Anne Laurie posted about Nikki Haley’s response to the Alabama decision basically making IVF impossible in that state (so impossible that the UAB Medical Center and Alabama Fertility stopped IVF immediately after the ruling).
I know someone who worked in a fertility clinic, and from what this person told me, IVF is a special kind of hell for couples going through it. First, it’s expensive, like a new car expensive, and that’s often out-of-pocket. Second, the drugs that the female in the couple has to take are crazy making and a horrible addition to a tough process. Third, the retrievals (of the eggs) have to be very carefully timed, as do the implantation of the embryos that result from the retrieval plus fertilization. Also, tons of embryos are discarded by fertility clinics because they’re not viable, or the couple has all the babies they want — until the Alabama ruling, this was the quiet part that the forced birthers didn’t want to say out loud, since they do love themselves a quiverfull.
So here we have a couple that is desperate to have a baby, have probably tried a number of other ways to get pregnant before trying IVF, and are going through a process where timing is everything. Then some god-bothering old white men and women, who happen to be Supreme Court Justices in this backwater state, decide that Jesus decreed that those embryos are little tiny frozen babies. I can’t imagine the anguish of a couple who put their life savings into having a baby and now have some frozen embryos, or are ready for retrieval, and are unable to access care due to the nonsensical beliefs of a bunch of dotards.
Someone on Bluesky made the point that, as long as the US Supreme Court is constituted as it is today, we’re all living in a red state. Maybe when this ruling goes to the Supremes and it’s 6-3 for frozen little babies, I’ll believe that. But as long as that set of reactionaries are going to stick with their “states decide on abortion” “precedent” that they created with Dobbs, it sure as hell makes a big difference if you’re living in a red state and want IVF.
While we’re on the topic of old white men who don’t know shit:
Edited to add: Thanks to Another Scott in the comments, the Bluesky poster was LOLGOP and he has a longer post on the topic here.
War for Ukraine Day 729: Shell Hunger Will Become a Munitions Famine
WaterGirl
Someone needs to wipe that smug smile off of Tuberville’s face. Also, why the hell does anyone want to know what Tuberville thinks about anything?
He should be a non-entity after what he pulled with the military.
dr. bloor
The one follow-up question you never see to the couples getting screwed in the coverage on this is “who did you vote for in 2020?”
Baud
This isn’t going to the Supremes. Pure state law issue.
“There is no bill” should be a rotating tag, but probably too obscure.
Baud
@dr. bloor:
Guns > embryo humans
Harrison Wesley
Spud City Tommy, Alabama’s senior senator from Florida.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
For the lawyers out there: would state constitutional amendments protecting reproductive rights/abortion, such as Ohio’s or Michigan’s, also protect IVF?
Glidwrith
Now that the Biblical dotards of the state Supreme Court have spoken, is there any means of overturning their religious fanaticism?
karensky
@dr. bloor: 100% right!
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@WaterGirl:
It happened nearly a week ago in his home state and he doesn’t have a good answer. Incredible
Baud
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Depends how it’s written.
WaterGirl
@Baud: Would “There is no bill, you stupid fuck!” be better? :-)
WaterGirl
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Not incredible, it’s Tuberville. The bar for him is at ground level.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
We could just go with “You stupid fuck.”
schrodingers_cat
@dr. bloor:In Alabama 89% of white voters are Republican. So if they are white the answer is R
Source: Pew
$8 blue check mistermix
@Baud: State court rulings can be appealed to the Supreme Court. Roe was litigated over Texas laws against abortion. Dobbs was litigated over a Mississippi state law outlawing abortion.
Another Scott
It was LOLGOP.
Here’s his longer essay about it.
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
@$8 blue check mistermix:
There needs to be a federal law issue. I don’t think this case has one.
Suzanne
A reminder that IVF has shot up in “popularity” as bio females (on average) are older at the age of first childbirth. So it is culturally associated with women who went to college, established a career, maybe spent some time single, and then wanted to start families at older ages, potentially after their natural fertility started to decline (“the clock is ticking”), or to avoid genetic abnormalities that are more common with older parents.
So, in short, these are the kinds of women the GOP hates and wants to fuck with.
$8 blue check mistermix
@Baud: My understanding is that the Supreme Court can weigh in on any case where there’s an issue of constitutionality of the state law or state court ruling.
Baud
@$8 blue check mistermix:
Is there one in this case? I thought the only issues was the meaning of the state’s wrongful death statute.
NotMax
@Suzanne
Phrasing!
;)
$8 blue check mistermix
@Another Scott: Thanks! I added it to the post…
surfk9
I have two grandsons that were IVF. The process was awful and expensive. It cost me a significant amount of money to support it. The grandsons are cool!
