Is it just me, or has there been a more impassioned outcry related to IVF than there was to Dobbs?
I believe the government should stay the hell out of both IVF and the right to decide whether or not to bring a child into this world, and when.
But to me, when the right to self-determination is being violated, the response feels uneven. Anguished outcries pretty much across the board (except from the usual suspects) because people who want a child and can’t have one without IVF will now have severely limited options.
Less anguished responses across the board when women are bleeding out in hospital parking lots. I know that some of us care deeply about this. But across the wider society, it seems like the response is much more sympathetic to women who want to have a child and can’t, as opposed to someone who is being forced to bear a child that she doesn’t want. (For any number of reasons.)
Does it seem this way to anyone else?
Open thread.
Nina
The media is hardwired to care more about rich person problems than poor person problems. Can’t get an abortion in your state? Just fly to another. Can’t get IVF? IVF takes longer and is more invasive, and it costs a lot of money, so it inconveniences the rich person more if they have to go out of state for it.
John S.
I like this longer version of hypocrisy. ☺️
Baud
Certainly uneven in that the Republicans aren’t joining us in the first issue, but many are on the second.
WaterGirl
@Baud: Maybe it’s also that the media identify more with the IVF crowd than with those pesky women and children who should just have the baby and then get on with their lives.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
The men who control the media certainly do.
MattF
I think Having A Family is a central goal for many people, and IVF is a means to that end. Bodily autonomy, not so much.
Capri
I recall a lot of reaction to Dobbs, too. Perhaps not in the media.
Outlawing abortion had been the GOP’s stated goal for decades. So it wasn’t exactly a shock when it happened. There were a lot of people who believed Republicans when they said that all they cared about was abortion and anyone who said it was just a first step was an hysterical liberal. Journalists, who pride themselves on being unbiased and neutral, by and large took that view.
After the IFV ruling it became clear that indeed abortion was just the beginning of a full on effort to get rid of much more – so I’m guessing there were a ton of middle-of-the-road types for whom the IVF decision was a wake-up call.
TBone
I woke up one morning not long ago pissed off about this very subject. I was informed that the Dobbs backlash would take care of it or something to that effect. I opined that many cretins cannot make the connection between these two seemingly disparate things by themselves. Still pissed off about this very real SQUIRREL!
WaterGirl
Nina, If you were trying to post a comment, please try again.
artem1s
It’s always been this way. Only certain abortions are ‘good’ abortions (I got mine fuck you white women who ignored the SCOTUS slippery slope while voting for R’s for the last 60 years). Some women deserve reproductive care – some never did.
In all honesty, it’s a little hard for me to empathize with the IVF issue. When their clinics are being blown to bits and their doctors are being murdered while standing in their kitchens, and while ushering in their churches on Sunday morning – then maybe they can find it in their hearts to dredge up some empathy for those of us who have been Cassandra’d into silence for the last 5 decades. We tried to warn them.
WaterGirl
@Capri: There’s way too much “only carrying about this if impacts me directly” and not enough “this is n’t right, whether it impacts me directly or not”.
frosty
@Capri: I agree with your take on this. Opposition to abortion was “baked in” but the ramifications to other reproductive health is something new.
Notwithstanding all the articles on ectopic pregnancies, etc, and the slowly dawning realization that care for a miscarriage is a D&C.
twbrandt
I remember a great deal of outcry after Dobbs. It triggered referenda to protect abortion in such unlikely places as Kansas and Ohio. Gretchen Whitmer obliterated her opponent in the Michigan governor’s election with the issue.
I think IVF just set off another round of opposition.
Chris
“The response” and “across the board” are a little vague – response from who?
I’d believe that there’s been more of a response to IVF than Dobbs in society as a whole, simply because you’ll never go wrong blaming sexism in society. I do think the media amplifies the difference. (We’ve pointed out here in the past that they’ve repeatedly underreported and underestimated the amount of backlash there is to Dobbs in the last two years – there’s been a very strong response, but because it’s driven by women and equally important because it’s viewed as a women’s issue, the media considers it the sort of thing to be downplayed).
lowtechcyclist
I don’t take in a lot of media, so I’d be hard pressed to guess the sentiments of the wider society. But my wife and I have been in the position of wanting to have a child and being unable to. And as emotionally trying as that was, at least IMO that comes nowhere close to the trauma of being forced to bear a child one doesn’t want. Especially if that pregnancy was the result of rape or incest, but true in general AFAIAC.
I’m old enough to remember when that was just the way it was – if a girl got knocked up, there was no way out other than a back-alley abortion. Frequently girl and boyfriend were all but forced to marry; didn’t matter whether they were well suited for each other or not.
That was, quite frankly, horrible. Thank goodness we’d left that era far behind. But the Rethugs would send us right back there if they could, and of course they’re already doing that in a lot of states.
schrodingers_cat
The media only covers what they think affects white and/or rich Rs or INOs (independents in name alone) like themselves, everyone else be damned.
H.E.Wolf
It has seemed to me that Democrats, nationwide, have been very vocal in their outcry against the Dobbs decision.
The many pro-choice victories at the ballot box, subsequent to Dobbs, were accompanied by loud commentary from the grassroots on up, on women’s loss of freedom and autonomy.
I’ve been pleased that the Biden-Harris Administration has been very outspoken about the post-Dobbs landscape and how it affects women.
Glidwrith
At the level of the press, exactly what Nina said at #1. There’s also been a marked, willful refusal by press election watchers to recognize that every single time abortion was on the ballot, we win big. Not even the worst of the red states want what the fanatics are pushing, so their elected officials and judges jam the fanaticism into their lives.
Cacti
The modern GOP is a fascist fertility cult, in the literal, not pejorative sense.
