The Alabama ruling is not an outlier. It is what we all expected when we heard about the Dobbs decision. And it’s why we continue to raise alarms now. Because this is a continued, intentional effort to restrict Americans’ freedoms. And it has nothing to do with “life.”
By Gina Desiderio
March 5, 2024
Last week, the Alabama Supreme Court passed a ruling asserting that embryos are children…and justified the decision using religious-based, extremist ideology.
For the rest of us using science to understand biology, we know embryos are not children.
Added to the scientific facts, from a much more personal point of view, for myself, as someone who’s gone through many rounds of fertility treatment, I know this truth, emotionally. No, no matter how much you may want a pregnancy, to build your family, sadly, embryos are not children. Nor do embryos transferred into a uterus constitute a pregnancy. Declaring it so because you want to inflict your religion on others simply can’t make it so.
For me, the right to bodily autonomy has never been up for debate.
I never, not once, waivered in my support for these fundamental human rights. Not when I got my diagnosis and learned it might be hard for me to become pregnant. Not when I was experiencing the stress, anxiety, and sadness of repeated, failed cycles. Not when I was fortunate enough to complete an IVF cycle to become pregnant, to make it through pregnancy to have a live birth, not once, but twice.
No, if anything, infertility only reinforced the science for me. Embryos are not people.
After my egg retrieval and the fertilization in the lab, my husband and I would wait for the call each day, to hear how the cells were dividing, hoping they would keep dividing, and we’d get a viable embryo to transfer into my uterus. We keep the photos of those embryos that were transferred, resulting in two separate pregnancies and ultimately, became fetuses…and then, with live births, children.
PHOTO CREDIT: Gina Desiderio
And still, nope, embryos are not people.
Infertility did, perhaps, though, give me increased empathy and understanding on the catastrophic fallout of this ruling for anyone seeking fertility services to build their family.
For me, there is no dissonance between our desire to build our family, the fertility treatments I was fortunate enough to be able to access, or those embryos, and my unequivocal belief in bodily autonomy and the right to choose what is right for your own body. In fact, this experience may have even strengthened my understanding of how important the right to bodily autonomy is.
It’s heartbreaking that the Alabama ruling has stopped people from being able to access treatment necessary to build their families. Extremists have successfully enforced their religious ideologies and limited the freedoms of the people in Alabama. The freedom to determine medical interventions that are appropriate for them. The freedom to build their family. The freedom to choose.
Today, it’s Alabama, tomorrow, it’s the other states that have been rapidly outlawing access to abortion. Fetal personhood laws are currently enacted, enacted but blocked, or introduced in 14 states and counting.
Today, it’s Alabama, tomorrow, it’s the other states that have been rapidly outlawing access to abortion. Fetal personhood laws are currently enacted, enacted but blocked, or introduced in 14 states and counting.
Roe v. Wade fell. They’re working on fertility treatment. Contraception will be next, if the radical contingent keeps succeeding in forcing their religious, extremist ideology…despite the fact that the majority of Americans support access to abortion, fertility-related procedures and services, and contraception.
The Alabama ruling is not an outlier. It is what we all expected when we heard about the Dobbs decision. And it’s why we continue to raise alarms now. Because this is a continued, intentional effort to restrict Americans’ freedoms. And it has nothing to do with “life.”
So here I am again, feeling the rage, the anger, the fear, the heartbreak. Trying to take comfort that the work we do—my fellow staff members at Healthy Teen Network, and all of you, working with young people to provide them with honest, affirming sexual and reproductive care—that this work matters.
And I know it does. We’ll keep doing the work to overturn extremist legislation and religious-driven rulings, and to find a way to have our right to bodily autonomy protected by law, across the country—to advocate for these basic human rights. And in the meantime, we also keep doing the work to make sure young people have access to the education and care they need, so they can also enjoy the right to be who they are and love who they love, to have the agency, opportunity, and access to make decisions about their bodies, relationships, and futures. And feel good doing it. And yes, that includes decisions about if, when, and how to parent—or not.