$8 blue check mistermix
@Baud: Well Roe and Dobbs were both decided on interpretations of state statutes, so I think the answer is yes.
Chip Daniels
I’m trying to figure out how this plays politically.
I mean, the people who do IVF are generally affluent and the sort of middle class engaged-with-things type of people who vote and who can’t be dismissed the way poor people or queer people can be. Affluent people are also the people least accustomed to being burdened with governmental restrictions- these are the sort of people who are normally on the protected/ unbound side of the Wilhoit rule.
Baud
@$8 blue check mistermix:
Roe and Dobbs were constitutional challenges to state abortion bans. To my knowledge, no one is challenging the constitutionality of the Alabama statute.
West of the Rockies
The IVF process is no guarantee of success. I know someone who with his wife are on their third attempt (at a cost thus far of over $200K).
Baud
@Chip Daniels:
Who knows? There’s so many things that should enrage people that don’t seem to.
RaflW
Turns out it’s from 2023, but some Heritage Foundation lady just flat out said on camera that they are seeking to stamp out recreational sex.
To the main topic, it seems that the Christianist view is, no family planning. For people who want to delay or prevent pregnancy, sorry, nope, no pill or IUD or anything. And no medically assisted conception for people who want to have a kid but are struggling.
19th century orphanages, adoptions, and back street ‘doctors’ is where they all want to take us. We have to kick these awful people to the curb.
Miss Bianca
@Baud:
Yet.
West of the Rockies
@WaterGirl:
I don’t get why pencil-necked Tuberville is a spokesman either. He is charmless, smarmy, smug, and sounds like an ignorant cracker. And those are his good qualities.
hoosierspud
My niece was the egg donor for her best friend and his husband. After their son was born, they had the remaining blastocysts destroyed in case something along these lines happened. They live in Florida and know the score.
Baud
@Miss Bianca: Maybe. But Dobbs seems to say “Get your freak on, GOP.”
Another Scott
NPR.org from a couple of hours ago:
I assume they’ll “fix” the IVF issue, but beware the “blastocysts have rights” brigade pushing to to make things worse for women.
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
@Another Scott:
Why does he hate God?
comrade scotts agenda of rage
I have old friends in the Pittsburgh area who back in the early aughts went thru several years of IVF hell, all to no avail. They eventually adopted.
She’s a bad-ass and I think her father was actually mob-related (I’ve never asked to deeply because I don’t really want to know the answer). If anybody there messed with her vis a vis the IVF process back in the day, if she didn’t cut off their you-know-whats, I would half expect her to have her father call in a few “favors”.
bbleh
The AL-SC justices have an agenda — see, eg, recent background pieces on the CJ — and the people who elect them have beliefs, which they cling to like scraps of wood in the waves, and they don’t care at all about the real-world consequences of those beliefs.
When I’m trying to stay open-minded, I think they’re coping as best they can (ie not very well) with the complexities of a world that they don’t understand and that they fear, and the only way they see is to retreat into a kind of simple cartoon — a black-and-white cartoon. Thus also their attachment to absurdly (but deliberately) cartoonish politicians, eg their Senator and the presumptive Republican nominee.
Just as I hesitate to wish for TIFG’s long-delayed narcissistic crisis and crash, I also hesitate to wish for these people to run up against a brick wall and turn around to find it’s all brick walls, if only because of the collateral damage that would inevitably result
dr. luba
ACOG’s response:
The following is a statement attributable to Verda J. Hicks, MD, FACOG, president of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists:
“The Alabama Supreme Court’s decision in LePage v. Mobile Infirmary Clinic will severely limit or effectively remove access to in vitro fertilization from the people of Alabama, unjustly and unfairly denying them the ability to build their families through a critical, effective fertility intervention that represents one of the most significant medical advances of the last century.
“This dangerous decision sets an incredibly concerning precedent for IVF access across the United States. We have seen state legislatures replicate one another’s reproductive health care policies in an ill-advised attempt to compete for the most restrictive and harmful laws. The outcome of this case will certainly affect access to fertility treatment across the country as more and more state legislatures advance policies that are based on an ideological and unscientific definition of personhood. It reflects a dangerous insertion of individual ideological beliefs into policy making about what medical care is available to all of us.
“The removal of options for preserving fertility is an unconscionable act of inhumanity to add to existing suffering—one that I, as a physician who cares for patients with cancer, feel deeply.
