The connection between the Alabama determination that frozen embryos are “children,” and the “pro-life” assertion that abortion is “murder,” is obvious: it’s the religious belief that human life begins at conception.
But in terms of the psychological, moral, and political forces at work in the two issues, there’s also an important difference. The anti-abortion movement has always had, as an important fuel, negative feelings toward women and toward sex. But those misogynistic and sex-negative forces don’t apply toward IVF.
IVF isn’t about women, it is about couples.
IVF isn’t about sex, for those seeking IVF have presumably tried the natural method of conceiving children. (Much easier, much less expensive.)
But if life begins at conception — i.e. if all the rights of human beings attach immediately — then it follows that destroying a frozen embryo is the same thing as destroying a fetus three-months after conception.
Both the IVF decision, and the overturning of Roe v. Wade express a theocratic impulse based on the same religious belief. But the spirit of the two is different.
The Chief Justice of Alabama, Tom Parker, who propounded the IVF decision shares a theocratic purpose with Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote the Dobbs decision overturning Roe. Both were determined to sweep aside American norms about “the separation of Church and State.” Both are more than willing to force everyone to obey the moral imperatives that come with the idea that full human rights begin as soon as sperm and egg combine.
But Alito’s theocracy — like much of the anti-abortion movement of recent decades -- is also laced with the punitive energy of an Inquisitor. His Dobbs decision is devoid of empathy for the women whose lives his edict would control and injure.
In this account of what’s the same (the basic religious belief) and what’s different (the different spirit), we can find some clue about the political dilemma the Alabama-IVF decision has put the Republicans: the logic requires them to embrace Parker’s theocracy, while the politics work even worse than Dobbs.
The Republicans have spent 50 years demonizing — as the terrible “baby-killers” — anyone involved in the exercise of the rights that Alito and his fellow Republican-appointed judges have taken away. Dobbs has proved to be politically toxic — witness the recent votes in red Kansas and Ohio -- but at least they long prepared the ground for that bit of theocracy.
But the Republicans have developed no such long-term propaganda campaign to generate public support for a decision that prevents people who want a baby from having one.
So the dilemma of the Republicans: on the one hand, if their arguments against abortion are valid, they are logically required to oppose IVF. But the American public is even less willing to prevent couples from using IVF than they are to let the government force women to continue an unwanted pregnancy.
Without the misogyny, without the Puritanical insistence that women suffer the consequences of their sexual conduct, the idea that embryos must be treated as full human beings doesn’t have enough clout to make moral consistency politically viable.