Alabama supreme court’s decision causing a temporary halt in IVF care shines spotlight on problem between two groups
There is a growing rift in the decades-old marriage between anti-abortion activists and Republican lawmakers.
The problem came into view last month, after a bombshell decision from the Alabama supreme court temporarily halted in vitro fertilization (IVF). The ruling, which described frozen embryos as “extrauterine children”, unraveled when the Republican-controlled legislature passed short-term protections for IVF providers.
Under a new law signed last week by Republican governor Kay Ivey, IVF providers are temporarily protected from civil litigation and criminal prosecution in the event of “damage or death of an embryo” during treatment.
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The move offered a helpful, if limited lifeline, to IVF patients in the state. The new law does not refute the Alabama supreme court’s controversial position that an embryo, stored for the purpose of IVF, is a person. Nor does it permanently shield IVF providers from legal penalties.
Despite its limited scope, the Republican-backed law took a step to align the GOP with US public consensus, which overwhelmingly supports IVF. It also invoked the wrath of rightwing Christian activists.
You’re right to condemn the loyalist worldview that thinks argument is shuffling cards as a dominance game.
You’re wrong to mistake that as the only reason people believe wacky religious bullshit.
Some of these people are dead fucking serious. Notably, the ones who murdered doctors. They are, in contrast to loyalists making shit up, critics. They are attempting to form an internally consistent set of opinions by going from facts, through logic, to conclusions. They just happen to be wrong about a whole bunch of facts. And a lot of their logic sucks as well. But when they espouse and defend awful conclusions, it is not the same kind of mistake as the assholes working backwards from those conclusions, just because it suits them.
Religion and right-wing politics are where these groups are most blind to one another. Mitt Romney is now called a RINO because he actually bought some bullshit 1990s version of Republican dogma, and refused to keep up with fresh evil bullshit. Sir Thomas More was empowered for pushing Catholic dogma when it helped the king and beheaded for pushing Catholic dogma when it opposed the king. There comes a point where one turns to other and asks, “Wait - you were fucking serious?”
And then the knives come out.