“Individuals and families seeking out fertility treatment and the clinicians who provide fertility treatment will now be in danger of civil and potentially criminal liability in Alabama, a state that already leads the nation in pregnancy criminalization. Additionally, this decision will likely have disastrous effects on the training, recruitment, and retention of obstetrician–gynecologists and fertility experts in Alabama, worsening access and equity issues and penalizing those already living in a state with diminished access to all obstetric and gynecologic care.
“ACOG is in support of our members in Alabama and the patients, families, and communities they serve and will continue working to protect access to reproductive health care and eliminate legislative and judicial interference in the practice of medicine.”
Manyakitty
@dr. bloor: I hate to be that person, but yes. People need to answer the question.
JaySinWA
@surfk9:
Especially the ones still in the freezer.
Eric S.
Friends ofime are going through fertility treatment. I’m not sure if it is IVF (I haven’t asked details) but I know she feels terrible for a while after treatments. Asany have said, the cruelty is the point for these fuckers. And hatred and subjugation of women. Right now this just feels that much more personal.
bbleh
@Chip Daniels: my guess is, very much along the lines of Dobbs: there are some people who oppose it passionately out of personal conviction or because it actually injures them, there are considerably more True Believers who support it passionately because who knows Jesus or something, and there are far more people who are well-it’s-not-really-that-important-to-me-why-can’t-we-just-stop-all-this-unpleasant-arguing-about-sex. And the last group is, I think, more likely to be persuaded by the first *IF* noise is made. That seems to be what happened with Dobbs: the proponents have by and large been painted as theocratic lunatics. Seems like this could go the same way (although, alas, not to the immediate benefit of families in Alabama).
SeattlePsyclist
So what happens in Alabama when pre-implantation genetic testing reveals a fatal genetic defect or a serious but non-fatal defect like Down’s syndrome? Will the state mandate that the embryo be implanted in the mother against her will?
If embryo are children, how old are they at birth? If they have been in cryo-storage for 18 years, do the Alabama laws regarding wrongful death of a child still apply? If a child is born after 15 years in cryogenic storage, can they stop for a beer on the way home from first grade after they have been outside the womb/cryo-nursery for another 6 years?
I’m so confused.
Josie
@Baud:
Write it this way: “I need to read the bill.” (There is no bill.) or something similar.
RaflW
Jeebus. An M.D. saying “But it’s not a viable life until it’s implanted in the uterus.” I know NICUs can do remarkable things with premature births now, but there’s still gestational time before viability, Sen. Melson, you moronic fuckwad.
Kay
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Yes.
New Deal democrat
@$8 blue check mistermix:
Four things:
1. Everything Baud has written on this thread has been correct.
2. Wrongful death civil actions can be insured against, but depending on Alabama’s wrongful death damages allowed, it can be very expensive. The clinics could continue to operate, but possibly with much higher expenses.
3. But criminal charges, of course, cannot be insured against. If the fertility clinics think they might face criminal charges for even embryos that are accidentally destroyed, they will shut down.
4. If this ruling stands, then the embryos will have to be maintained *forever,* even long after the parents are dead. Grotesque.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@SeattlePsyclist: Do they count in a census? How about child support?
TBone
This was pretty funny.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/maga-all-in-on-trump-at-cpac-michael-moore-x-melber/vi-BB1iJSAc
Honus
@WaterGirl: Tommy Tuberville has made football coaches look even dumber. And then there’s the Alabama electorate…
WaterGirl
@West of the Rockies: I have to take issue with sounds like an ignorant cracker.
Shouldn’t that be IS an ignorant cracker? :-)
SeattlePsyclist
@RaflW: NICUs can do remarkable things, but they cannot save premature babies below a certain gestational age, and they are INCREDIBLY EXPENSIVE. If you have ever seen the bills for a NICU baby, you would appreciate the stunning monetary value of the uncompensated work that women do in pregnancy.
Kay
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Here’s MI:
Chetan Murthy
@Suzanne: Exxactly right. I remember reading about 10yr ago that women at big tech/biotech companies like Apple (mentioned specifically) were freezing their eggs, so they could continue their career full-bore, and have kids later. That’s gonna require IVF.
This is about pushing women back into the kitchen and pregnant. You’re a young woman, and think you might wanna have a family? Gotta decide *now*, b/c if you get yourself a career that requires focus and hours, you aren’t gonna have kids *now*, and …. well, in your late 30s you might find you can’t anymore.
“Decide now” is what they’re saying.
Honus
@Glidwrith: good luck. You’re counting on the Alabama legislature here. Which, as Cole noted recently, is in a stupidity race with that of my home state of West Virginia.
hueyplong
@$8 blue check mistermix: You’re overstating the range of review. State laws are only reviewable to the extent the attack is based on federal law/US Constitution.
