Where “Life Begins at Conception” wants to go
For decades Republicans declared “life begins at conception,” while voters didn’t feel they needed to contemplate the implications. After all, a woman’s right to make choices about her own body was protected nationwide in 1973 under the U.S. Constitution by the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Roe v. Wade. The Republican-engineered extremist U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (June 2022) suddenly made Republican orthodoxy painfully pertinent. Dobbs not only removed a woman’s right choose to terminate a pregnancy, but it opened the door to all the potential legal consequences of “life begins at conception.”
Last week the Alabama State Supreme Court stepped through that open door by declaring that a human embryo has the legal rights as a human being. Thanks to Dobbs we can see the breath-taking legal consequences of “life begins at conception,” everything from effectively banning in vitro fertilization to potentially criminalizing many forms of contraception.
If we were to think this issue is something that Republicans mean to leave each individual state to decide for itself—and that we in Washington State are immune, then we ought to think again. Shortly after the current U.S. Congress was seated in January 2023, Republican Representatives introduced House Bill (H.R.) 431 – the “Life at Conception Act.” One hundred and twenty-four Representatives (all of them Republicans) signed up as co-sponsors (click for a list). Not to be outdone in religious zeal, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-CD5, eastern Washington) was among the first Republicans who signed up as co-sponsors the day the bill was filed. Had this bill become federal law it would have shut down IVF clinics and women’s health services throughout the nation. Notice the timing. The Dobbs decision came down seven months before these congressional Republicans signed on to H.R.431. With there signatures these co-sponsorships were fully intending to impose on the entire nation exactly what the Alabama State Supreme Court just did in Alabama.
The record of every Republican candidate for elected office this fall ought to be scrutinized for opinions previously expressed about “life begins at conception.” After Dobbs blew off the protective cover offered by Roe v. Wade, we cannot risk what they might do in office.
Doug Porter, who writes the Substack Woods and Deeds, does a great job of showing the reader where we’re headed in this country if we elect or re-elect Republicans to office. Much of the Words and Deeds post on this topic is presented below. Click the link to visit the whole post.
Keep to the high ground,
Jerry
Doug Porter:
If you thought overturning Roe v Wade was bad, wait until you see what’s in store for Americans if MAGA takes control
An Alabama Supreme Court ruling that frozen embryos were the same as live babies in wrongful death lawsuits sent shock waves through the nation. Now, in the Heart of Dixie, women can be forced to have babies they don’t want and can’t have babies that they do.
Chief Justice Tom Parker declared that the people of Alabama have adopted the “theologically based view” that “life cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God.”
In Vitro Fertilization has been established as a method for making babies as increasing infertility has prevented people from having families. Right now, it’s a way for people with access to money to increase the probabilities of having children. About 2% of U.S. births are a product of IVF.
During IVF, couples often produce several embryos in hopes that at least one will mature into cooing, chubby babies. Some embryos, however, are not found to be viable, and are never transferred.
Requiring all IVF embryos to be used would mean forcing women to endure multiple pregnancies likely to result in miscarriages.
The largest healthcare system in Alabama and others have announced they’re halting IVF programs out of fear of prosecution.
And if you think this court ruling won’t go beyond state lines, think again. Other lawsuits will cite the Alabama decision as good law that should be adopted in their states. Alabama has often been a proving ground for the conservative legal agenda, breaking new ground with measures that made it more difficult for people to vote or for immigrants to obtain medical care, schooling, and access to services in the state.
The forced birth movement is ready to jump into action.
