The IVF bat­tle: How Sen­ate Repub­li­cans are nav­i­gat­ing the polit­i­cal mine­field

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 diff …