Martin
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): It depends a lot. California’s says that women have a right to have a child or not, which would imply a protection for IVF. But the right to not have a child also implies that embryos must not be protected.
But every state approaches this differently. I’m of the view that CAs law is more defensible because it doesn’t protect a process, but the state of the woman, which I think is harder to attack and provides protections against further circumstances. No quibbling between chemical and surgical abortions, miscarriages, etc.
Other MJS
If the embryos are from non-citizens can they be deported?
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Kay:
Thank you, Kay. They very clearly protect things like IVF. Seems like all the bases were covered by these amendments. Wow, OH and MI really dodged a bullet there. Another reminder that amendments like these need to be put on the ballot everywhere they can be
bbleh
@New Deal democrat: as to (4), the logical course of action for the IVF clinics would seem to be to transfer the embryos (and the legal responsibility) to the parents — who are their legal owners iirc — as quickly as possible. Seems like that might also have salutary political ramifications as well. Or am I mistaken somewhere?
Harrison Wesley
@New Deal democrat: #4 sounds like something from Black Mirror.
bbleh
@Honus: as a WV resident, I must regretfully cede that race to Alabama, at least for now, and not only because of this issue.
And these days, Florida seems to be a real comer.
Martin
@Miss Bianca: This case was a challenge to the statute – at least, a challenge to its scope. The intent was that it would apply to pregnant women so if a pregnant woman was harmed you could prosecute for murder against the loss of the pregnancy. This has long been an end-run effort to criminalize abortion. They didn’t intend it to be applied to voluntary storage of embryos for IVF, but the plaintiffs argued that it should. The court agreed that it should.
I don’t know if there is already a broader challenge to the law, but I suspect there is.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Martin:
Hmm, that’s interesting. Codifying the right to have a child or not does seem like it’d be hard to legally challenge for sure and I agree with your conclusion that recognizing that women have that choice would mean that embryos can’t be protected, and thus IVF is protected
bbleh
@Other MJS: I still wanna know what happens if something terrible occurs and both parents pass away. Does a court-appointed guardian manage the estate for the frozen embryos’ benefit? What happens when the money runs out?
RaflW
@bbleh: My god that would be a horrendous burden on the couple trying to get pregnant and just had their hopes dashed. “Congratulations, here’s a bottle of liquid nitrogen containing your fertilized eggs. Be careful on the drive home! Oh, and we won’t be supplying refills on the LN2. Check on Amazon for that.”
gene108
@Baud:
I wonder if the fuck nuggets that brought the wrongful death lawsuit against the IVF center were able to conceive? They kicked this off trying to squeeze a few bucks out of the IVF center.
Kay
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
The “personhood” approach of the Alabama court is one of the routes anti abortion lobbyists pursued prior to Dobbs, but post Dobbs it only makes sense to use it to outlaw IVF because after Dobbs Alabama can (obviously) just outlaw abortion.
I do think you’ll see it spread to the other anti choice states, though. “Personhood” is the next logical step once one declares that life begins at conception.
Martin
@New Deal democrat: Yeah, 4 is where I’m curious. If parents can no longer afford storage, does CPS take custody and maintain them forever?
If an embryo is a person, is storage of one a 5th amendment violation of due process? Suddenly you have some VERY strange other laws intersecting. When the embryo turns 18 does it legally become an adult and require a competence hearing to continue to keep it stored? Can you draw SS Disability against the embryo? Does it get a federal Tax ID?
NotMax
@hueyplong
Coupled with any appellant(s) having to prove (not claim) standing.
TBone
Meanwhile…
The second-highest-ranking official in the U.S. Border Patrol has elected to retire amid allegations of sexual misconduct toward female Border Patrol employees, according to two sources familiar with his departure.
https://twitter.com/NBCNews/status/1760133553373786202
Baud
@RaflW:
They can drop the canister off in one of those baby drop boxes.
Suzanne
@Chetan Murthy:
Yes.
This is really, at core, about trying to do two things:
1) Coerce women into young marriage/pregnancy, so they are more likely to settle for any mediocre man, because they don’t have the luxury of time to figure out if they found a great partner. It’s about ease of sexual access and a guaranteed bearer of children for men.
2) Drive professional and higher-earning women out of work life and back into the home, to leave the influential and financially renumerative work to men, in order to make women more dependent on men. So they will be less likely to leave.
Eunicecycle
@bbleh: It may have just been the clinic my daughter and SIL used, but they had to decide before their egg retrieval what they wanted done with their embryos in case of death or divorce. I don’t know what they decided.
