Thursday, February 29, 2024

Republican Blocks Bill Protecting Access To IVF

 



Should there be anyone foolish enough to believe that Christofascist Republicans aren't intent on protecting, preserving, and expanding the Republican Alabama Supreme Court's egregious ruling on embryos being children, read on:

Senate Republicans have blocked legislation that would protect access to in vitro fertilization, objecting to a vote on the issue Wednesday even after widespread backlash to a recent ruling by the Alabama Supreme Court that threatens the practice.

Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, a Mississippi Republican, objected to a request for a vote by Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., who used IVF treatments to have her two children after struggling with years of infertility. Duckworth’s bill would establish a federal right to the treatments as the Alabama ruling has upended fertility care in the state and families who had already started the process face heartbreak and uncertainty.

Several clinics in the state announced they were pausing IVF services as they sort out last week’s ruling, which said that frozen embryos can be considered children under state law. The court said that three Alabama couples who lost frozen embryos during an accident at a storage facility could sue the fertility clinic and hospital for the wrongful death of a minor child.

Democrats have immediately seized on the election-year ruling, warning that other states could follow Alabama’s lead and that other rights could be threatened as well in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe vs. Wade and the federal right to an abortion in 2022. Congress passed similar legislation in 2022 that would protect the federal right to same-sex and interracial marriages.  [snip]

Abortion opponents have pushed laws in at least 15 states based on the idea that a fetus should have the same rights as a person...

Now, is there anyone foolish enough to believe the Christofascist Republicans aren't coming for contraception next?

As has been noted, and made clear by the Chief Judge of the Alabama Republican Supreme Court, these crackpots believe in a pseudo- religious "Seven Mountain Mandate" calling on fundamentalists to impose their values on all American life.  These are the same people setting the "Project 2025" white nationalist agenda for a future Malignant Loser administration.  These are the same people behind placing the Trumpist extremists on the Republican U.S. Supreme Court that gave us the Dobbs decision. This is the same ideology floating around in MAGA Mike Johnson's fevered brain. This is what you can expect -- and worse -- should these fascist extremists take the White House.  It's a war on families and freedom, and the most vile government intrusion into the most personal decisions imaginable.

Believe them when they tell you who they are, ffs.

(Photo:  Christofascist goblin Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Jebusland / Michael Brochstein, Sipa USA via AP file)