored.
Although the Alabama Supreme Court did not specifically address a couple's choice to destroy frozen embryos, its ruling has uncovered a potent dilemma that anti-abortion states will have to confront: How can lawmakers criminalize abortion while allowing, or turning a blind eye to, abortion? , the destruction of frozen embryos? “People” conceived through IVF?
This is a phenomenon Daar calls “IVF exceptionalism.”
IVF, which is not covered by most insurance plans, is very expensive. A single cycle, which includes ovarian stimulation, egg retrieval, fertilization and implantation, can cost between $15,000 and $30,000, Forbes reported last year. Most women go through more than one cycle.
“The simple fact,” Daar wrote, “is that most patients seeking IVF are of higher socioeconomic status and white; the majority of patients seeking abortion are of lower socioeconomic status and people of color.”
Indeed.
To put it in the crudest terms: for anti-abortion zealots who support advanced reproductive technologies, “killing babies” for the sake of parenthood is entirely justifiable, but “killing babies” for the sake of avoiding parenthood is murder.
Are we even a little surprised?