Kay
bidenharrishq
bbleh
@RaflW: yeah one presumes the clinics — who are trying to help people — would spare couples still in the middle of the process, at least while it’s ongoing. But I can’t see how they would see longer-term storage as anything but an unacceptable risk. What happens if there’s an equipment failure? They’re on the hook for mass murder.
Doesn’t surprise me IVF clinics are hitting “pause.” I’d really be surprised if they didn’t move to shut down entirely asap.
NotMax
@Martin
Too, what happens when a hurricane or other disaster results in extended loss of power or damage to containment?
TBone
@TBone: he points out that for every wasted jagoff, there are 200-300 million “human lives” wasted. And the embryos running up and down the hallway are irritating.
Sister Golden Bear
Latest in the Nex Benedict case, the Oklahoma non-binary kid who was severely beaten by three older girls in their school bathroom and died the next day.
In text messages released by the family, Nex revealed that those involved in their beating had a history of bullying them. Nex texted a friend “They had been bullying me and my friends and I got tired of it so I poured some water on them and all 3 came after me” and goes on to say the “School did not report to the police”.
Police have backtracked after claiming trauma “did not cause” Nex’s death, even though they were taken to the hospital over their head injury and experienced difficulty walking. They said this was based on the completed autopsy results — which they’re not planning to release until toxicology tests, etc. are done. The police update used the exact language released by the school the previous day.
However, now the police have filed a search warrant looking targeting the cell phones and lockers of those suspected of involvement in Nex’s death, which stated that “Owasso police officers suspect foul play involved and need to initiate an in-depth investigation into the death.”
Meanwhile the school says it will release security video — someday….
LGBTQ+ rights leaders are calling for a DOJ investigation into their death, casting doubt on the initial statements of local police officers and school officials.
The video is a tough view, but I urge you to watch if you’re up for it.
Baud
@Kay:
I joined the wrong Twitter alternative.
bbleh
@Eunicecycle: but now, unfortunately, the acceptable range of “done with” is narrowed significantly.
This is what happens when you put God-botherers on the bench.
Gvg
@Chetan Murthy: People don’t always meet their marriage partner at the ideal biological age even if they don’t have a career. And where are they supposed to meet lots of people if they don’t go to college or have a career? Not everyone can meet Mr. Right in high school or church. Socially it can work but doesn’t for enough people and IVF can improve odds. My cousin used it. She had fertility problems related to a car accident when she was young. Gained a lot of weight from the hormone treatments. Nephew is really loved and was always wanted.
Why can’t these people learn real biology? Every consequence of overturning Roe is so stupid? And they keep saying things that show how ignorant they are, but refuse to learn. Damn.
hueyplong
@NotMax: Yes, standing is a requirement in any court, though our Republican friends like to blur the definition.
Eunicecycle
I know I’ve said this too many times, but 4 out of my 5 grandchildren were born through IVF. One of them is in Texas and I know my son and DIL want to have more. I think they still have 3 embryos. They just had an unsuccessful transfer and are grieving, so I don’t want to bring this up with them. But I am now petrified for them as, as someone above noted, other states will want to jump on this bandwagon. And Texas always wants to be the most extreme.
Sister Golden Bear
@Kay:
If I recall correctly, haven’t other Red states already been pushing this, as a backdoor way to set up bans on abortions and birth control,
@Suzanne:
This, a thousand times this.
Kay
@Baud:
I like them because they’re more like normies. It reminds me of 2004-ish internet, when we were innocents :)
Odie Hugh Manatee
@dr. bloor:
Yup, I have a feeling that some of these couples voted for this result and are now shocked. The snark side of me says that maybe we shouldn’t rush to judge the justices here. Is it really a bad thing that some conservatives can’t breed in Alabama? What is sad is that many of them dutifully voted for this and only now realize how wrong they were.
Of course I also bet that they still support everything else that the Republicans and TFG represent. Except this.
Martin
@Martin: Oh, apportionment. As couples struggling to conceive flee to blue states for IVF treatment, can we count these embryos toward our allocation of congressional districts? What if we only count them as 3/5 of a person?
gene108
@Kay:
What the majority of Americans say they support seems meaningless. Whether it’s gun control, IVF, and other issues, the politicians on the opposing side of these issues do not lose many or any votes come election time.
RaflW
@Sister Golden Bear: I was thinking yesterday that Nex’s family might have to arrange for a private autopsy. Which is a gruesome thing to add to their burdens, but I just can’t imagine trusting OK officials to do the right thing.
I’m friendquainted with a medical examiner in Minnesota, and I am not saying that an ethical ME can’t exist in OK, but I’d have a lot of questions about chain of custody, pressure from superiors, etc that could taint the examination, and handling of tests, etc.
