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This week, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen IVF embryos are legally considered children, and disposing of them could lead to being charged with “wrongful death of a minor.”

Let’s break it down: For decades now, in vitro fertilization (IVF) has been used by people with fertility issues to grow their families. Typically, doctors will create and implant multiple embryos because the odds of resulting in a pregnancy are not guaranteed. Therefore, IVF treatments often result in additional frozen embryos that are not implanted to be kept viable for future use.

The results of such a ruling are already playing out in Alabama: Fertility clinics in Alabama have already halted treatments of couples desperate to have children out of concern for criminal prosecution. This is what happens when people who don’t know what they’re talking about make policy around women’s health.

It’s also another example of the salami tactics we’ve seen the Republican Party use for decades, as the anti-choice movement slowly chipped away at the federal right to abortion, until it was completely gone — supposedly leaving the issue to the states. Since then, the Republican-led House has tee’d up multiple votes meant to shut down some form of abortion access, and states like Alabama and Texas are setting new precedents for other states to follow.

In June, we will see another landmark case at the Supreme Court that could ban the mailing of mifepristone across state lines — a safe and legal drug that has been widely used for over two decades — significantly limiting access to care even where abortion is legal.

So we should be clear that for the movement against choice, it was never just about sending abortion to the states. It was never even just about abortion.

These decisions are as personal as they come, whether it’s the choice to terminate a pregnancy or to go through painful and expensive treatments to realize a family’s dreams of a baby. The Alabama Supreme Court — and the asinine leaders who don’t understand women’s health issues — don’t belong anywhere near these decisions.

We know where the average American is on this issue: Michiganders of all stripes voted overwhelmingly to codify reproductive freedom in our constitution last November. It’s GOP politicians, obsessed with imposing their views on everyone else, who are leading our country backwards and making this country less and less safe for women and girls.

And if they are able to defeat us in November, they may get their wish.


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Thank you.
Elissa
 


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