H.E.Wolf
@artem1s:
Posted for those who may be interested: “The Only Moral Abortion is My Abortion: When the Anti-Choice Choose”.
https://www.prochoiceactionnetwork-canada.org/articles/anti-tales.shtml
HumboldtBlue
The responsibility for an abortion is placed solely on the woman who needs one.
IVF means additional people are involved, specifically men, and while you can tell silly little women what to do with their bodies — i.e. NO ABORTIONS! — don’t you dare tell a man (particularly a man of some means) what he can do with his.
That’s the difference.
WaterGirl
@Chris:
In the media, I guess. It just seems like the IVF thing is being taken more personally and that there is heartfelt concern for people who won’t be able to have babies thru IVF and less heartfelt concern in the public sphere for women and children who are forced to bear children or who can’t receive medical treatment for a miscarriage.
“yeah, Dobbs is bad, but those poor poor families who won’t have access to IVF, that’s just awful, so unfair.”
H.E.Wolf
I’m actually OK with the mainstream media under-reporting the reaction to the Dobbs decision… because it may have lulled the anti-choicers into not preparing to combat the pro-choice backlash at the ballot box.
That works in our favor. :)
KrackenJack
@Nina:
This plus I think people who oppose the fetal personhood agenda see if as a wedge issue and example of the logical conclusion. Given how the right is struggling with it, I think that is correct. Also, our clickbait media would rather talk about hopeful couples rather than people in desperate situations.
Hungry Joe
Funny — I remember more outrage over Dobbs. Or maybe I was just more outraged.
But the Dobbs response may seem weaker because it has been doled out over time, as new and ever more draconian restrictions are put in place, red state by red state. Each time, outrage that may (MAY) have flagged is goosed back up. Come November, if we work hard enough, we’ll obliterate these gormless goons.
WaterGirl
@H.E.Wolf: I guess it’s the media coverage that has struck me this way. And coverage seems more heartfelt – “my heart breaks for families who won’t be able to have children about this”.
That kind of emotionality wasn’t there in coverage about Dobbs.
I’m not talking about here on Balloon Juice or from activity.
Sloegin
Everyone knows somebody who’s had IVF. Not everyone knows someone who’s had an abortion.
WaterGirl
@HumboldtBlue:
I think maybe that’s it.
Mike in NC
Imagine having a far-right political party that seeks a national ban on abortion, and then that party runs a candidate for president who’s a convicted rapist. That’s pretty fucking deranged.
trollhattan
@Sloegin: Have known couples going back to the ’80s, when the failure rate was overwhelmingly against them. Expen$ive? And how.
p.s. Was Octomom IVF run amok?
trollhattan
nice
WaterGirl
@trollhattan: This comment at #31 went into moderation. Looks like a different email address than the one at #30?
NotMax
@WaterGirl
It’s also of a piece with taking aim at that evil, godless, socialist, fascist, communist discipline: Science.
TBone
@artem1s: amen brotha
Chris
@WaterGirl:
Then yeah, I heartily agree. One thing, they sweep under the carpet almost by reflex. The other, they find a lot harder to ignore, both because it affects men too and because it affects higher-income folks too.
HumboldtBlue
@KrackenJack:
Good point, and one I couldn’t put into the proper words.
lowtechcyclist
@Sloegin:
If I know someone who’s had IVF, I’m completely unaware that they have. So I guess I’m nobody. OTOH, I know someone who had an abortion.
UncleEbeneezer
People are very good at compartmentalizing things to pick and choose what they get upset over. To me (and you) the attacks on IVF and Abortion are clearly related as attacks on Bodily Autonomy. But many people refuse to admit they are related because IVF is for good, Christian couples who want to have kids but Abortion is for mostly-Black, mostly-pure, slutty slut sluts. Republicans have been indoctrinated for 50 years that Abortion is a sin, whereas not nearly so much focus/effort went into demonizing IVF. So it doesn’t surprise me at all that there may be more outrage from the Media because it’s not just Liberals who are mad but some Conservatives too. This sort of Compartmentalizing is pretty common. Think about all the Feminists who are very outraged, vocal and ready to march/protest over Dobbs and IVF but just kind of shrug at the constant attempts to deny Transgender People the Gender Affirming Care they need. All three are attacks on Bodily Autonomy but people are very inconsistent in standing up for them all, equally. If SCOTUS hands down a Federal ban on Gender-Affirming Care, I doubt we would see anywhere near the number or volume of protests and marches and Op-Eds that we saw for Dobbs.
scav
There are also the followers who really believed and bought that it’s all about the baaaayyyyybbbeeeeesss. — the we need all the baybeees crowd (pps especially the white baybeees subgroup). Shutting off the taps to more necessarily sacred (white) baybbeees opened up some low-hanging cheap-seat internal fighting among the right sort of people the media could phone in articles about.
Glidwrith
@trollhattan: Yes, Octomom was one of the fundies that believed all of the possible embryos should be used, rather than frozen, since a certain percentage would not survive the process.
Kay
You’re not alone in thinking this, WG:
TBone
Abortion is central to the storyline in the movie In the Heat of the Night starring the greats Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger. If you haven’t seen it, you should. Worth every minute.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Heat_of_the_Night_(film)
I still can’t believe Sidney Poitier didn’t win the Oscar. Snub!
VFX Lurker
To supplement everything written upthread (i.e.: IVF affects mostly white Americans)…
Consider the decades-long messaging of “Abortion is MURDER!!!1!!” trumpeted by anti-choice voices. It pushed women to keep their abortion stories to themselves and their most trusted friends.