There’s way too many horror stories of shitty prosecutors, County Attorneys, and such. Brining the Feds in might be a necessary step.
Eunicecycle
@bbleh: You are right, but luckily they, and I, are in Ohio and I believe our recent constitutional amendment will protect them. For now.
Baud
@gene108:
Agree.
Kay
@gene108:
We actually talked about that in Ohio – would succeeding with an amendment protecting rights immunize Republicans in the state from accountability on that issue? We decided that yes, it probably does, but since people will die without it (especially young girls – children themselves) we should try to get it passed.
Sister Golden Bear
@RaflW:
We’ve been saying that ever since the news broke. It’s been pretty clear that both the school and the police have been trying to cover things up. I’m betting the hospital is busy trying to cover its ass as well They sent home someone who’d had a severe beating and likely concussion, seemingly without any instructions to the family to monitor Nex closely.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@gene108:
@Baud:
There’s many examples of the post-Dobbs backlash being real and hurting GOP elected officials. The GOP lost seats in the VA legislature last year, for example, and now Dems control both chambers
RaflW
@Gvg: “Why can’t these people learn real biology?” Because the Scopes monkey trial is still going on, in a culture war sense. Creationism has never really been suffocated as a thing in this country. And teaching real biology leads to people having an iota more agency for their adult selves. Can’t have that.
Chetan Murthy
@RaflW: IIRC George Floyd’s family had to do this, too.
New Deal democrat
@bbleh: If the IVF clinic strongly suspected to the point of realistically knowing that the parents could not maintain the conditions to keep the embryo alive, there would be the possibility of a second degree murder charge (depending on AL’s definitions of the various degrees of homicide).
So I don’t think the clinics would have any risk-free path. The least risky would probably be to transfer the embryos to another state.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Kay:
Maybe, but prominent state Republicans have declared that this isn’t settled. They will undoubtedly try to undo the success of Issue 1. Their efforts could remind people of who they are and cause another backlash
bbleh
@Martin: not just apportionment but voting. Can a legal guardian register them to vote? And then cast the votes in their names? One IVF clinic might swing a district!
gene108
@Sister Golden Bear:
The fact the three girls who beat up Nex have yet to face any consequences that anyone is aware of is pretty obvious local authorities are trying to brush off any accountability for the perpetrators.
There has to be some Alabama statute out there that if you beat someone badly enough they need to go straight to the hospital, you might’ve committed a crime of some sort and can be charged as such.
Ramona
@SeattlePsyclist: I have long hypothesized that most societies operate as though their very existence is undergirded by oppressing and exploiting those people whose labor is indispensable while actively preventing even the articulation of the idea that an unpayable debt is owed to the people providing the indispensable function.
There is no labor more indispensable than child-bearing! Our Universe as we know it would not exist but for the willingness of women to suffer the travails of pregnancy and the agony of labor!
The myth of Eve’s sin justifying the pain of childbirth seems to me a long-standing attempt to obscure this unpayable debt to women as is the relegation of women to the category of non-persons.
bbleh
@New Deal democrat: yeah seems to me the first choice would be arranging with the parents to have a clinic out of state take custody. And I don’t know where the logistical constraints on that might be; they’re not individually very large. But the paperwork, the record-keeping, the insurance and waivers … oof. And that’s assuming cooperative parents. What happens if they’re not?
Kay
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
I don’t really believe them. I think it’s performative, for their base. They know it’s a bad issue for them. It isn’t a serious effort. So I regret that part, but obviously restoring the right had to come before political expediency – it would probably benefit state Democrats to keep abortion illegal and run against Republicans on it. This allows Republican women to continue to vote for Republicans while Democrats protect their rights. More freeloading.
Mike in NC
Nikki Haley the human weathervane.
Tony G
Logically, there will soon be (if it hasn’t already started) a mass exodus from the Taliban states like Alabama — of young educated women and (in some cases) young educated men who care about women. Nobody will want to live in those states if they have other options, and the economies of those states will suffer accordingly. That’s my stupid prediction anyway.
Suzanne
@Sister Golden Bear: I read an interesting statistic yesterday…. somewhere around 45% of young women (I assume they mean cis women, but the piece didn’t say) want to have children, whereas close to 60% of young men do. Thats a really interesting statistic to me. The implications are scary, though…. coercion is on the agenda.
frosty
@Martin: And as a Valued Commenter mentioned a day or so ago, if you’re driving home with your bottle of embryos in liquid nitrogen, can you use the HOV lane?
Sister Golden Bear
@gene108: No need for an Alabama law, conventional assault and battery laws would suffice. Nex throwing some water on their attackers may started the fight, but beating their head against the bathroom floor was clearly a disproportionate response.
