Swamp and MAGA Cowards Unite to Toss Pro-Lifers Under the Bus...Again
Republican candidates don't need to take on the in vitro fertilization industry. But is it too much to ask that they not go out of their way to undermine those who are?
Last week, the Alabama Supreme Court sent the prenatal death cult that is the modern American Left into palpitations with a ruling affirming that frozen human embryos qualify as “children” under the law (which they literally, indisputably are as a matter of simple biological fact) in a dispute over whether the parents of erroneously-destroyed embryos could sue the hospital where they were being stored for wrongful death.
The Biden camp, Senate Democrats, and their mainstream media flunkies immediately set to work stoking fears and tugging heartstrings about how insane Republican theocrats were on the verge of criminalizing poor childless families’ only hope of having babies for absolutely no reason.
Every last one of them (with the possible exception of Sundown Joe because...you know) understood perfectly well their hysterics were unfounded, and sure enough, just a few days later a spokesperson for Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall confirmed his office would not be going after in vitro fertilization clinics anytime soon. Rank-and-file liberals may be well accustomed to taking judicial opinions as licenses to go hog-wild on their political likes and dislikes, but in jurisdictions that still abide by civic literacy, executives can’t just take action without things called “laws” that say something is illegal. Abortion is illegal in Alabama; IVF is not. (A hint is in the name. The executive branch executes the policies decided by the people’s representatives.)
Despite manufactured outrage being the oldest trick in Democrats’ playbook, however, between the ruling and the AG’s response, instead of keeping their shirts on a slew of prominent Republicans bent over backwards to appease their detractors...starting with the guy whose original selling point was supposedly his courageous willingness to offend the Left, Donald Trump:
Under my leadership, the Republican Party will always support the creation of strong, thriving, healthy American families. We want to make it easier for mothers and fathers to have babies, not harder! That includes supporting the availability of fertility treatments like IVF in every State in America. Like the OVERWHELMING MAJORITY of Americans, including the VAST MAJORITY of Republicans, Conservatives, Christians, and Pro-Life Americans, I strongly support the availability of IVF for couples who are trying to have a precious baby. Today, I am calling on the Alabama Legislature to act quickly to find an immediate solution to preserve the availability of IVF in Alabama. The Republican Party should always be on the side of the Miracle of Life - and the side of Mothers, Fathers, and their Beautiful Babies. IVF is an important part of that, and our Great Republican Party will always be with you, in your quest, for the ULTIMATE JOY IN LIFE!
The GOP standard bearer with free rein from Big Life to trample pro-lifers however he wants wasn’t the only one. Here’s a rundown by my colleague Doug Mainwaring:
“In the Senate, I will advocate for increased access to fertility treatment for women struggling to get pregnant,” declared outspoken former Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, now running for U.S. Senate. “IVF is extremely important for helping countless families experience the joy of parenthood. I oppose restrictions.”
“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 while campaigning for Trump in South Carolina. “I’ll be working very hard to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
New Hampshire’s Republican governor, Chris Sununu, said the ruling was “scary.”
“Don’t end IVF,” insisted conservative commentator Jack Posobiec, while naively asserting that “adoption for IVF embryos” is “the pro-life answer.”
The National Republican Senatorial Committee also circulated a memo directing GOP candidates to “Clearly state your support for IVF and fertility-related services as blessings for those seeking to have children” and to “Publicly oppose any efforts to restrict access to IVF and other fertility treatments, framing such opposition as a defense of family values and individual freedom.” From Politico:
“When responding to the Alabama Supreme Court ruling, it is imperative that our candidates align with the public’s overwhelming support for IVF and fertility treatments,” the NRSC memo states. “By advocating for increased access to these services, opposing restrictions, and emphasizing the importance of supporting families in their journey to conceive, our candidates can demonstrate compassion, respect for family values, and a commitment to individual freedom.”
This is a pretty straightforward case of purely political animals reflexively chasing polls that indicate the public doesn’t want IVF touched, in the process losing all sense of perspective about the principles involved.
As a practical matter, of course IVF won’t be banned anytime soon, and there’s nothing wrong with Republican candidates making that clear, or with them steering the conversation back to voters’ most immediate concerns. The problem is when, in their fear of not being completely acceptable to the mushy middle of the country, they lay on the virtue-signaling so thick that they wind up marginalizing those members of their own coalition who are in a position to take a stand and move the cultural needle toward life.
Important though elections are, they’re not the only fronts in the war. Whether in state legislatures, academic settings, the media, online forums, or even in local personal interactions, the Alabama ruling has sparked overdue and neglected conversations about the dark side of the IVF industry, namely the staggering number of “excess” embryos created by the process that end up abandoned and destroyed. As Heritage’s Emma Waters writes in Newsweek, those conversations have the potential to inspire positive developments well before reaching the much thornier issue of the industry’s legality, such as regulation geared at, in Alabama Chief Justice Tom Parker’s words, “drastically reducing the chances of embryos being killed, whether in the creation process, the implantation process, the freezing process, or by willful killing when they become inconvenient.”
Unfortunately, those efforts are made that much harder when major organs and figures of the supposed “pro-life” party—up to and including a former President of the United States and presumptive nominee to reclaim the office—lend their names to the opposition, making it easier for the preborn dehumanization lobby to paint the movement’s most committed voices as an impotent, unimportant, and wrong fringe.
If only the professional Right cared about that sort of thing anymore.