Alabama Republicans Scramble in an Effort to Pass an I.V.F. Shield Law
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The urgency underscores the bind for the party, which has long maintained that life begins at conception but must now reconcile that stance with broad support for I.V.F.
Alabama lawmakers on Wednesday were racing to protect the routine practice of in vitro fertilization, moving to assuage families and fertility clinics alarmed by a recent State Supreme Court ruling that found that frozen embryos should be considered children.
The lawmakers’ urgency underscores the bind for Republicans, who have long maintained that life begins at conception — a tenet of their opposition to abortion — but must now reconcile that stance with the realities of how I.V.F. is practiced and the broad public support for it.
Republican leaders across the nation have been quick to express their support for I.V.F., with the party already struggling to counter the backlash over stringent anti-abortion laws it has backed in a critical election year.
Former President Donald J. Trump, the front-runner for the Republican nomination for president, called on the Alabama Legislature to protect I.V.F. treatment, while in Florida, lawmakers sidelined a bill this week that would allow civil lawsuits over the wrongful death of a fetus.
In Alabama, top Republicans are now coalescing around a proposal that would provide immunity to I.V.F. clinics, barring any intentional destruction of embryos outside the usual medical process.
Faced with an onslaught of anger from families pursuing the emotionally, financially and physically taxing in vitro process, lawmakers have set a fast timetable to pass the measure: It will be debated in two separate committee hearings on Wednesday, with the aim of having it signed into law within days.