Although knowing OK, they probably have a “stand your ground” law that would be used by the three girls who did the beating to get off scot free.
NotMax
The very text of the Alabama decision is unabashed establishment of religion and ought to be struck down on that basis alone.
Suzanne
@bbleh:
How do the embryos get a photo ID? Are they American citizens? Do they get to collect Social Security?
LET’S PUT THOSE LAZY MOOCHERS TO WORK.
TBone
@Ramona: and then there’s breast feeding or pumping, colic at midnight or all night watch when illness strikes, the list is long. Gawd ferbid a woman breast feed in public. But indispensable it remains.
NotMax
@Suzane
Can they run for president at 35?
Sister Golden Bear
@Suzanne:
Absolutely. Getting a partner pregnant is a known coercion tactic used by abusers. Probably also explain some of the “steathing” where a man surreptitiously removes a condom during sex. (Although I suspect much of the latter is just men who just want to use their Andrew Tate-given right to bareback, and then bolt if the woman gets pregnant.)
Ramona
@Eric S.: For the sake of people who want children (I don’t), I hope that the early research in In Vitro Gametogenesis (IVG) quickly bears fruit (pun not intended)!
Once realized, IVG would allow women to take advantage of IVF without having to undergo painful treatments in order to super-ovulate and LGBTQIA+ families could have children genetically related to them.
https://hsci.harvard.edu/event/gamete-generation-induced-pluripotent-stem-cells-how-close-are-we-creating-sperm-and-eggs#:~:text=Instead%2C%20a%20new%20experimental%20procedure,sperm%20cells%20in%20the%20laboratory.
Suzanne
@Sister Golden Bear: So LARCs are awesome for this. OBGYNs will frequently offer IUDs to women in abusive relationships and then clip the strings really short so they can’t be felt.
Which is why they’re coming for IUDs, too, y’all!
Chetan Murthy
Back when Dobbs broke, I remember reading that the board of certification for obstetricians had mandated that all certification exams be held in Dallas, TX. The article discussed the obvious safety implications for all obstetricians, of this location choice. I wonder if they’ve moved their certification exam location.
Sister Golden Bear
@Suzanne: I didn’t realize that part, I just assumed it was part of the reactionaries attempt to ban all forms of birth controls, but that totally makes sense why they hate IUDs in particular.
Kay
Embarrassing tap dancing:
I was suprised she jumped right on it because I wasn’t aware this was yet another rigid ideological rule Republicans are not permitted to veer from, but I’m sure someone then told her to walk it back, so she came up with this babbling nonsense.
Ksmiami
@NotMax: you mean at 34.3? Clock starts at day 1 precious blastocyst
Subsole
@Gvg:
Why should they learn?
They pay no price for being stupid.
Uncle Cosmo
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Dummy GooberVile, imbecile.
RaflW
@Kay: Haley dares say “I think that the court was doing it based on the law.”, when @NotMax is absolutely correct that the decision is unabashed establishment of religion, and ought to be struck down on that basis alone.
Ramona
@TBone: Indeed!
wjca
No, those are his better qualities. He doesn’t have any good qualities.
/pedantry
Starfish
@gene108: This happened in Oklahoma.
wjca
I don’t know about the judges’ personal views (although my prejudices definitely have guesses). But in this case they appear to have been simply following the law that the legislature wrote. A lot more fury directed at the Alabama legislature s, which certainly deserves it on several counts, eems more reasonable.
Chetan Murthy
@Starfish: Maybe I’m just hopelessly scarred by growing up in TX, but reading about that poor girl, all I could think about was “that could have happened in Texas, that could have happened in the high school I went to.” [Parker County went for TFG by, like, 81%, IIRC]
scav
Interesting statistical detail though. Adding all those frozen citizens to the Alabama rolls hasn’t significantly decreased the states median IQ.
Wonder how the baby protectors will feel when the parents income eventually runs out and all the frozen innocents are now sucking off the government teat for their basic maintenance.
Jay
@New Deal democrat:
The least risk for the IFV Clinic would be to provide a complete inventory, and the dewars to Child Protection Services and tell them, they are your problem now, if any of them die, or are nonviable, you will be charged with murder.
Kay
@wjca:
They went much further than the statute that was in front of them:
This was always going to happen with laws declaring that life begins at conception. They had to end up here. One cannot believe life begins at conception and NOT end up here.
Haley is wrong. Tweaking a statute won’t take care of what is a huge logical and practical problem – “life begins at conception” cannot be squared with current state law on personhood (and most of state law rests on personhood). It can’t be done.