I don’t think IVF had similar decades of demonization, even though it deliberately destroys many unneeded embryos after a couple has the children that they want. Society took IVF for granted, and did not punish couples who conceived children through IVF. Even though those couples destroyed many more embryos than a person that had one abortion.
lowtechcyclist
@trollhattan:
I don’t know, but I remember our being in a doc’s office, waiting to talk with him about IVF. His bulletin board was covered with photos of triplets and quadruplets, with the occasional twins and quintuplets mixed in. Run away, run awaaaay! was my instant reaction.
Eyeroller
@trollhattan: Yes. She had had six previous children via IVF, and she wanted all the remaining embryos implanted so they wouldn’t be destroyed. But then it appears she thought there were 6 existing ones, but they did a fresh cycle and 12 were implanted (which she wanted but was against medical ethics).
trollhattan
@WaterGirl: Posting balk and unintentional walk? Posting bawk?
Appreciate your diligence and guess it was some double-post shenanigans. If I had anything to say it has leaked from my skull entirely.
Kay
The reason women need bodily autonomy is because they may choose NOT to do what religious fundamentalists want them to do. Becoming pregnant is what women are supposed to do, hence conservatives don’t object to it.
It’s about controlling women. This behavior by women is acceptable and desirable to them, so they don’t oppose it.
Miss Bianca
@Sloegin: I would posit the opposite is true, actually. Everyone *does* know someone who has had an abortion – they just may not know that they know.
Whereas IVF may have been around for a while but it is still a pretty niche procedure – as in, you need a *lot* of money for it.
WaterGirl
@UncleEbeneezer: Yeah, there’s outrage about Dobbs but having to have a child when you don’t want to is not being covered as a heart wrenching thing.
As you guys comment, I am finding some clarity about what I’ve been trying to descrbe here.
Hob
@lowtechcyclist: The only way Sloegin’s comment could be anywhere near true is if it referred to what people are willing to talk about. It’s extremely likely for most people to know someone who has had an abortion, but not be aware of that. The one person you mentioned knowing is probably not the only.
Eyeroller
@Glidwrith: She had frozen ones, she just didn’t want to keep paying for them but also said she didn’t want them destroyed. But then it appears that the octuplets came from fresh blastocysts so who knows what she was thinking. She claims all 14 have the same biological father (whose name she has given may be fictitious, but in any case wasn’t her husband when the first 6 were born) but if so, the genetics are interesting. I think she’s just a nutjob.
scav
@Eyeroller: So, how many of the sacred vitro-children did she carelessly condemn to death by not wanting the bother of sequential, careful pregnancies but rather a clown-car rush job? She certainly was more than fine with guaranteeing the ones that did survive the in-uterus cage-match would be low-birth weight with all the possible life-long impacts of same. Mother of the year, that one.
rikyrah
They can’t BOTH SIDES IT
I really do think that’s the bottom line.
The people who are doing IVF are people paying out money to have a child.
Also, the ruling was ludicrous.
I’m sure that those in the MSM who have used IVF, or they, themselves have used it.
It also jumps into the area of pure ridiculousness.
But, even that, the MSM refuses to call out the GOPers who voted against Senator Duckworth’s attempt to protect IVF Nationwide.
No follow up questions about why? Why don’t they vote for it?
WaterGirl
@Kay: Stark seeing it in black and white. Reading that kind of makes me feel sick. But that’s it.
jonas
As others have pointed out, it basically comes down to “abortion is for sluts (= women and pregnancies whose future I don’t have any stake in) who don’t know how to say no” vs. “IVF is for upstanding folks who just want to bring beautiful babies into the world.”
Of course the IVF ban is the logical conclusion of decades of “life begins at conception” rhetoric. All it’s done is expose the rank hypocrisy of conservatives and evangelicals, who of course never *literally* believed that, but were happy to parrot the line when it served their purposes (see slut-shaming, above). Like most conservative values, as soon as the negative implications hit home in a personal way, well then see you need to understand nuance, context, individual circumstances, yada yada.
Parfigliano
Its not hard. IVF restrictions hurt the rich. Its expensive and not easy/impossible to just go to the next state over and get ‘er done. Abortion can be done in a day and not near as expensive hence easily available to the rich when little princess gets knocked up.
WaterGirl
@trollhattan: In the one that went into moderation, your nym was part of your email address. Now your email is back to what it was in #30.
MrSnrub
@Glidwrith: My wife is a nurse who has done various admin related jobs with her nursing degree. At one point her job was to help people navigate health plans, and find doctors, etc.
She got a call from one woman who needed IVF and wanted to switch doctors. Turned out her doctor was the doctor for Octo-mom.
TBone
OHJB campaign ad promises to restore Roe. If you haven’t seen the campaign ad, Tim at The Bulwark presents:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fsusiemadrak.com%2F&source_ve_path=MTY0OTksMjg2NjQsMTY0NTAz&feature=emb_share&v=nthpDCRSMOo
I tried to shorten the link but it got screwy.
steve g
Discarding the unused embryos in an IVF procedure is approximately the same as using Mifepristone to block or cancel a pregnancy at the beginning. It is kind of different from later abortion procedures. We will see if the fact that arguments for IVF are also arguments supporting use of Mifepristone changes the fate of Mifepristone in the courts, and in the public.
rikyrah
@Kay:
If this were true, Kay, then why did a majority of GOPers in the House co-sponsor a bill that would have banned IVF?
If this were true, then why didn’t the GOP Senators back Senator Duckworth’s attempt to protect IVF on a federal level?
The thing that nobody brings up, but has been obvious to me…
IVF is how many in this generation of LGBTQIA+ people have gotten their families.
They are coming for them. I remember some right-wingers attacking a picture of Secretary Pete, his hubby and their 2 cutiepie little ones..
