• The IVF thing.

      Personally I think the whole thing is overblown. Unless I missed something, nobody said anything about banning IVF; they just put some scary biblical language into an otherwise very reasonable decision about damages for a guy who broke into a clinic and accidentally destroyed some embryos and now is on the hook financially. Pro-choice people saw the language and flipped out, a little understandably given the current political climate, and the media ran with the story, but I think it’s pretty unlikely that anyone is actually trying to ban or regulate IVF in any way. (maybe just 1-2 total wackos who just saw the story and jumped to ban it just from being wired for anti-woman-ness and not knowing IVF from IUD)

      •  xor   ( @xor@lemmy.blahaj.zone ) 
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        54 months ago

        If I remember correctly, hospitals in that state had to stop performing IVF as a consequence in order to avoid being at risk of violating the law. Classifying embryos as children has really important consequences.

        •  mozz   ( @mozz@mbin.grits.dev ) OP
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          4 months ago

          My point was that nobody in government said anything about banning IVF or coming after IVF doctors. That was just extrapolation from what the court was talking about, in the course of making ultimately to me a perfectly sensible decision about the facts of the case they were looking at. Right? Like I say, unless I missed something.

          I don’t think the hospitals “had to” stop performing IVF. I think they came up with that as an extrapolation from this one ruling.

          I do think it’s “sensible” in the current political climate for the hospitals to stop IVF until things are clarified, and I do think it’s an indictment of the general anti-abortion-to-the-point-of-negligent-homicide feeling in the Republican party that they felt they had to do that. But nobody actually wants to ban IVF, as far as I know. That was my point. I think the state is probably backpedaling hard now to try to figure out how to undo this shitstorm and make it clear that they support IVF without looking “weak” on abortion somehow.

          I’m not trying to take them off the hook for anything. Just trying to clarify, that’s all.

      • “The decisions by Alabama Fertility Services and Mobile Infirmary come a day after the University of Alabama at Birmingham health system said in a statement that it was pausing IVF treatments so it could evaluate whether its patients or doctors could face criminal charges or punitive damages.”

        So it is stopping IVF in this state and will have untold repercussions based on the ruling “Unborn children are ‘children’” which has potentially complicated and unpredictable outcomes. You are entitled to your opinion of course but I think you are quite wrong about this being overblown. It is huge for many.

        "More than 9 million babies have been born using assisted reproductive technologies like in vitro fertilization. "

        “A cycle of in vitro fertilization can cost anywhere from $10,000 to $25,000”

        For people currently using IVF, this is probably a very stressful time.