Protect IVF

The Alabama Supreme Court effectively banned in vitro fertilization (IVF) in the state, by asserting rights and protections to fertilized eggs. This is the latest in the ongoing assault to control people's bodies—the kind of dystopian vision that naturally extended from the conservative Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe and decimate abortion rights in our country.

The Alabama chief justice's concurring opinion—explicitly invoking God—makes clear that this isn't about protecting our freedoms or our health but about imposing an extreme Christian nationalist vision on our country. As many abortion care advocates warned after the Dobbs decision, the attacks wouldn't end there.

Now, people undergoing IVF in Alabama don't know if they can continue. The University of Alabama has stopped IVF treatment. And the ripple effects will be felt around the country as other states will race to push "personhood" laws that give more rights and protections to eggs than to the people forced to carry pregnancies.

Senators Tammy Duckworth and Patti Murray already have a solution to this issue: the Right to Build Families Act, which would protect your freedom to use reproductive technologies and the rights of providers to assist you. It's time for Congress to act and ensure that people have the right to form families how and when they wish.

Congress should go further and declare that, no, eggs are not children, and no state "personhood" laws should impose new bans on our bodies. And ultimately, Congress must codify the right to abortion care into law and invest in policies that expand access to all forms of reproductive health care to all who need it.

Photograph: Google Maps