 Alabama State Supreme Court ruling on IVF has already proven to be a complete and utter disaster with multiple clinics in the state now pausing IVF treatments entirely out of fear that they'll be prosecuted in the likely event that the process doesn't actually result in pregnancy. Let me show you what I mean by that. So this data released by SART in 2020 gives you a sense of how often the transfer of an embryo to a uterus actually results in live birth. There's a number of factors here, but age is a pretty strong determinant and if you're under 35 then the chance of IVF resulting in live birth is greater than 50%. But as you age, the odds of success decrease substantially with people over 42 having a less than 5% chance of IVF resulting in live birth. But because of this ruling in Alabama, the question is whether or not an IVF failure is now tantamount to murder or manslaughter at a minimum and if the doctor or patient is going to be liable for said manslaughter because if an embryo is legally a human being with the same constitutional protections as the rest of us then it logically follows that someone is responsible if said human ceases to exist for whatever reason. So there's now a legal risk associated with the procedure in Alabama and since there's a lot of gray area and unanswered questions, the easiest thing for clinics to do is to just stop offering the procedure to patients altogether and that's what we're seeing now. Now if you're struggling to follow the rationale behind this insane decision, let me help you out. In his concurring opinion, Chief Justice Tom Parker of Alabama Supreme Court explained, quote, the theologically based view of the sanctity of life adopted by the people of Alabama encompasses the following. One, God made every person in his image. Two, each person therefore has a value that far exceeds the ability of human beings to calculate. And three, human life cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God who views the destruction of his image as an affront to himself. In other words, this wasn't a legal decision. It was a religious decision and it creates quite the conundrum for forced birthers because on one hand they wanna force as many people as possible to have babies obviously but thanks to this decision, the people who actually want to have the babies but can't conceive without IVF won't be able to have the babies that forced birthers want them to have thanks to this decision. But I mean, if you genuinely believe that life begins at conception then this is what logically follows from that. But this decision isn't just extreme, it's also untenable. And the Republican Party has already shot themselves in the feet with their position on abortion but this makes matters exponentially worse because guess who also gets IVF treatments? Republicans including pro-life Republicans. And as a result, many Republicans have quickly come out to distance themselves from this ruling. That includes Donald Trump who has said he supports IVF and it also includes the National Republican Senatorial Committee who has encouraged candidates to not be against IVF. Now at the individual level in the House, a lot of Republicans have also made great strides to distance themselves from this ruling. Politico reports Representative Byron Donalds would broadly support federal protections for in vitro fertilization. The Florida Republican said Sunday in the wake of an Alabama Supreme Court decision that threatened the future of the procedure in the state. Also Republican lawmaker Michelle Steele tweeted, as someone who struggled to get pregnant I believe all life is a gift. IVF allowed me as it has so many others to start my family. I believe there is nothing more pro-life than helping families have children and I do not support federal restrictions on IVF. Nancy Mace also chimed in saying, I will stop any and all efforts to ban IVF. Now you're gonna notice something peculiar about this tweet. There's a blur there that provides us with some pretty crucial context. So let's go ahead and reveal what that blur is hiding. Oh, look at that. It's a community node pointing out that Nancy Mace would cosponsor the Life at Conception Act which would actually ban in vitro fertilization. But let's go ahead and see who also supports this. Byron Donalds and even Michelle Steele who literally got pregnant because of IVF but they're not alone because a total of 166 House Republicans all cosponsored the 2022 version of the Life at Conception Act which would effectively ban IVF treatments across the board in every single state. But to be fair only 124 Republicans have cosponsored the latest version and even though Michelle Steele is still among those names Byron Donalds and Nancy Mace are not. But that doesn't necessarily mean that they've had a change of hearts since then. They could just be apprehensive about cosponsoring it again due to blowback that the party received over Roe v. Wade getting overturned or they might have just not gotten around to it. But the fact remains that in 2022 they put their names on that legislation which would ban IVF effectively across the country which makes them untrustworthy at the very minimum. Now Toria Auden of the New Republic explains like the Alabama ruling, the Life at Conception Act would have severely restricted if not