The Alabama Supreme Court’s decision on in vitro fertilization, which granted legal protection to frozen fertilized eggs, caught the attention of President Joe Biden and other Democratic leaders on Thursday, pinning blame for the decision on the U.S. Supreme Court ruling with Roe v. Wade in 2022.
“An Alabama court has jeopardized access to certain fertility treatments for families desperately trying to conceive,” Biden said in prepared remarks Thursday. “The disregard for women’s ability to make these decisions for themselves and their families is outrageous and unacceptable.”
Two Alabama clinics have suspended in vitro fertilization services as state leaders and doctors consider the legal ramifications of the ruling.
Alabama Supreme Court Justice Tom Parker ruled against the Bible, ruling that embryos are “ectopic children” and that when they are “killed,” their guardians become subject to the wrongful death of a minor state law.
Biden said he and Vice President Kamala Harris are “fighting for women’s freedom, for families, and for doctors who care for these women,” promising to restore protections previously provided under Roe v Wade.
Harris has been on a multi-state Fight for Reproductive Freedoms tour since December. She took it to Grand Rapids, Michigan, today, 12 days before the state’s presidential primaries. Michigan added abortion protections to its state constitution with a ballot measure last year.
Harris met with Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and Senator Debbie Stabenow to discuss abortion rights.
Harris described the ruling as an attack on people trying to start a family. “On the one hand, advocates say an individual does not have the right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy, and on the other hand, the individual does not have the right to start a family,” she said. “And the hypocrisy in this issue is stark when you consider that the top 10 states with maternal mortality have abortion bans.”
One of those states is South Carolina, which had a maternal mortality rate of 32.7 per 100,000 live births between 2018 and 2021, the eighth highest in the country, according to data collected by KFF. By comparison, the national figure was 23.5 over the same period.
Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley will face Donald Trump in the South Carolina primary on Saturday. Trailing badly, Haley initially seemed to embrace the logic of the Alabama ruling. “Embryos are babies to me,” Haley said NBC News yesterday in an interview. “For me, when you talk about an embryo, you are talking about a life. And so I see where that comes from when they talk about that.â€
Haley has tried to walk a fine rhetorical line on abortion as she campaigns, calling for “respect” while describing herself as pro-choice and avoiding policy details. It’s a contrast to Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, who expressed comfort with in vitro fertilization on a Politics great thursday.
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While he said he would prefer to avoid the policy debate in Alabama, Kemp said, “A lot of people in this country wouldn’t have children if that weren’t the case.” Republican governors Chris Sununu of New Hampshire and Bill Lee of Tennessee also expressed support for in vitro fertilization, with Sununu describing the ruling as “scary.”
Later on Wednesday, Haley walked back her previous comments, telling CNN, “I did not say I agreed with the ruling in Alabama.” This morning, Haley was asked by Newsmax if women should feel guilty when they do something wrong. if they have not implanted all the embryos they may have developed through the IVF process – a requirement of the Alabama ruling.
‘Not at all,’ she replied. “This is where we really need respect and humanity,†Haley added, noting that she needed medical help to become pregnant.
As states consider how to navigate the post-Roe environment, she said they need to be “very careful about how you do this because, first of all, you don’t want to take those fertility treatments away from women. It is very important that women like me have the opportunity to have the blessing of a baby.â€