In February, Alabama ’s Supreme Court ruled that embryos are human, triggering a political earthquake that erupted across the country. The Democratic Party seized the moment, defining the decision’s interpretation, and immediately labeling it as anti-in-vitro fertilization . With top Democrats arguing that Republicans’ anti-abortion positions are incompatible with a pro-IVF posture, Republicans have been put in an uncomfortable position during an election year.
Alabama’s Supreme Court ruling came after three Alabama couples sued the Mobile Infirmary Medical Center and the Center for Reproductive Medicine when their embryos were accidentally destroyed during the IVF process. The court’s decision in their favor entailed consequences for IVF facilities, making them liable for destroyed or discarded embryos now recognized as legal persons. The decision did not legally prohibit IVF, but it made providing and obtaining IVF more difficult.
Democrats have put Republicans on the defensive over Alabama's decision in the United States Senate, with Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) neatly summing up their messaging strategy in March. “It's a little personal when a majority male state Supreme Court suggests that people like me who became pregnant with the help of modern medicine should be in jail cells and not nurseries,” the Democrat senator said.
Other Senate Democrats say supporting IVF is incompatible with a pro-life position on embryonic personhood. In March, Senator Patty Mu.