Snide ‘ Is this really a family?’
They are coming for them.
On the state level, trying to cut members of this community off from being able to adopt.
and, now, through IVF.
TBone
@Kay: Dominionist belief system. It’s right there in the name: dominate.
jonas
And sweet Jeebus in a chicken basket, you should have seen the right wing hate she faced when, after deciding to keep all 8, she had to go on public assistance to help care for them. They were all precious little snowflakes when they were still embryos, but once they were actually born children who needed healthcare, food, diapers, etc., then they only deserved to be turned into fertilizer or something for grass to feed a steer to produce a really good steak for Rush Limbaugh.
Kay
@WaterGirl:
They’re fine with anything within a very narrow definition of a traditional role for women, and pregnancy is certainly included. It’s one of the few permissible “wants” by women- wanting a child. The problems start for women when they try to step out of that role and perhaps want something else or something in addition.
marcopolo
Think it is just recency bias. Dobbs is now baked into everything. IVF is new.
frosty
@Sloegin: Disagree. Everyone knows someone who’s had an abortion. But no one talks about it, do they?
Old School
It seems to me that Dobbs was more impassioned. There were a lot of protests after Dobbs.
People aren’t happy with the IVF ruling, but if there have been protests across the country, I’ve missed it.
WaterGirl
@TBone: Who or what is OHJB?
TBone
@marcopolo: facepalm
TBone
@WaterGirl: Old Handsome Joe Biden!
rikyrah
@Old School:
IVF touched the people who thought they were above the Dobbs ruling.
A lot of them that poo-pooed the warnings from people who told them what would be next after Dobbs.
Kay
@WaterGirl:
Because it’s not just about “bodily autonomy” is it? If it were they would be stripping rights from men too. It’s about bodily autonomy for women. We can’t have it because that might lead to us stepping out of a subordinate role.
WaterGirl
@rikyrah:
i hadn’t even thought about that aspect. These people are both evil and determined. And sick. Normal, good, mentally healthy people don’t make it their life’s work to control other people.
rekoob
@WaterGirl: OHJB – Ol’ Handsome Joe Biden. Used frequently on Wonkette.
TBone
@WaterGirl: Dominion. Domination.
WaterGirl
@frosty: Maybe they’re not talking about abortion over drinks and dinner with friends, like they do with IVF efforts.
WaterGirl
@Old School: One difference is outrage vs. heart wrenching concern for the women involved.
TBone
@jonas: 😆😭
WaterGirl
@rekoob: Well thank god it’s not frequently used here. All these cutesy acronyms that aren’t well known are annoying as hell.
Princess
@Sloegin: Everyone knows someone who has had an abortion. They just don’t know they know someone who has had an abortion.
Old School
@rikyrah:
No argument there. I was focusing on the impassioned response.
frosty
@WaterGirl: More than that. No one tells anyone except maybe a lifelong friend about an abortion. Two many decades of demonizing it.
gene108
It would be interesting to see the socioeconomic demographics of people opting for IVF versus those getting abortions. I think it might explain some differences in the outcry.
Also, I think part of the difference is IVF can bring a child into this world, which creates hope for people that often accompanies new born babies.
Abortion is a termination of a pregnancy, which has a definite finality to it.
Mike S
I’m just surprised that the god botherers haven’t tried to make IVF mandatory for all women who physically can’t be brood mares without it.
rikyrah
@Kay:
nothing but TRUTH
sxjames
@Kay: Absolutely – I think you hit the nail on the head (so to speak)
wjca
Consider that the media is mostly owned and run by men. If a woman wants an abortion, and there is no clinic nearby and no by-mail abortion drugs available, that really doesn’t hit home personally. But if they want kids, and need IVF but there’s not IVF facility left, suddenly that’s their freedom being impacted. It’s not about body autonomy; it’s about freedom for those making the media coverage decisions.
Gretchen
@WaterGirl: there was a study that followed up on women who wanted an abortion and couldn’t get one. 5 years later, most of them adjusted to the situation and liked the kid they were forced to have. Forced birthers love to cite this study to “prove” that it’s fine to force someone to give birth, because it’s fine in the end. Most of them don’t end up hating and abusing the kid. Sure, some of them do, but…
TBone
Deadline Whitehouse going hard on Xtian Nationalism right now! GO Eddie!!! Hubby ADORES Eddie: “That’s one smart motherfucker.”
skyweaver
IVF – women are supposed to want to have babies.
Dobbs – women are not supposed to have agency over anything to do with their sexuality/reproduction. I mean, not really
WaterGirl
@rikyrah: @Kay:
Who are men to think they can subvert god’s will by taking a little blue pill if they can’t get an erection????
They can’t substitute their own choices for god’s choices!!!
Yeah, we’ll see that when hell freezes over.
scav
@wjca: The media is a god-damned funhouse mirror of anything resembling reality. Even at best, they don’t bother to report the usual stuff because “it’s not news”. And, when they get high on their own supply of gatekeepers of information role?
Baud
@Gretchen:
You could probably force women to become pregnant in the first place and produce similar outcomes. I don’t think anyone who’s pro-choice expects that people forced to give birth will hate their child (although some may, just as some mothers who voluntarily give birth do).
H.E.Wolf
@WaterGirl:
I agree that it can seem as if abortion-related stories are being ignored or glossed over.
However, a quick Google search turns up a story by Time Magazine which is explicit about the “heartbreak” aspects, from the headline onward. (Time Magazine is what I would call mainstream.) I’m sure that there are other such published stories.
“She Wasn’t Able to Get an Abortion. Now She’s a Mom. Soon She’ll Start 7th Grade.”
https://time.com/6303701/a-rape-in-mississippi/
Could it be partly a matter of perspective? Perhaps we aren’t always noticing the mainstream stories when they do appear?
