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      ‘That’s a hard one’: Alabama senator flounders over state’s IVF embryo ruling

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      Republican US senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama seemingly struggled to grasp the contradictory situation women have been placed in after his state’s supreme court ruled that frozen embryos are children.Asked at a conservative conference on Thursday what he would say to women currently denied the fertility treatment, the former college football coach replied: “Yeah, I was all for it. We need to have more kids, we need to have an opportunity to do that, and I thought this was the right thing to do.”But then when he was pressed on whether the ruling would negatively affect people who are trying to have conceive, Tuberville said: “Well, that’s, that’s for another conversation. I think the big thing is right now, you protect – you go back to the situation and try to work it out to where it’s best for everybody. I mean, that’s what – that’s what the whole abortion issue is about.”As a result of the ruling in question in Alabama, at least three IVF providers in the state have suspended services.“That’s a hard one,” Tuberville said when asked about IVF availability in Alabama. “It really is.”Tuberville said: “I’d have to look at what they’re agreeing to and not agreeing to. I haven’t seen that.”But he said that it was “unfortunate” if the women would not be denied the procedure.Tuberville’s spokesperson Hannah Eddins later sought to clarify the senator’s remarks, saying he had been “emphasizing his support for life at all stages”.“In addition to being pro-life and believing life begins at conception, Senator Tuberville is also pro-family,” Eddins said. “He believes strong families are instrumental to our country’s success.”Eddins added that Tuberville was “in no way” supporting the decision by clinics to halt IVF procedures.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe Alabama court’s decision, released earlier this week, came in response to a lawsuit by a group of IVF patients whose frozen embryos were destroyed in December 2020 when a patient removed the embryos from a cryogenic storage unit and dropped them on the ground.With the ruling, Republican anti-abortion politicians are now in a bind between opposing abortion and supporting treatments that promote conception.Tuberville’s spokesperson said that the senator supported the US supreme court’s ruling that overturned the federal abortion right previously established by Roe v Wade. The court’s decision returned the issue of abortion rights back to individual states, many of which have outlawed the procedure in most cases.Tuberville’s remarks on Thursday came after his decision in December to end a months-long blockade of US military promotions over his opposition to a Pentagon policy that facilitates abortions for service members and dependents. More

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      Nikki Haley says she believes embryos created through IVF are ‘babies’

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      The Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley has spoken in response to the recent supreme court ruling out of Alabama, revealing that she believes embryos created through IVF are “babies”.In a new interview with NBC, the former UN ambassador expressed support for the Friday ruling by Alabama’s supreme court which deemed that frozen embryos are “children”.“I had artificial insemination. That is how I had my son … One thing is to … save sperm or to save eggs but when you talk about an embryo, you are talking about, to me, that is a life. And so I do see where that is coming from when they talk about that,” Haley said.Haley’s comments come after Alabama’s supreme court allowed two wrongful death lawsuits against a Mobile fertility clinic to proceed. The lawsuits stem from an incident in 2021 when a patient removed several embryos from the clinic’s cryogenic nursery.According to the lawsuit, “the subzero temperatures at which the embryos had been stored freeze-burned the patient’s hand, causing the patient to drop the embryos on the floor, killing them”.A statement released by Alabama supreme court justice Jay Mitchell said: “The central question presented in these consolidated appeals, which involve the death of embryos kept in a cryogenic nursery, is whether the act contains an unwritten exception to that rule for extrauterine children – that is, unborn children who are located outside of a biological uterus at the time they are killed.”Mitchell added: “Under existing black-letter law, the answer to that question is no: the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act applies to all unborn children, regardless of their location.”Asked whether she has any concerns on how the court’s ruling could hurt people seeking IVF treatment, Haley said: “I think that we have to have those conversations … Let’s never underestimate the relationship between a doctor and a patient.“This is one where we need to be incredibly respectful and sensitive about it,” she said, adding: “I know that when my doctor came in, we knew what was possible and what wasn’t … Every woman needs to know, with her partner, what she is looking at. And then when you look at that, then you make the decision that’s best for your family.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHaley, who is currently trailing behind Donald Trump in the 2024 Republican presidential contest, has previously downplayed the federal abortion ban. Instead, the former South Carolina governor has said that it was up to each state to determine their limits on abortion.During her time as governor, Haley signed a bill into law which bans abortion at 20 weeks and does not provide exceptions for rape or incest. More