From Popular Information:
- Liberty Counsel, a nonprofit that works to “advanc[e] religious freedom, the sanctity of human life and the family through strategic litigation,” is attempting to leverage the Alabama ruling to attempt to stop a ballot initiative in Florida that, if passed, would enshrine reproductive rights into the Florida constitution. “Liberty Counsel is using this precedent to argue that Florida’s proposed deceptive and misleading abortion amendment violates Florida’s own laws that routinely recognize that an ‘unborn child’ has the legally protected rights of a person. Unborn life must be protected at every stage,” Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said in a statement…
- …Another anti-abortion group celebrating the Alabama ruling is the Christian law firm Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF). Senior Counsel with the ADF Denise Burke stated the Alabama decision was “a tremendous victory for life.” Burke told Bloomberg Law that “ADF hopes that this ruling encourages voters, lawmakers, and courts to recognize that life is a human right, no matter the circumstances.” The Southern Poverty Law Center writes that ADF was highly influential during the Trump administration. ADF was “consulted” by former Attorney General Jeff Sessions “ahead of issuing controversial guidance… about how to interpret federal religious liberty protections,” according to ABC News.
- The anti-abortion group Americans United for Life also celebrated the Alabama ruling, with Policy Counsel Danielle Pimentel calling it “a step in the right direction toward ensuring that all preborn children are equally protected under the law.” In 2019, the group said that Trump “may be the most pro-life president in American history.” In 2017, Trump appointed Charmaine Yoest, the former president of Americans United for Life, to be assistant secretary of public affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services.
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The war on birth control has already begun. Republican organizations, judges, and legislatures are showing interest in restricting access to birth control. Missouri and Louisiana both introduced legislation that would outlaw birth control, like IUDs. An Iowa-based anti-abortion group that is advocating against the over-the-counter contraception bill states on its website that “contraception kills babies.”
Over at the Heritage Foundation they’re saying the quiet part out loud:
Mark Sumner at Daily Kos:
- The goal of the Heritage Foundation, the Republican politicians it empowers, and the judges it selects is to end the option of sex for any purpose other than reproduction. They’re not hiding this. They are proud of it. And if that means women surrender every ounce of agency in their lives … well, that’s the goal, after all.
- The Supreme Court is about to rule on a drug that has been helping women since 2000.
- Republicans are taking away an option used by would-be parents since 1981.
- They’ve taken away rights that existed since 1973.
- Now they want to roll things back to before 1960.
- Even that’s not the true end. Because the end is somewhere back in the Bronze Age and in fantasies of what it means for women to “submit” to the control of men.
GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson is also out in the open:
The man behind the demonization of inclusive history being taught is all in:
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Jessica Valenti has the latest on a GOP scheme to try and distract voters away from the horror show that women’s reproductive healthcare is becoming.
- The anti-abortion movement has known for years what the fallout would be after overturning Roe. They knew it would kill women, they knew it would drive up maternal and infant death rates, and they knew it would mean dangerous pregnancies would going untreated. They have polled and messaged every possible nightmare scenario—these bills are a product of all that work.
- That’s why we can expect to see more ‘Med Ed’ bills in the coming months; and they won’t just be directives to doctors. I suspect anti-choice groups will start pushing for more ‘informed consent’ policiesunder this umbrella, as well. These are the laws that claim to give women with nonviable pregnancies medical information, when in fact they’re just lying and pressuring them to carry doomed pregnancies to term.
- I’ll be keeping a close eye out for more bills like this one, but remember that all of these policies are connected—whether it’s informed consent, ‘Med Ed’, or bad data about mifepristone. Conservatives are well aware that when it comes to abortion, the science and medicine is not on their side. So they’re making up their own.
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Other signposts along the road to repression:
- The Conservative Political Action Conference is in progress and various leaders are trying one up each other before audiences seeking blood. On Thursday, Trump spokesman Michael Knowles told attendees that when the MAGA administration takes power, eliminating marriage inequality will be a priority.
- Notorious Congresscritter Marjory Taylor Green is apparently distressedby all the tight dresses worn at Mar-a-Lago soirees
- In a social media post Thursday, Greene criticized conservative Christian women she believes are “selling themselves short and not being good role models by conforming to the world’s sexualization of women,” noting that her statement may be an unpopular opinion.
- “If you are conservative and a Christian you know you don’t have to express yourself in sexual ways and you know you are attractive by dressing nice and feminine, and you can be beautiful and modest at the same time,” Greene wrote to X, formerly Twitter.