Problem: IVF embryos are human babies

In vitro fertilization is murder.

The Alabama Supreme Court closed the trap on the "pro-life" movement. Now "pro-life" politicians need to face the simple fact that IVF kills babies. 

The abortion debate isn't about when life begins. It is about the age-old effort by men in power to control that special thing women can do — bear life.

A fertilized egg is entirely different from a sperm, which men create and discharge by the millions, and an unfertilized egg, which women create and dispose of monthly. Sperm and eggs are incomplete. But a fertilized egg has it all, and it promptly begins dividing and growing. It has everything that a baby has, except that it is younger. A religious person can believe it is sacred, that it has a soul, and that it is created in the image of God. The Alabama Supreme Court believes that.

Tens of millions of Americans believe life begins at conception. I don't share that view, but I understand it. My wife experienced a miscarriage. Something real started then died and disappeared. It feels odd to say it, but I mourn the loss. For those who believe life begins at conception, abortions are murder.

Hormone preparation for IVF implantation creates possibly 20 eggs, expressed at once, and retrieved. Those get fertilized in a Petri dish. Of those, some are discarded as weak-looking, but two or three are implanted. Usually no more than one grows to become a live birth. If that is successful perhaps a second batch of two or three are implanted for a second baby. Eventually all the unwanted ones are discarded. A cold, hard look at IVF means that a dozen or more fertilized eggs -- human beings with souls -- are killed to try to make one or two babies.  

Medford street protester, April 2023

We are witnessing a scramble of people who call themselves "100% pro-life" defending the IVF procedure. It reveals the hypocrisy within the movement, and its real motivation. Human societies fight over territory, resources, and the bodies of women. This is a fight over women’s reproduction.

A morally consistent person would oppose IUDs (which stop implantation of a fertilized egg); abortion pills that cause an early miscarriage; and any abortion of a pregnancy resulting from rape. They would also oppose the entire IVF procedure, which inevitably kills a dozen or more human souls in order to try to make one.

The "pro-life" movement is in the process of making a distinction based on the presumed moral validity of the mother. It isn't a save-the-baby issue; it is a good woman/bad woman issue. It is about slut-shaming, and deciding who is unworthy. A woman who wants a baby is legitimate, even if her effort to get pregnant kills multiple babies locked in a freezer. Nikki Haley had two children by IVF. She is thought good for creating life -- two lives -- even, presumably, at the expense of many others. A woman who wants to abort a pregnancy because she already has three children at home is thought illegitimate. She should have been more careful with sex, or with contraception, or with inviting rape, or with whatever caused this pregnancy. The government concludes she needs to bear the consequences. After all, she is bearing a sacred life. She certainly cannot murder her way out of her jam.

There will be "life begins at conception" purists who will make the hard, politically expensive choice. They will publicly oppose IVF because it murders those tiniest of babies. Most prudent "pro-life" politicians will backtrack and do a carve-out for IVF, as some do now for rape. Pro-life politicians fetishized and made sacred the fertilized egg because it was an easy place to draw a line. Now it isn't so easy. 

Women who turn to IVF aren't shamed. They are "good." They are voters. Like women who choose to have an abortion, they are trying to control their own fertility. In that case, the murder of innocents is OK. Hypocrites.