Urza
@Suzanne: They’re coming for condoms to if you listen to them. IUDs and morning after pills they can just come up with some unscientific reason to justify. They want it all and probably a camera in your bedroom as well.
Ironcity
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: As is “Fix the weather good, Kudzma?”
sab
@wjca: The language of one of the concurring opinions was pretty extreme “children are made in the image of God so killing them effaces His glory.” Also too I believe the wrongful death statute was from 1872, so hard to blame the legislature.
Citizen Alan
@SeattlePsyclist: For extra laughs, try asking a Republican politician who wants to abolish abortion whether he also supports expanding medicare in his state and watch him sputter indignantly.
Suzanne
@Urza: They really want housewives and breeders.
I know everyone here thinks I’m being alarmist, but it’s because it’s alarming. All these advances by women are so new. We’re not even one human lifetime past the invention of birth control pills, or women having credit cards, or marital rape being legal. Not to mention “Take my wife…. Please!” or Richard Nixon beating Pat so hard she was hospitalized. All of this can be swept away with enough political will, because men have lost a great deal of control.
Yarrow
@Suzanne: Who is this “everyone here” that thinks you’re being too alarmist. Do not put me in that category. I’m completely with you on all of this.
Two decades ago when I heard Rush Limbaugh say on his show that everything went to hell when women got the vote I’ve known this was the case. They want to take everything away from anyone who isn’t white, Christian and male.
Martin
@frosty: That’s already a thing in some states.
wjca
Ksmiami
Since the age requirement (original intent!) was 35 years from birth, it would have to be 36 years from conception.
sunchoke
It is difficult to measure, but on order of half of fertilized eggs do not implant and so go with the flow. God murders babies by design.
wjca
Once they establish the standard of “life begins at conception”, they can use the fact that both of those prevent implantation, which happens after conception, to justify banning them. Justifying banning condoms, diaphrams, and the pill would require a whole new, and more challenging, justification.
Yarrow
I keep seeing and hearing about the “implantation” of embryos. That’s not how it works in IVF. The embryos are transferred into the uterus. Everyone hopes the embryos, or at least one, implants. Implantation doesn’t happen for a day or two after transfer.
Chetan Murthy
@Suzanne: @Yarrow: With respect, while Suzanne is probably not right about almost all people *here*, she *is* right about most Americans, and (sadly) most Dems. They wake up slowly. Slooooowwwwwly. Sigh.
Sister Golden Bear
@Suzanne:
Not alarmist at all. In eight years we went from “concerns trans girls have an advantage in high schools sports” (they don’t) to legislating trans people out of existence, and opening talking about killing trans people en masse.
Efforts to keep women barefoot, pregnant and without legal rights can, and will, escalate quickly.
Leela
I am very happy about that decision by the court there in Alabama. Hopefully the bill they are trying in their legislature will fail. And hopefully other states forbid IVF too.
Why?
Because this shit will make them lose. Folks who need to do IVF need to wake up.
Everyone needs to wake up.
And this might just do it.
Oh, please reverse Obergfell while you are at it.
Your losses will be staggering and eternal.
Ksmiami
@Sister Golden Bear: that’s why these cretins need to be destroyed and I’m not sure at the ballot box is enough
Repatriated
Hobby Lobby means that the meeting the evidentiary threshold only requires belief, not a basis in medical science. Get a statewide referendum — or, failing that, a law enacted by “duly-elected” (don’t say gerrymandered) legislators, and use that to claim that the state (in the person of its government) has a sincere religious belief that X, Y, and Z are abortifacients and must therefore be banned under applicable state law.
Bonkers, yes. I do not think it will stop some RW organization from trying it.
sanjeevs
Don’t worry according to the NYT This is just a fertility industry issue. The Republicans just want to ensure that everything is well regulated.
Nothing to do with your freedoms.
Antonius
In his defense, Tuberville is a moron.
Manyakitty
@Leela: can’t wait to see Thomas be the deciding vote to overturn Loving and legislate his marriage out of existence. Bring it.
Paul in KY
@bbleh: Boy do the lawyers want to get in on that!
Paul in KY
@Sister Golden Bear: ‘So, if I report this I ruin their life?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Sign me up! I’m reporting my MFing ass off!’
Paul in KY
@Sister Golden Bear: As Rickyrah mentioned the other day, it’s 100% certain these are whitey-white girls and they are being protected at Nex’s expense.
Quaker in a Basement
Molly Ivins wasn’t talking about Tuberville when she said it, but, you know, if the brogue is your size and color, then slip it right on and lace it up:
“If his IQ slips any lower, we’ll have to water him twice a day.”