‘Another hot potato’: Alabama’s IVF ruling risks political, legal backlash

The Alabama Supreme Court ruling granting legal personhood to frozen embryos could set up a political and legal backlash against conservatives heading into the November election.

The decision not only threatens GOP efforts to court suburban women and other constituencies uneasy about abortion bans, but also complicates the party’s standing with millions of people who may oppose abortion but support — and in many cases use — in-vitro fertilization and other forms of fertility care. The ruling also demonstrates how the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade has made previously theoretical policy and legal battles over the most intimate aspects of American life far more immediate and high-stakes.

GOP strategists warn that pursuing curbs on those treatments risks exacerbating the backlash that has cost Republicans several races since the fall of Roe. One in six Americans who struggle with infertility — millions of people each year — turn to IVF, according to the National Infertility Association.

“It certainly intersects, badly, with general election politics for Republicans,” said Stan Barnes, a political consultant and former Republican state senator in Arizona. “When a state, any state, takes an aggressive action on this particular topic, people are once again made aware of it and many think: ‘Maybe I can’t support a Republican in the general election.’”