IVF denials are the current nine-days-wonder in mass media. As Kay has pointed out in other contexts: a single story item may get lots and lots of coverage, drowning out other news.
Both forced-birth laws and denial-of-birth laws are unjust, and are worthy of outrage. But if we let our outrage blind us, we will be less effective in our actions.
Jeffro
IVF makes the fundies answer questions they don’t wanna answer. Well, more like face issues they don’t wanna deal with…they run away before they answer any actual questions.
What to do with those frozen embryos?
Aren’t those “life” that began at conception?
If getting rid of extra frozen embryos is ok, then why isn’t abortion ok?
And why in the world isn’t birth control ok? It avoids creating extra embryos, frozen or not, aborted or not.
WaterGirl
@H.E.Wolf: Again, it’s outrage vs. heartfelt concern about those poor families who can’t have children.
The coverage mostly CARES abut IVF families but there is not the same heartfelt concern for women whose bodily autonomy is being taken away.
lowtechcyclist
@jonas:
There are eight billion people in the world, and every day a bunch of them die in what should have been preventable ways. And the ‘pro-life’ people don’t give a damn about any of those deaths.
When the ‘pro-lifers’ value the lives of the eight billion as much as the average godless liberal does, I’ll start taking their alleged devotion to life seriously.
I don’t expect that to happen in my lifetime.
(I know that there are some liberal Catholics who are antiabortion and genuinely pro-life when it comes to already-born people. But AFAICT they’re a pretty minuscule slice of the ‘pro-life’ movement.}
WaterGirl
@Jeffro: See Kay at #41.
So frustrating to be livestock and breeders again.
scav
@Jeffro: Don’t forget, if God wanted that baby in that womb, why are we prosecuting the man that God inspired to rape that woman, imprisoning His Chosen implement?
Lyrebird
I think there was a much more far reaching outcry to Dobbs,
but I think there are people who consider themselves social conservatives who are pro IVF who are yelling now.
I believe we need all the support we can get.
H.E.Wolf
I’m probably more alert to news articles about abortion rights (and/or denial of same), because before my 18th birthday, I knew 3 different friends who had had an abortion.
Those abortions saved those women’s future lives and the lives of the children they later went on to have.
Ursula Le Guin was eloquent about the lifesaving value of her own abortion (excerpt here):
https://weknowwhatsup.blogspot.com/2021/05/on-abortion-princess-and-what-it-was.html
Gretchen
@Sloegin: When I was in grad school in the ‘80s I told someone that I didn’t know any gay people. He corrected me: “No, you don’t know anyone that you know is gay.” Same with abortion. People may think they don’t know anyone who’s had an abortion, but they do. They just don’t know anyone who’s told them about their abortion. And they think that means they don’t know such people, when it really means that such people don’t trust them enough to tell them.
Princess
The interesting thing about IVF is that it really splits the Catholics and the evangelicals. As we’ve seen, many evangelicals who hate abortion, will use IVF. The Catholics who are deeply anti-abortion take the whole life at conception more seriously (ie not simply as a tool to control women, though it is that too) and they are adamant against using IVF.
MisterForkbeard
There’s less reaction. But it’s from different people.
When Dobbs was overturned, there was a ton of protest. But very little was from Republicans, and the media were excitedly covering the outrage while also downplaying the impact. “Don’t worry little ladies, Republicans say they won’t do any of these things that Dems say and this won’t impact you at all if you’re a good person!”
In this case, it’s an obvious nonsense ruling that affects white, wealthy women AND affects Republicans. It’s also something that Dems explicitly said would happen, and Republicans/Media dissembled about publicly. So the outrage works here in a way it didn’t before: It’s bad, it was predicted, and it affects white republicans and IVF isn’t something every republican has explicitly attacked, unlike abortion.
JoyceH
Post-Dobbs has become a not new but continuing story – every few weeks there will be media coverage of yet another woman who almost died due to the post-Dobbs laws in her state. (And you just know that there are many many more stories just like it that didn’t get coverage.) IVF was a New Twist. On the subject of abortion, for years, one theory was that the Roe opposition just wanted to outlaw abortion and then they would be done, while the other theory was that outlawing abortion would only be the beginning. The IVF ruling is a flashing light indicating that the ‘more than just abortion’ theory is the true one. Next up – contraception.
H.E.Wolf
You may well be right. I don’t engage with mainstream media, so I’m sure I miss a lot of what other people notice.
Hoodie
Probably because of a misunderstanding of both abortion and IVF. They think the former kills babies, no matter if it’s just removing a clump of cells, and don’t get things like nonviable fetuses, miscarriages and ectopic pregnancies unless they experience that themselves (of course, men only experience such things indirectly). They don’t think IVF kills babies because they don’t understand that it generates excess embryos that are not implanted, as most people do not undergo IVF and don’t know anything other than it’s a way to have a baby if you’re having problems conceiving.
lowtechcyclist
@Jeffro:
The antiabortion types claim that chemical means of birth control such as birth control pills sometimes work by preventing a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterine lining.
I suspect this falls into the category of “things that are unlikely to be true, but are impossible to prove it never happens.”
I doubt they’ll come after condoms, because as others have mentioned, that would limit male bodily autonomy.
Sister Golden Bear
@WaterGirl: These are the same Republican reactionaries who’ve tried to ban LGBTQ couples from adopting. (It’s worth noting LGBTQ couples historically have taken in “difficult to adopt children,” including those with health problems at a much higher rate that cis het couples.)
So wanting to block LBGTQ couple from having their own babies is definitely one reason they want to ban IVF.
