Last week, controversy erupted following the Alabama Supreme Court's ruling that categorized frozen embryos stored for in-vitro fertilization as people, meaning that parents can file civil suits for the wrongful deaths of their unborn children. Joe Biden slammed the decision because what else can he run on?
“A court in Alabama put access to some fertility treatments at risk for families who are desperately trying to get pregnant,” Biden said at a press conference. “The disregard for women’s ability to make these decisions for themselves and their families is outrageous and unacceptable.”
Most Americans support in-vitro fertilization, and there’s no major organized political movement against it. Regardless of IVF's legality, which will never change, the country needs to shift its view about children. Children aren’t commodities they can buy, sell, and kill; they’re vulnerable members of society who need protection.
Arguments aimed at dehumanizing unborn children rely mostly on mid-wit semantics. Clumps of cells, sperm, and eggs, the size of fingernails, etc.—as if all humans are not clumps of cells, developed from fertilized eggs, and constantly grow and develop (something that starts when people are zygotes). It’s easier to talk about this using euphemisms than saying what legitimately happens—hence why Biden is too big of a pussy to say the word abortion. Politicians and the liberal media broadly talk about reproductive freedom rather than explaining that IVF creates an excess of human embryos and destroys the unused ones—which is to say it kills children.
The same is true of surrogacy, especially commercial surrogacy. Surrogacy presents some problems. It commodifies children, allowing people to create designer babies they can buy after renting a poor woman’s womb, and contracts often have abortion and selective reduction clauses. If someone only wants one designer baby and a woman has twins in her stomach, she must kill one of the children in the womb to fulfill the contract if it has a selective reduction clause.
What about the children who are already born and in need of loving homes? If couples have trouble reproducing the natural way, why spend tens of thousands of dollars to perpetuate systems that kill children instead of caring for one that already exists? Children in this country and across the world are born into poor circumstances due to an act of love and mercy from their mothers—who deserve credit and support for giving children a chance at life, even if they’re not the ones to care for their child. Infant adoption improves the life circumstances of children.
The intention is not to demonize parents who choose IVF or surrogacy. It’s to say American culture puts too much emphasis on children being your biological kids and not enough on preventing child destruction. Adoption costs money, but states can help parents with those costs by enacting adoption tax credits. These proposals have bipartisan support in state legislatures nationwide.
For all of the hysteria of Republicans becomng increasingly right-wing on social issues, understand they’re not as right-wing as you think. Former Vice President Mike Pence has a reputation as one of the most socially conservative politicians in America. Even Pence supports assisted reproductive technologies, including in-vitro fertilization. Nationally, he effectively supports legal abortion for the first 15 weeks of a pregnancy, a window where about 95 percent of abortions happen. He also has no problem with adults identifying as members of the opposite sex—with limited (inconsistent) transgender rights.
The GOP already has its unpopular economic positions weighing it down—on healthcare, the minimum wage, paid family leave and sick time, and tuition-free community college—so you’re not going to see Donald Trump risk losing votes to protect unborn children. He’d rather lose votes with immigrant-bashing rhetoric, election conspiracy theories, and his lack of healthcare policy.