Anti-abortion advocates worked for five decades to topple Roe v. Wade.

They’re now laying the groundwork for a yearslong fight to curb #in #vitro #fertilization.

Since the Alabama Supreme Court ruled last month that frozen embryos are children, the #Heritage #Foundation and other conservative groups have been strategizing how to
convince not just #GOP officials but #evangelicals broadly that they should have serious moral concerns about fertility treatments like #IVF and that #access to them should be #curtailed.

In short, they want to re-run the Roe playbook.

They plan to appeal to evangelical denominations and their leaders to take a firm stance that IVF as practiced in the U.S. destroys human life.

That, they hope, will reshape how conservative Christians
— and in turn, the officials they elect
— view the issue, just as it did on abortion.

Ultimately, it could lead to laws that create a patchwork of IVF access in the United States, where the procedure is more accessible in liberal states and more limited in conservative ones.

“We’re at a junction where we could see a similar generational shift
— where people begin to consider reproductive technologies not as a separate but as a part of their cohesive pro-life framework,” said #Emma #Waters, a senior research associate at the #Heritage #Foundation.

“Many of these pro-life Republicans are going to have to think more deeply about what it means to be pro-life.”

️IVF is broadly popular, according to public polling, in a way abortion never was. ️

But a plan is already in motion to chip away at that support.

Organizations including Heritage, former Vice President #Mike #Pence’s group Advancing American Freedom, and the #Southern #Baptist #Convention’s public advocacy-focused #Ethics and #Religious #Liberty #Commission have worked behind the scenes over the last few weeks to distribute talking points,
circulate policy recommendations and
educate Republican officials and their staff about their #ethical #concerns with how IVF is commonly practiced in the United States.

The groups are not advocating banning IVF but want new restrictions that would significantly curtail access to the procedure,
such as imposing more regulations on fertility clinics,
limiting the number of embryos that can be created or transferred to the uterus at one time,
and banning pre-implantation genetic testing,
which they argue allows parents to discriminate against their embryos on the basis of sex, disabilities like Down Syndrome or other factors.

At the same time, they have been having conversations within their conservative Christian circles that have revealed how much work they need to do to convince evangelicals that there are ethical problems with the procedure.

Most evangelical denominations have not taken firm stances on restricting fertility services like IVF.

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/04/01/anti-abortion-movement-ivf-war-00149766