Nelle
@H.E.Wolf: Jumping in ahead (may have been covered already). When “media men” think Dobbs will blow over, maybe they don’t realize that every month, approx. every 28 days, women are bodily reminded of the possibility of pregnancy. Mostly, it is, “you are not pregnant this month.” But the body keeps reminding you of fertility. Not having sex? Still, you are a potential victim.
The money for sanitary supplies, the cramps, the messiness? Constant reminders. That doesn’t blow over, even if the guys on the news are bored with the topic and move on to their next big thing.
We just need to be there to emphasize that we want women to have bodily autonomy.
Sister Golden Bear
@Princess: Definitely. Just as everyone knows/has encountered a trans people, they just don’t know that.
AlaskaReader
Baud
@Gretchen:
If an abortion happens in the woods, does it make a political sound?
UncleEbeneezer
@Kay: And Trans Men and Non-Binary people. Their focus is definitely on Cisgender Women, as they have been the primary target of their misogyny, but they have no reservations about these laws punishing Trans/NB People too.
Tony G
@Nina: Yes, that’s a big part of it. There’s also the fact that a lot of the Evangelicals and right-wing Catholics who lead the forced-birther movement want their IVF.
Nelle
@Sloegin: They don’t know if they know someone who has had an abortion.
During Operation Rescue in Wichita, I went to my parents’ church (where I grew up). Most churches were lathered up in righteous indignation. Their pastor cautioned against judgment, saying he was sure that there, in the congregation, were women who had had abortions and that love is the message, not hate. I was startled as the church was inching toward fundamentalism in so many ways.
beckya57
I’ve noticed this too. I think part of it is that a lot of people are at least mildly conflicted about abortion, and don’t feel good about supporting it wholeheartedly. Many of them probably hadn’t thought the anti-choice position through (because they’d rather not think much about the subject at all), and didn’t realize that the “pro-life” movement is largely made up of religious fanatics who are opposed to much more than abortion. That ambivalence about abortion in the general public is much less common with IVF, and also birth control, both of which most people see as good things. Also, the evangelical crowd wants more (white) babies, so they like IVF (which, because of the cost, is mainly used by white, well-off people) and hate abortion and birth control, and thus didn’t like the AL decision (which also shined a bright light on some of the consequences of their positions).
Tony G
@Baud: That’s right. When a forced-birther gets an abortion it’s either not talked about or an exception is made because the woman getting the abortion is not one of THOSE PEOPLE. Catholics are experts at this maneuver, and I suspect the Evangelicals are too.
frosty
@AlaskaReader:
Ouch! Too true!!
Hob
@rikyrah: “IVF is how many in this generation of LGBTQIA+ people have gotten their families”
That’s a true statement in itself, but the word “many” is doing a lot of vague work. Compared to artificial insemination, IVF is still much more expensive and much more invasive; it’s the least practical option for most parents, period, but same-sex couples are also much less likely to have their insurance cover it. There has been an increase in the use of IVF especially for lesbian couples, partly because that allows the option of using one partner’s egg but having the other partner handle the pregnancy… but if that option weren’t available, would those women have opted to not have any children at all, or is it more of a “nice to have” benefit? I don’t think there is any solid data on that.
Right-wingers hating same-sex parents is of course also a true statement. But, even allowing for the general irrationality of right-wingers, it doesn’t make much sense for IVF to be a major factor in that attitude. Pete Buttigieg adopted his children, and that’s still a very common approach. So is artificial insemination. I think it would be hard to make a case that IVF is a major factor in there being greater numbers of same-sex parents now than before… except in the context where it was originally used, that is, people with fertility problems such that other methods just won’t work. But that’s just as likely to affect heterosexual couples, who exist in far greater numbers.
Jackie
@Baud:
There’s a lot of Republican voting women who dislike GQP politicians sticking their business in their abortion choices.
Princess
@Sister Golden Bear: Exactly.
Baud
@Jackie:
We know they vote for referendum to to preserve abortion, but I don’t know how many cross over to vote for Dems.
Ruckus
@Nina:
I call BINGO!
laura
Kay briefly touched on a difference- IVF is a money making machine. There’s billboards all along my local highways and interstates touting the services of various healthcare industries. I would venture that more cough well off white people cough seek out IVF than the general population.
I was an old maid when spouse and I wed, and we’d only been married a year and me starting my second year of law school when I passed out from pain and was misdiagnosed with ovarian cancer. Turns out it was merely a blown ovarian cyst that reveal an abdomin packed with endometrial tissue. We were told that I must seek ivf immediately if we were ever to have children. We were broke and I was broken and spouse was completely shattered from being told I had possibly months to live. It didn’t help things at all feeling pressured to seek IVF and looking back, it wasn’t pressure to make me a mommy, it was pressure to spend heaps of cash for a process with no actual guarantee of a healthy pregnancy and childbirth. I’m really bitter about the intrusion of any and all outsiders meddling in the bodily autonomy of all woman and people who may become pregnant.
Kay
@UncleEbeneezer:
Right, but the issue isn’t identical because the demand that women desire and bear children is rooted in traditional roles for women, not just “bodily autonomy”. Abortion and fetal personhood (what we’re talking about when we’re talking about IVF) are very specific cultural/religious/political efforts to return women to a subordinate position.
They say this themselves. They openly demand women bear children. They want us to do THIS specific thing.
TBone
@WaterGirl: sperm lives matter
Mousebumples
Statistically, everyone knows someone who’s had an abortion. But women often don’t tell everyone they know about their abortion experience.
Be a person who will listen and empathize (and not judge) someone who elected to have an abortion.
