Democrats and reproductive rights groups are seizing on a ruling this week by the Alabama Supreme Court that plunges the future of access to in vitro fertilization, commonly known as IVF, into uncertainty
Some Republicans joined Democrats in expressing alarm over a ruling this week by the Alabama Supreme Court that jeopardized future access to in vitro fertilization, giving allies of President Joe Biden new fuel for their efforts to center abortion access in the presidential election.
“We’ve got to talk about making sure we don’t take away women’s rights to IVF, women who are childbearing age and want to give birth to children,” said GOP Rep. Nancy Mace, who was campaigning this week for former President Donald Trump in South Carolina. She added, “I’ll be working very hard to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
Democrats and left-leaning interest groups have banked on abortion rights as a major motivator for voters in the upcoming presidential election and fight for control of Congress. They believe abortion can be a winning issue as the debate widens to include increasing concerns over miscarriage care, access to medication, access to emergency care and now IVF treatments.
The GOP has struggled to talk about the issue while abortion-rights advocates have won races even in conservative-leaning states. Reproductive rights groups on Thursday compared the Alabama ruling to the impact of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade and nullified a federally guaranteed right to abortion.
“This has hit a nerve in a way I haven’t seen since Dobbs,” said Mini Timmaraju, head of the abortion rights group Reproductive Freedom for All. “And it’s because folks didn’t believe this could happen but it’s happening.”
Biden issued a statement Thursday that called the Alabama decision a “direct result of the overturning of Roe v. Wade.” And Vice President Kamala Harris, in the middle of her “Fight for Reproductive Freedoms” tour, accused Republicans of hypocrisy.
“On the one hand, the proponents are saying that an individual doesn’t have a right to end an unwanted pregnancy and, on the other hand, the individual does not have the right to start a family,” she told an audience in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
The all-Republican Alabama Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that frozen embryos created through IVF are considered children under state law, potentially exposing families and clinics to criminal charges or punitive damages.