effectively banned IVF treatments as well because it grants equal protection to pre-born humans including embryos since it's common for fertilized eggs to not survive the IVF process the act would put doctors at risk of being charged for wrongful death of embryos. That risk would be enough to scupper the IVF industry. So there's two possibilities here. Either of these Republicans who now say they support IVF are lying or they're dumb because if you're a lawmaker who cosponsored legislation literally called the Life at Conception Act which grants 14th Amendment protections to embryos you have to at least question whether or not that's gonna impact the IVF industry as well, right? Well, of course not because why would we expect lawmakers who make laws to do their due diligence? But I mean it's entirely possible that they're just lying and I say this because Speaker Mike Johnson for example cosponsored the latest version of the Life at Conception Act on January 20th of 2023 but in November he vocalized support for IVF. The Washington Post reports in November Johnson told Fox News that he does not oppose access to fertility treatments. Quote that's something that's blessed a lot of families who have problems with fertility he said. Of course that's a great thing I would support that. So they're saying one thing but doing something completely different. So the question is how exactly do we explain this discrepancy? Are they dumb or are they deceitful? And my argument is that it doesn't really matter. It's a distinction without a difference as far as I'm concerned but I think it depends on the Republican. I think that Nancy Mace is probably lying. I think that she knows what IVF is and she knows that the Life at Conception Act would negatively impact the IVF industry but when it comes to some of these Republican men I just think that they probably don't know what IVF is. Texas Governor Greg Abbott for example called it a complex issue when it's actually not and Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville just seemed confused when he was asked about Alabama's decision. Take a look. Do you have a reaction to the Alabama Supreme Court ruling on the fact that embryos are children? Yeah, I was all for it. We need to have more kids. We need to have an opportunity to do that. And I thought this was the right thing to do but. IVF is used to have more children and right now IVF services are paused at some of the clinics in Alabama. Aren't you concerned that this could impact the people who are trying to have kids? Well, that's for another conversation. People need to have that. We need more kids. We need the people to have the opportunity to have kids. Senator, what do you say to the women right now in Alabama who no longer have access to IVF who will not as a result of this ruling? What do you say to them? Well, that's a hard one. It really is. It's really hard. Because again, you want people to have that opportunity and that's what I was telling her. We need more kids. Embarrassing. He was seemingly learning in real time that IVF wasn't actually a form of contraception and that it's actually a procedure that allows people to have children. But I think that that video is a perfect illustration as to why things are the way they are. We have a bunch of clueless imbeciles basing their policies off of a set of amorphous contradictory biblical values in a society that is supposed to be secular. Now, as Republican politicians scramble to convince people that they're not gonna take away another civil right from folks, we have some Republican ideologs like Michael Knowles actually saying, no, we actually do wanna do that. The reason surrogacy and IVF are immoral is because they interfere into the family. They break up the nucleus, the very building block of political society. They separate the reproductive from the conjugal act they establish the domination of technology over the origin and destiny of human life. And they can have all sorts of unintended consequences. Let me remind you that Michael Knowles is somebody with a lot of influence in the GOP. He co-hosted a podcast with the United States Senator, Ted Cruz. So when he says something like this, I think that we shouldn't pretend as if that's not gonna have any influence on the GOP party. So, you know, it's so bizarre that IVF is now something that could be taken away, but it's completely expected if you've been following the GOP in particular, you know, Christian nationalists. And it's stupid, right? It's genuinely an idiotic position to take because how can they think that embryos have constitutional protections when they don't even respect the civil rights and civil liberties that actual human beings now have who are alive, like who were born? They don't care about our civil rights, but they care about the civil rights and civil liberties of people who aren't born yet. It's just, it's nonsensical, right? We're the ones who are supposed to have constitutional protections, not embryos, and those protections grant us freedom from religion that they're trying to impose on all of us. So here's my recommendation to GOP politicians, regardless if you support IVF or not, put down the Bible and pick up the constitution and read that and stay the fuck out of our personal lives. CHILDREN LAUGHING VEGETTAINER LAUGHING