My freshman year roommate at college had an abortion. Her very religious/conservative boyfriend was torn up about it because he didn’t feel he could tell his family. No idea what happened to them, but I think they got married after college? But that’s like a decade ago now…
@Miss Bianca: yup. Also families may be private about fertility struggles and/or not want to talk about how much money they’ve spent on IVF therapies. (talking about money/bragging, etc., is rude or whatever)
And I’m now seeing that I was not the first to raise these points, but it’s worth repeating.
Mousebumples
@laura: thanks for sharing your story. I’m sorry those money grubbing providers put you both through that – both misdiagnosis and then telling you what unrelated thing you need to do next.
Kay
I have 3 nieces who were conceived using IVF – lovely young women, all early twenties, all liberal.
I wonder how this sounds to people like them. I’d be pissed.
TBone
@WaterGirl: Biden takes it on directly in his new campaign ad, where he is definitely old and definitely handsome. But I won’t use it here anymore if it’s that annoying.
Uncle Cosmo
@WaterGirl: Thankykindly fer axing – I was about to
@TBone: And thankykindly fer answering. In future posts, would you be so kind as to include a translation of any acronyms? (At least if you’re more interested in your readers understanding them than amused by their flailing around with guesses. Not all of us read the same blogs you do.) /grrr
Quadrillipede
I used my superpower of “having to use a computer for several hours every damn day” to help you out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nthpDCRSMOo
(For the terminally curious, everything up to the question mark is boilerplate, and the v=NONSENSE after the question mark is the bit youtube looks at to figure out which video to present to the user. (The question mark itself serves as a divider between the two parts.)
[ETA: at least I think this goes to the same video. Yay, computers…]
PhaedrusOnBass
There’s an old saying that continually rings true:
It all depends on whose ox is gored.
Kay
I looked. There’s about 8 million people in the US who came about thru IVF
thats a lot of people! I wonder what they think
The Red Pen
@Kay: Exactly. It was never about “life,” and always about how power is structured in society.
I think that pro-choice is seen by many — maybe at an unconscious level — as violating some kind of natural law and therefore abortion rights are some kind of crime and IVF rights aren’t.
eclare
@TBone:
Who is OHJB?
I see your response upthread.
Seanly
Remember that we’re ruled now by the Opus Dei clan in 4 or 5 of the conservative Catholics on SCOTUS. IIRC IVF is still a big no-no for Catholics.*
I don’t think many people realized that the fetal personhood stupidity would impact IVF. A lot of the worry of over-turning Roe was that they’d be coming for Griswold to get rid of contraception. And Loving to get rid of interracial marriage, etc, etc
* one thing MSM forgets is that most American Catholics are not Opus Dei nutcases like our SCOTUS. They use birth control, they get abortions, they use IVF.
Of course, this is the same media who talks to Biden-hating “swing voters” who then turn out to be not just a Trump supporter but usually the heads of a Republican club or some nutso fan club of Trump.
Citizen Alan
@Eyeroller: The thing that pissed me off the most about the Octomom was that donations and support flowed in for her from every right winger in the country. But at a round the same time, a black woman somewhere had septuplets through completely natural means. And, of course, no one gave a shit.
eclare
@WaterGirl:
Thank you!
Kay
@The Red Pen:
Oh,sure. It just infuses society. We’re swimming in it!
Women have to desire and bear children. It’s a profound disruption of traditional order and roles if they don’t.
Women, even educated and well-off women, are more vulnerable pregnant and with small children. It absolutely constrains them – which is fine if it’s a choice but much, much different if it’s not.
cain
@Parfigliano:
Of course eventually these people could argue that IVF is not great because it puts off women into immediately starting a family and wait till they have a career. BAD. /s
Ruckus
I think that if conservatives want to stop women from getting the healthcare and medical assistance that they should have an absolute right to – it is after all HER BODY. That body does not belong to anyone else, and no one else should be able to assert that their rights override someone’s right to control their own body. IOW it is not my right to tell any human that can get pregnant that she cannot attempt to not get pregnant or to get medical assistance TO get pregnant. I can cause pregnancy, I cannot get pregnant.
This isn’t an actual free country until the decision of how to care for ALL the aspects of one’s own health belong with the person whose body it is – Female, Male, whatever in between or neither. Sure there are limits of what we can do to others, but force them to risk pregnancy and create another life – if they do not want to? How the hell is that anyone’s business but the person themselves?
Citizen Alan
@jonas: That’s all Rightwingers. The Venn diagram of people who want to abolish abortion completely and people who get viscerally angry when they see a woman with 2 or 3 small children paying for groceries with an EBT card is a near perfect circle.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I’m still so outraged over Dobbs that I can’t talk about it. It created an injury to many women; it offered an insult to all women, including those my age whose pregnancy days are over. It asserts that we can’t make decisions about ourselves for ourselves. We need a fucking politician or judge to do it for us.
Kay
I watched some of the MI v Crumbly trial today – they’re trying the dad for not taking his school shooter son to get treatment and for getting the shooter a gun.
The state did something interesting. They called an ATF agent to testify about the safety information gun purchasers are given (it’s a federal rule)
I think the jury will like that, that there’s a kind of written safety standard they can use to measure dad against.
Jeffro
@Kay: add up the IVF babies + the folks who’ve had their college debt ($136.6B and counting) forgiven + everyone working OT in the heartland + those of us who are STILL WAITING for our taco trucks on every corner and before you know it, we’re talking…
…wait, we still have the EC, never mind, forget the landslide…
…but we’re still gonna win big in November!
Kay
And that has to scare gun owners. If prosecutors are going to rely on the ATF pamphlet for gun safety as “reasonable measures” well, that’s a national standard.
A lot of these clowns are going to fail that test.
