Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer on Monday blamed Republicans for a recent Alabama Supreme Court ruling on in vitro fertilization that has ignited a furor among abortion-rights advocates nationwide.
“What happened in Alabama is a direct consequence of the hard-right MAGA Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade,” the New York Democrat said. “Republicans own what happened in Alabama.”
Alabama’s highest court ruled this month that frozen embryos are children, throwing the medical procedure into an arena of legal confusion with some health professionals in the state halting IVF services.
The IVF process inevitably produces several embryos while generally only one is desired. What to do with the “excess” has long been a moral quandary, turning on whether they are fully persons as the Alabama court ruled, which would morally rule out disposing of them as waste or using them in medical research.
groundswell of pro-life conservatives, including state and congressional Republicans, as well as former President Donald Trump, say Alabama has gone too far and that laws should now be passed to protect IVF.
Mr. Schumer accused such Republicans of being disingenuous and conflicting with their past political records, as Democrats look to capitalize on the health issue and tie it to abortion access in the upcoming election.
“We have seen a lot of backpedaling from Republicans because it is dawning on them that their agenda is horribly unpopular with most Americans,” he said. “Republicans, who have spent decades packing our courts with hard-right judges, who have called for national abortion bans, deserve zero benefit of the doubt now that the consequences of their agenda is sinking in.”
• Ramsey Touchberry can be reached at rtouchberry@washingtontimes.com.
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