Dave Pepper does a deep dive into the thinking that lies behind the increasing push, now led by evangelicals like the Southern Baptists, to ban IVF. As he notes, there's the insistence in key documents like Project 2025 and Heritage Foundation essays that Protestants need to adopt the Catholic magisterial notion that a human person is fully present from the moment of conception.
This is a position one can arrive at only by theological fiat. It is not a position arrived at by scientific reasoning. Reasonable people have long disagreed about when a human person is present in the process of conception. A majority of Catholics in the US reject the official magisterial teaching that a person is present from the moment of conception. The position that a person is fully present at conception is a minority position among US Christians.
Yes, those driving the Project 2025 agenda and pushing to return Trump to the White House fully intend to impose this minoritarian, religion-based position on the entire nation by force of law. The speak of "subduing" and gaining "dominion" over reproductive technology. As Heritage Foundation says,
“It is time for Protestant denominations to pay serious attention to reproductive technology and invest in the hard work of subduing and taking dominion over it.”
The mindset lying behind this command to subdue and take dominion over reproductive technology is a mindset that wants to subdue and dominate anyone who questions the minoritarian, religion-based view that a human person is fully present from the moment of conception. This is a call to coerce dissenters, to use law to subdue and dominate the majority.
And for that reason it should concern all of us who will be the subdued and dominated.
In an exclusive essay for PEOPLE, the married #Arizona lawmakers share how a #gunman stole their dreams of having a child together — & why they fear politicians will do the same to other #families
“The #shooting happened on a Sat morning. 2 days later, we were supposed to have an appointment at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Washington, where Gabby had been receiving #fertility treatments, to have our #embryos implanted to try to begin a #pregnancy. Like a lot of folks, we got married a little later in our lives. …We wanted to grow our family together & were fortunate enough to be able to pursue the only option for us: in vitro fertilization, or #IVF. Gabby never made it to that appointment.
"It cannot be said often enough: Republicans will not be satisfied until they have outlawed contraception and IVF. A month ago, Idaho Republicans issued a letter saying that IVF was safe in that state. Today, the Idaho Republican Party adopted a platform that included a 'fetal personhood' plank, which states as follows:
"We affirm that human personhood begins at the moment of conception and ought to be protected and cherished from that moment on. We oppose all actions which intentionally end an innocent human life, including abortion, the destruction of human embryos, euthanasia, and assisted suicide."
"The Idaho Republican Party expanded its anti-reproductive health efforts last week during a party convention, affirming its support for the fetal personhood ideology and proclaiming that they oppose 'the destruction of human embryos,' a reference to the common practice in in vitro fertilization treatments of creating more embryos than are needed, and discarding those that are not viable or are not used."
"This isn’t just an SBC resolution serving as guidance for faithful SBC members, who have now been told to not avail themselves of IVF. It is a call for Southern Baptists to try to impose their radical theology on the rest of us.
The SBC is the largest Evangelical group in the US."
'It’s working: While many Republicans claim to support IVF, just days after the SBC vote, the party blocked a bill in Congress that would have protected the procedure nationwide."
"Republicans are trying to make the [abortion] issue more complicated, to convince voters there are layers of nuance that must be appreciated and therefore the GOP’s intentions are not quite as menacing as they appear."
"This is not a hard issue to communicate; we’re not talking about complex trade negotiations or an intricate health reform plan. All you have to say is Trump and the Republicans are trying to ban abortion. They want 12-year old rape victims to be forced to carry their rapists’ babies. They want to keep medical care from women suffering life-threatening pregnancy complications. Not only that, after they’re done they’re going to try to ban IVF and birth control."
As Senate Democrats prepare to vote on a bill that would create
👍federal protections for in vitro fertilization and other fertility treatments, 👍
Republicans are introducing a bill to promote the rhythm method that anti-abortion groups say is a “moral” and “ethical” alternative to IVF.
While Republicans claim they do not oppose #IVF, they are expected to vote against protections for the procedure for a second time later Thursday.
Some state measures to curb abortion could complicate and limit IVF access.
And many religious and anti-abortion groups oppose the procedure ; just Wednesday, the Southern Baptist Convention voted to disapprove of IVF.
The Reproductive Empowerment and Support through Optimal Restoration Act, or RESTORE Act, from Lankford and Hyde-Smith states in the text that IVF and other assisted reproductive technologies “are not under threat at the federal level or in any state or territory of the United States.”
But the bill’s framing suggests that IVF is used too often. It aims to promote “restorative reproductive medicine,” a type of natural family planning that seeks to have women conceive naturally
It's hard to get more conservative, in the traditional sense, than David French is. He's rooted in white evangelical Southern culture, and even though he has come out as an outspoken critic of the Trumpist turn in the Republican party, he remains rooted in that culture.
But as he reports here, his welcome in that culture is now proving very conditional.
And now this: remember how, with a hard-right evangelical at its helm, the Alabama Supreme Court declared frozen embryos in test tubes created through IVF are babies?
Brad Brooks says,
"The Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S., on Wednesday voted to condemn the use of in vitro fertilization, signaling the campaign by evangelicals against abortion is widening to include the popular fertility treatment."
As Robert Hubbell notes, Republicans are now lining up to attack a bill supporting IVF that Senate majority leader Schumer is bringing. He states,
"Senate Republicans did not want to approve the bill because they fully intend to outlaw IVF procedures that frequently create a surplus of fertilized eggs. Indeed, on Wednesday, one of the nation’s largest Protestant denominations (Southern Baptist) voted to require members to avoid IVF."
"The Senate is expected to take up a procedural vote on Democrats’ Right to IVF Act, a bill that would protect and expand nationwide access to fertility treatment, including in vitro fertilization, on Thursday. Democrats will need 60 votes to overcome the filibuster and proceed to a vote. But just like they did in last week’s contraception vote, Senate Republicans are expected to block the consideration of the bill."
"The issue is a fraught one for Republicans, who are caught between appearing to support IVF — as most Americans do — and opposition to the procedure from their Christian conservative base. As if to underscore the dynamic, the Southern Baptist Convention, a powerful evangelical organization, voted to condemn IVF on Wednesday.
"'This isn’t about religion, it’s about control,' Colin Seeberger, senior advisor at The Center for American Progress Action, told TPM…."
Constitutional amendments require ⅔ approval to pass, and the motion saying the #SBC cooperates only w/ “churches that do not affirm, appoint, or employ a woman as a pastor of any kind” garnered 61% of votes, to 38% who rejected it.
The voice vote on “On the Ethical Realities of Reproductive Technologies & the Dignity of the Human Embryo” was one of a raft of
resolutions, which are understood as statements of #SouthernBaptist belief; they are not rules that come w/enforcement mandates.
Ziegler said many leaders in the #SBC & in the broader #antiabortion movement have long opposed #IVF, seeing it as a process that separates conception from the act of #heterosexual sex & is disrespectful of human life. Church leaders have downplayed that view in public, however, since IVF is popular in the #UnitedStates. 70% of Americans in April told Pew Research they think IVF is a “good thing,” including 63% of White #evangelicals, who line up ideologically in general w/ #SouthernBaptists.
“The move may signal the beginning of a broad turn on the right against #IVF, an issue that many social conservatives see as the “pro-life” movement’s next frontier