Kay
@Jeffro:
I immediately thought of my chatty, charming nieces. They’re all very opinionated – I’ll have to ask them
Citizen Alan
@Mike S: Give them time. I’ve speculated on them pushing for the legal requirement that all women take fertility drugs because too many women are “getting away” with late periods that end with a fertilized egg getting flushed down the toilet.
Capri
There is a large population of people who use IVF that is being completely ignored by everyone it would seem. I haven’t seen any mention in this thread. They are the families that use IVF to ensure that their children do not have a horrible, fatal, genetic disease that both mother and father are carriers for. By testing the blastocysts produced in IVF one can ensure that your child will not have Tay Sachs disease, or Hurler’s syndrome, or Cystic Fibrosis, or etc etc etc because only blastocysts without the defective genes will be implanted. This isn’t limited to the rich, because while IVF is expensive, it’s nothing compared to caring for a severely disabled child.
It also begs the question, what about the embryos you know do have both genes for a horrible disease. They are also precious in the eyes of the Lord and the Supreme Court of Alabama. But to implant them and have them develop would be ensuring a baby born into a life of suffering and premature death. Do you just keep them frozen forever?
Odie Hugh Manatee
Late to this but they are very different and affect different people. IVF people want to give birth, unlike those who seek an abortion, thus it is possible that many of those who want to use IVF may be anti abortion. The IVF crowd view themselves as bringing life into the world and probably never imagined that their anti abortion stance could lead to the end of IVF access.
Many poor people use abortion services, unlike the IVF crowd which is very expensive and thus utilized by those who have the money to spend. While there is crossover, there are two completely different groups of people here, thus the differences in response in the media. People with money (and quite often power) will always get the attention of the press when they have a political problem.
I’m not surprised by the difference in response to the two issues. It’s going to be fun watching the Republicans thread this needle. The recent bill passed in Alabama still doesn’t address the issues in handling and destroying fertilized eggs and staying right with the religious zealots in the state. To get around this they are going to have to find a way to say that it’s OK to kill some embryos (destroy) and to accidentally kill them (implant doesn’t take, lab accident, etc.). Good luck with that, not.
This is what Republican rule brings; chaos, uncertainty, anger, hatred, division and destruction. All in the name of their God.
UncleEbeneezer
@Kay: You wrote “It’s about bodily autonomy for women.” That’s not accurate. It’s about bodily autonomy for anyone Assigned-Female-At-Birth (which includes Transgender Men and some NB people).
Kay
@UncleEbeneezer:
But you wrote:
One is very specifically about forcing people to bear children. They’re not identical. Hence, why IVF on the Right is acceptable, because IVF, unlike abortion, is about people choosing to bear children. They don’t object to that on the Right because that’s what they want. Hence, why WG sees Right wingers defending IVF and none of them defending abortion.
Kay
@UncleEbeneezer:
I don’t think you can flatten it and define it as “this is all about bodily autonomy, so therefore all these issues are identical”
The conservative demand that people get pregnant and bear children is a very specific demand and it’s grounded in a very specific cultural/religious/political belief system – the group that can get pregnant must remain subordinate. That’s the power they’re holding on to in this instance. They don’t need to exert control over people using IVF – those people are already doing what conservatives want them to do.
JaneE
Abortion has always been “wrong” to a fair group of people. Even when it is absolutely necessary to save the mother’s life, it is a “sad” thing.
Wanting to have a child, and not being able to do so, is always a sad thing too, but IVF gave some of those women hope, and children. In the early days, there was a much higher failure rate on implantations “taking” and becoming pregnancies. Losing one or two or more embryos was not really any different than still being childless, but there was hope and their were children conceived and born. And that was universally a good thing.
Telling people they can’t abort is just about the opposite of telling them they cannot have a child. And that shows in the attitude and pushback.
My mother took 13 years to conceive and she often told me just how joyful not to mention surprised they were after all that time. I made her life. OTOH, my aunt had a menopause surprise that literally almost killed her by the time they discovered why she was going into septic shock and did an emergency hysterectomy – taking the pregnancy with it. Two different things, but I for one am glad both women lived to a ripe old age.
Sally
@WaterGirl: Why do any of these fundamentalists think they can subvert god’s will by having any medical intervention at all? If you’re ill, it is god’s will. You’ll either recover, or not. god decides, not you.
Kay
@UncleEbeneezer:
What it’s grounded in is property. Women and children are the property of men and that’s why women can’t choose to terminate a pregnancy. That’s the actual legal and historical grounding. So men would decide how many childre there would be and women subverting or getting around that violates the man’s right to his property.
WaterGirl
@laura: Oh my gosh, what a nightmare. I am sorry you had to go through that.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@Sloegin: I think your statement would more correctly say “not everyone knows they know a person who has had an abortion “. It’s a bit like people years ago who did not realize they knew a gay or lesbian. Visibility matters, and a LOT of women who have had abortions consider it very private. Trying to have a baby is often more public
ETA: I too don’t know anyone who has or is using IVF. On the other hand, I myself have had 2 abortions (in the late 70s and early 80s, when my IUDs failed).
pluky
@Capri: When I wrote my required paper for academic credit as a NYS Assembly intern, the topic I chose was a proposal to require coverage of prenatal screening (e.g. amniocentesis, ultrasound) in medical insurance. Some to whom I had to present conclusions were taken aback to learn that in the vast majority of adverse cases the only subsequent options were abortion, carrying to term a baby that was doomed to die quickly (often horribly), or having been born, live a life of profound disability. In short, diagnosable rarely implied treatable.
Things have progressed somewhat since then, but the three options still broadly persist.
wjca
Because refusing any and all medical interventions would make them, essentially, Christian Scientists. Which has the dreaded, elitist, “scientist” right there on the label.